Moths, Eiders and Arctic Terns

Eiders and chicks

Beautiful Golden Y

Could this be Campion?

Bright-line Brown-eye

Plain Rustic I think

Common Wave

Plenty of moths about at the moment. Prowling around the garden either side of midnight on Friday and there were plenty of crepuscular goings on (it's still quite light here at that time). Mostly Garden Carpet but also Brimstone, Common Wave and Sandy Carpet, (just hanging on) I think Silver-ground Carpet as well, still puzzling over that one. Set the trap and got quite a haul including Beautiful Golden Y (3), various micros and three Noctuidae that took a bit of sorting. One seems to be Campion rather than Lychnis, one in the end turned out to be Bright-line Brown-eye and the other was (I think) a Common Rustic.

Today there were three Red Admirals in the garden, a Small Tortoiseshell on the track, plenty of Large and Green-veined White everywhere.

On the bird front it's still all breeding news. There were at least ten Eider broods around Bay of Skaill, Birsay; a pair of Red-throated Divers there have no doubt failed. Out at Birsay itself a large Oystercatcher chick was found just in front of the cafe and on the geo there were a pile of tern chicks. The adult Arctic Terns were bringing in plenty of small fish and some sand eels, I counted 41 chicks but there were certainly more around the blind side.

Back at home an Arctic Tern flew over the house and the Linnets have a fledged brood. The Sedge Warbler is singing slightly closer to the garden but still hasn't made the "from the garden" list. It's singing from a clump of docks but they are partially obscured from the garden, time to take the scope upstairs perhaps.