22 Oct 25 - Birch Shieldbug

I saw this Birch Shieldbug by the DWT villa. Birch Shieldbugs are a medium-sized Shieldbug with dark red-brown and black over most of the wing cases. It is a common and widespread species that occurs in parks, gardens, mature hedgerows and woodland.

Birch Shieldbug: Adult

22 Oct 25 - Brownsea Fly Agaric

It's that time of year when the Fungi stalks appear in the leaf litter or grass. During the rest of the year, the Fungi grows underground as it breaks up dead vegetation. I know very little about Fungi and haven't managed to identify more than a handful of species. One of the species I do know is Fly Agaric. This is a common and easily-identifiable species on woodland floors.

Fly Agaric: This Fly Agaric was just appearing above ground. I've no idea about the identity of the neighbouring orange-brown species. Brownsea (30 Oct 24)

One of the DWT wardens, Nicki, said that it had been a good Autumn for Fungi on Brownsea and many stalks were larger than normal.

Fly Agaric: This large Fly Agaric was about five inches across

A side view of the same Fly Agaric

2 Oct 25 - Watching My Apples?

Late afternoon I nipped into my garden and soon after a Ring-necked Parakeet was flying around and it landed in my neighbour's conifer. Five minutes later, it was in another garden's tree and goading me to take some pictures. Finally, I gave in and grabbed the camera.

Ring-necked Parakeet

This is one of the last of the Studland Parakeets which were released by the ex-publican of the Bankes Arms, who released about a dozen or so individuals when he left the area in the early 1990s. Most of the small, stable population were shot on instruction of the Studland golf course a couple of years ago.

Ring-necked Parakeet: Is it eyeing up the apples in my garden?

Will this be the next species to die out in the Isle of Purbeck?

23 Sep 25 - Standing To Attention

As I walked back from Pier Bottom Valley, after finding a Little Stint at St Aldhelms (see the last Blog Post), I noticed this Wheatear sitting on a fence post. It looked remarkably upright. It flew a couple of posts, but again it was remarkably upright. I took this photo on the second fence post.

Wheatear

At the time I was wondering if it was a Greenland Wheatear, given it had such an upright posture. This subspecies is generally larger and bulkier. However, without measurements, it's not going to be possible to figure this out. Greenland Wheatears are described as having a more orangey wash to the underparts. So, perhaps it was just a regular Wheatear, which was looking more upright due to how it was sitting on the edge of the posts.

23 Sep 25 - Migrants Can Always Astound You

I'm sure many patch Birders will think that they have a reasonable idea of what they are likely to see on their patch at a particular time of year and weather conditions. The visit to St Aldhelms this morning started off fairly normally. Light North Easterlies and dry, sunny conditions which are likely to produce some migrants. Had I been out from half-light, then I would have seen more Chiffchaffs piling off the Head than I saw when I arrived about eight: c'est la vie. A couple of Wheatears in the field weren't a surprise given the conditions. There were some Swallows and a few Martins moving East as expected. Linnets were everywhere and I put a conservative total of seven hundred and fifty plus down in the notebook. I bumped into a couple of visiting Birders who were staying in the coastguard cottages. I mentioned to keep an eye out for Merlins as they should be in by now. Three minutes after they drove off, my first Merlin of the Autumn appeared to terrorise the Linnets. I wasn't doing a bad job of predicting what I was likely to see this morning.

Rather than carry on out to the Coastguards and Quarry Ledge, I decided to wander down Pier Bottom Valley. Now I was close to the coast and the Hirundines were, as expected, piling through at around fifty a minute. At the bottom, I decided to have a look at the two small pools of water that were formed behind mud slips. I was keen to see if I could find a way down to them to see what Dragonflies were around the pools. Fresh water is scarce at St Aldhelms and so this is the best location for breeding Dragonflies. I had wanted to check these pools out earlier in the Summer, but there was a female Mallard with her young family on every visit. I decided to leave the pools for the Autumn, as it's the only place the Mallard pair have to breed on the St Aldhelms.

The lower pool: It's narrow and not much more than fifteen metres long with a three to four metre patch of mud at the near end. Getting down to it is very tricky given it's all soft mud that has slipped on multiple occasions

I headed to overlook the lower pool first. I was about eighty metres from the pool and I could see a small brown-backed Bird, with very clean white underparts. It's rare that I can't get a likely name to something I see, but on this occasion, I was struggling. Snow Bunting popped into my head, but that wasn't right. But there again I couldn't come up with anything else better after the first view. I wished I had brought the scope, but then I wouldn't have considered trying to get down to the pools with the scope and tripod.

