Saturday 15th October - quiet day on St Marys - the birds and the moths all seem to have disappeared. Here's a picture of a Hobby I took yesterday.
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Sunday 16th October - planned to go to St Martins today but with the extremely low tides the boat had gone early - just made it onto the last remaining inter-island boat and discovered we were headed for Tresco - where we had a nice walk and found 6 Snow Buntings.
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Monday 17th October - another quiet day on St Marys
Tuesday 18th October - getting a bit desperate now! Here is a picture of a harvestman that has taken up residence by our front door - Toby at least might appreciate it. Its name is Dicranopalpus ramosus and is unique in having long branched palps; it also has very long legs that extend more or less perpendicular to the body.
Wednesday 18th October - Today we had a nice walk around St Martins.
On return to St Marys we finally caught up with a Woodlark that has been in a field at the end of Watermill Lane intermittently for 3 days (Peacehaven is at the other end of the lane). It has been quite elusive - I think the photo below illustrates the difficulty.
Thursday 20th October
A mostly sunny and at times quite hot day on St Marys. No new birds, but while we were enjoying a coffee break at Juliets, Alison noticed a large insect on the back of a fellow diner. I duly approached with a specimen pot and advised the unsuspecting fellow to remain calm while I collected the Western Conifer Seed Bug. Having performed this service, we discussed the origin of this species - imported to Europe with conifers from USA in 1999, it has expanded rapidly in GB since 2008, partially as a migrant from the now thriving European population. It is attracted to light and I have once trapped it on Foulness and have seen it twice before on Scilly. With a body length of ~20mm it is probably the largest British squash bug.
A mostly sunny and at times quite hot day on St Marys. No new birds, but while we were enjoying a coffee break at Juliets, Alison noticed a large insect on the back of a fellow diner. I duly approached with a specimen pot and advised the unsuspecting fellow to remain calm while I collected the Western Conifer Seed Bug. Having performed this service, we discussed the origin of this species - imported to Europe with conifers from USA in 1999, it has expanded rapidly in GB since 2008, partially as a migrant from the now thriving European population. It is attracted to light and I have once trapped it on Foulness and have seen it twice before on Scilly. With a body length of ~20mm it is probably the largest British squash bug.
Friday 21st October
Having gone through my traps at sunrise and found nothing of note, we spent 2 hours packing up and clearing up. We ventured out on a beautiful final morning for a walk around the north of St Marys. Returned to Peacehaven for a coffee and waited for out taxi into town for lunch at the Atlantic and on to the Scillonian for our voyage back to the real world.
Having gone through my traps at sunrise and found nothing of note, we spent 2 hours packing up and clearing up. We ventured out on a beautiful final morning for a walk around the north of St Marys. Returned to Peacehaven for a coffee and waited for out taxi into town for lunch at the Atlantic and on to the Scillonian for our voyage back to the real world.
Panic! Alarm!! 10 minutes before the taxi arrived Alison noticed something crawling on the wall near where my moth trap had been and yes -- we had our very own Death's-head Hawkmoth as a grand finale. Frantic unpacking of cameras and a few rushed shots.
It looked like nearly all the birders and most other tourists were clearing out - the boat was full. We saw some close Common Dolphins as we rounded Penninis Head but after that sea-watching produced very little apart from sea. Eventually got home at 1am after navigating road closures on both M3 and M25. Already planning next years's trip ---- we'll be back!