What have you seen

Inconsiderate little blighters, always just to far away for a decent pic. Two cranes flew past but again to far away Wood sandpiper but to far for my binoculars to identify, but the guy with a scope near me reeled off a list of birds that I could barely see let alone identify.

heading down to Arne next week, but not sure if the camera will make the trip.

Discovered we have tawny mining bees in our recently laid section of lawn.  First thought was what strange worm casts they were but a quick google has put us right. 

http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/blogs/miranda_hodgson/archive/2011/04/11/holes-in-the-lawn.aspx

First attempt at links hope this works. 

 We have a couple of caterpillars looking for suitable places, one has gone behind the hinge on the generally closed French door on the conservatory 😲.  Looked them up and think they're cabbage whites. Never mind at least we've attracted some butterflies. Yesterday we had a beautiful comma just warming it's wings and a red admiral on the everlasting wallflower, proper name escapes me at the mo. Everything has been singular this year apart from some blues earlier in the year and whites, but never more than 3 at a time.

Your link works fine Natasha2 😃

Walking to Mort Point [North Devon] we  saw a group of approx. 12 of these last week flying next to a wall.  This was the only one which stayed still enough to capture it with the phone.  I guess they were Northern Eggar Moths as that is the only picture I have in my book that looks like them.  If anyone has a different ID I would be interested to know.

It took me a little while to work out what these young Black Headed Gulls were doing. There were about 40 or so looking like they were splashing around having a good wash, but they were in fact stirring up the sediment below water level to disturb some food. Then they took to flying up a few feet then plunging into the water to pick up anything they had disturbed. Not sure what they were taking.

Lovely photos, are they doing a bit of cockle fishing? 

Thanks Brue

I have no idea what they were catching, it looks like a shell with something hanging out. Perhaps it was cockles.

Spent this afternoon watching a Winchat Shrike catching bees. Something of a rarity in these parts and with a quite gory habit of impaling smaller birds on Hawthorn bushes to eat later

That should have read  Woodchat Shrike. This one is a stray juvenile and can be found on Chipping Sodbury Common at present. 

One of the birdwatchers had travelled from north leicestershire to see the bird, so I guess they are few and far between.

 Bluemalaga – Hope it’s OK so I could see clearer. Gull seems to be carrying a snail like shape so maybe a Winkle ?  Great photos.

Thanks

I think the area they were fishing was probably fresh water, but not certain. There are a couple pics all taking the same thing. Once caught, the gull took them on to a small spit of land, but I could not see what they did next.