Cold fliers

Not much time to bird between business trips but we did have a Dusky warbler on the back lawn on Friday afternoon and this morning a distant Osprey in poor light. This bird seems to be a regular passer-by. The White-bellied sea eagle also flew past but not close enough to get a decent image. Bearing in mind how far away the Osprey was and how small in the frame I am amazed it is even vaguely useable! And if you don't know which is the warbler and which is the Osprey, you are reading the wrong blog.

Despite the cold weather there were also a couple of moths on the wing. Lacera procellosa is a rather cryptically coloured moth that rests with wings held upright, butterfly style. Ophiusa disjungens is a large moth that reminds me vaguely of Large Yellow Underwing, an abundant moth in England, where I used to trap (in VC 20, Herts). The only other moth last night was a micro, Diamond-back moth or Plutella xylostella, which Dr. Roger Kendrick describes as "widespread and common". He might have added "jumpy" as I could not get it to settle long enough to photograph! If you can't tell which of the above images are birds and which moths, then you are even more off target than I imagined.

As a complete aside, I ordered a Kindle yesterday. Two people in 3 days have raved about them and I have seen them in action. I may report back in due course. I shall be intrigued to see how many natural history books are available.