There was a distant compact brown and white Bird on the lower pool: I couldn't figure it out at first. But there again with only a handful of regular Waders expected at St Aldhelms, a small Wader wasn't the obvious consideration: especially as I couldn't see the bill. Typically, only Oystercatcher, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Common Sandpiper and Snipe can be expected in the year, aside from any seawatching flybys. I suspect Woodcock winter in small numbers, but I'm yet to confirm where they roost during the day

I got a few metres closer and lifted the camera. Zooming the photos through the camera, solved the problem: it looked like a Little Stint. That brought a new thought: what the hell is a Little Stint doing on a three metre patch on mud on a small pool at St Aldhelms. I checked a few more of the first photos and found one where I could see the bill, as well as, the tramlines. No wonder I was initially struggling to put a name to it. I only expect to see two or three species of Waders along the shoreline or in the fields in a typical year. The rest are seen flying over the site or on Spring seawatches. I was pretty sure it was on the patch list. When I checked later, the only record was a single seawatch individual flying East in May 1993. Steve Morrison later confirmed that it was a presumed Little Stint, as he hadn't been able to categorically rule out a Temminck's Stint. However, given the scarcity of Temminck's Stints in Dorset, it was almost certainly a Little Stint.

Little Stint: With only one previous record and rarely seeing more than a handful of Wader species on the ground in a year, it wasn't unreasonable to overlook a small Wader as a possibility

Little Stint: Another photo from the lower pool

I grabbed some more ropy photos due to the range and then found I had a phone signal. I put the news out to Phil Saunders and a few other locals. Sadly, work stopping Phil dashing down and none of the other South Purbeck Birders were able to get down. I looked again and it had disappeared. It had already walked out of view once, before returning. But five minutes later it hadn't reappeared. I was getting cold in the shade of the head and decided to move back up the hill and check the upper pool from another viewpoint, in case it had moved. This is a larger pool with more muddy edges. I could now see both pools and it wasn't on view on either pool.

The upper pool: Obviously, I didn't try to get closer once I saw it was occupied, so I still haven't got down to check the Darters there. After Portland had breeding Red-veined Darters, I did wonder if there could be any on the Pier Bottom pools. I could see a Migrant Hawker patrolling the upper pool and later some Darters. Presumably, they were the regular Common Darters. I will try to check the pools if I can before we get more rain: when it's best to avoid the pools, because of the risks of a landslip

After fifteen minutes, it flew up from the lower pool, circled a few times and landed at the back of the upper pool. I wasn't any closer, but at least I had a reasonable and warmer viewpoint. By this time, I had heard Phil Bentley was at St Aldhelms and he was on his way to join me. I gave him some directions and tried to get some better photos. Unfortunately, it did another disappearing trick while I wasn't watching and it never reappeared. Perhaps it just wandered behind a tussock or into the reed edge and fell asleep. I spent the best part of an hour watching the pools with Phil. Then I had a final look from the top of Emmets Hill on the way back to the car. This provided a different angle onto the pools, but there were still some parts of the pools, I couldn't see.

The Little Stint dropped onto the larger expanse of mud at the back of the larger pool

Little Stint: It was quite obviously a Juv Little Stint with those tramlines and the pectoral patches. In some of the initial photos, the lower legs looked pale, due to drying mud on them

Checking later with Steve Morrison, this is the first record of a confirmed Little Stint for the St Aldhelms/Winspit patch, albeit his May 1993 record of a Stint sp. was most likely the first record. This was certainly not what I had predicted for the day. Isn't patch Birding brilliant on days like this.

20 Aug 25 - A Nice Brownsea Pyralid

The DWT team ran their Moth trap overnight before my normal volunteering on the Brownsea reserve. Taise, one of the DWT team, was showing the Moths off to the public. This Pyralid Moth caught my eye as I didn't recognise it. Talking to one of the wardens, Nicki, later in the day provided the name: Migrant Sable (Diasemiopsis ramburialis). It is a scarce migrant species which has been encountered mainly on the South Coast between Jun and Oct. The Dorset Moths website mentions twenty-one records up to 2006, with a photo of one in 2022. There will be more Dorset records that haven't made it onto the website. But it still looks like a nice migrant record and a Moth Tick for me.

Migrant Sable

9 Aug 25 - A Garden Shieldbug Tick

While doing some decorating work on the house, I spotted a Shieldbug in the conservatory. I couldn't get a name to it and suspected it was a species I hadn't seen. Subsequent checking of the excellent Shieldbugs and Squashbugs of the British Isles by Evans and Edmondson suggests this is the Tortoise Bug Eurygaster testudinaria. It wouldn't be that surprising to see a new Shieldbug, as this was only the eleventh species that I've seen out of thirty-five species covered by the field guide. I've never gone out to specifically look for Shieldbugs, but I have tried to identify those that I've seen.

Tortoise Bug

There are two similar species of Tortoise Bugs. This species and much rarer Scarce Tortoise Bug Eurygaster maura. Identification looks tricky between the two species. One of the features is the outer edges of the head is parallel with the edges of the pronotum on Scarce Tortoise Bug. Additionally, the length of the second segment of the antenna is about twice as long as the third segment on Scarce Tortoise Bug, whereas it is only slightly longer on Tortoise Bug. On this basis and after looking at photos online, I think this is the commoner Tortoise Bug. However, the books suggest that dissection might be the only way to be certain. I prefer to release Insects rather than to kill them to be one hundred percent certain with their identification. Thanks to Phil Saunders for confirmation on the ID.