Wrong place, surely

 A couple of extraordinary finds in the last few days, one not photographed, one on a trail cam.

We had a friend staying and they expressed an interest in seeing a few Red Kites, they'd only previously seen the occasional individual. So on Friday evening we wandered out to the usual spot. It didn't go very well at first, despite a nice breeze, just a few individual birds. We wandered up towards a particular tree where the kites often sit pre-roost, but there was just one bird there. As we wandered back to the main watch-point things changed and cohorts began to come in across the fields. They were coming in in tens or so. And then there were three birds just about above us. I looked with the bins and the front one looked a bit odd, the birds were silhouetted, and bird No2 started to have a go at the front one. Wing shape of the front bird looked wrong; and then it turned and I saw a longish, un-kite-like bill. "**Expletive** it's a Gannet!" And indeed it proved to be a 1cy Gannet which quickly left its kite accompaniment and swung back east, eventually to be lost to sight beyond The Monument. What a Patch tick!

The next thing was perhaps a bit more expected but just as exciting. And I did get a photo, if not a very good one. My cunningly positioned trail cam scored again (and I still haven't actually seen one of these, so not a P-SL tick!)

Red-necked Wallaby

There is a small population locally, believed to have originated from the nearby wildlife park, but these have been living in the wild for some years and are considered to be a self-sustaining population. There have been recent sightings as far distant as Crieff and one was reported, on our site board, a week or so ago. But previous records have been outside of the deer fence, not gambolling down a main(ish) footpath.

Another out of place critter was a Roe Deer inside the community woodland deer fence. Glimpsed a few times as it bounded down the hill from my squirrel monitoring boxes which I had just finished checking. I then saw a doe in the field outside of the fence, same animal or perhaps I had seen her fawn. This is the first deer sighting inside the fence since 2024, but Roe can squeeze themselves through very tiny holes apparently, so perhaps unsurprising. 

More significant than these two records was a very nice wee beetle from one of the vane traps. I'm now working through these captures from the summer, every tube brings something of interest. Having recently identified its close relative Orchesia undulata from another sample (8 accepted Scottish records) I quickly recognised this as likely of the same genus. Orchesia minor has very few Scottish records (just two accepted).

Orchesia undulata

The genus is recognised by its general shape and a very long spur on the hind tibia.

Orchesia minor.

Last weekend I went to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland's Scottish conference.  A high standard of presentation, a bit of help with the dreaded scaly male-ferns, a few useful contacts made and a meet up with old acquaintances. All in all a good day out, if at times somewhat intellectually challenging. (Thanks to AH for transport and company.)

 I purchased the Scottish Brambles book, which has already yielded one identification, even this late in the season. 

And on the subject of books many thanks to DB for getting me onto the Big German Hopper book (+ UK appendix). This has already proved to be very useful. 

Aside from the Gannet, recent birding highlights have been a substantial arrival of Fieldfares, a huge flock of finches (mostly Goldfinches and Siskin), an evening of Pink-feet circling in the dense mist, some Magpie records (uncommon here), Red Kite numbers increasing substantially and a female Gos' hunting at dusk. 

Siskin

Fieldfares