TL:DR – A few natural highlights from a year that’s been rather miserable in too many ways for me, but peppered with music and photography and nature.
You can find the photos I took of these highlights littered around the Sciencebase website, in my Imaging Storm galleries, on my Instagram, Twitter, Mastodon, and Facebook.
Thousands of Pink-footed Geese, North Norfolk
Water Rails – RSPB Lakenheath
Frogs (20+) and frogspawn -in our garden wildlife pond
Cranes – RSPB Ouse Fen
Grasshopper Warbler – RSPB Ouse Fen
Otter on the river bank of the River Great Ouse or is it the Great River Ouse, ouse means river so could be the Great Ouse River too…
White Stork – Earith and Smithy Fen
Chiffchaff – bathing in our garden wildlife pond
Puffins, Shags, Razorbills etc –Farne Islands
Kittiwakes, Eider Ducks – Seahouses
American Black, Arctic and Sandwich Terns – Long Nanny, Northumberland
Hooded Crow – Northumberland
Wall butterfly – Seahouses
Lizard Orchid – Devil’s Dyke
Bee Orchid – WARG Field, Cottenham
Black Hairstreak and White Admiral butterflies – Monk’s Wood and Brampton Wood
Purple Emperor, Purple Hairstreak – Gamlingay Wood and Woodwalton Fen
Grizzled Skipper – Woodwalton Marsh
Chinese Water Deer – RSPB Ouse Fen
Adonis Blue and later Chalkhill Blue butterflies, also Green Hairstreak and Dark Green Fritillaries – Devil’s Dyke, Cambs
Marbled White – Edwards’ Wood, Dry Drayton
Small Blue butterflies – Trumpington Meadows
Brassy Longhorns again – Cottenham Lode
Discovering two previously unreported colonies of White-letter Hairstreak butterflies – Rampton Wood
Discovering a previously unreported colony of Purple Hairstreak butterflies – Rampton Wood
Encountering an irruption of Clouded Yellow butterflies – beyond RSPB Ouse Fen and two other patches of the same species elsewhere
Rosy Footman and Light Crimson Underwing moths – New Forest
New Forest Ponies – New Forest
Huge flock of Common Buzzard in a field on Soham Road
Numerous Convolvulus Hawk-moth – to tobacco plants in our garden
Sighting of Osprey and two White-tailed Eagles – Poole Harbour
Sika Deer, doe and fawn – Wareham
L-album Wainscot moth – Corfe Castle
December Moth at long last – to actinic light in our garden (64th new moth of the year for me.