Today I was in a bad mood.  Everyone and everything annoyed me.  Apart from Dougal and Strathpig of course.  And the hawk-moth

The hawk-moth made me happy

Of course the chickies were not annoying.  They did keep flying back and forwards necessitating continual adjustment of the webcam, but they are so lovely I can forgive them.  They did have their quiet moments:

Sleepy Chickie

There were other things which were alright about the day:

? Thorn

Nice pair of ghost moths

Yes, they were all  moths. And here is the hawk-moth in action:

Today a combination of Mothing and Peregrine watching means that I have taken 402 pictures, Woohoo! 

The chickies were being most scenic today.  Their new favourite perch is right in front of the viewing area which provides for excellent photographing:

beautiful and obliging chickie

Not dead... sunbathing

Tawny-barred Angle

Adult male and rose

Of course these are only a select few of the 402... but don't worry I will be preparing a slideshow to show to my nearest and dearest which will be MUCH more comprehensive.

The little falcons have fledged the nest this morning.  Although I'm happy for them the little bastards could have done it yesterday while I was around to watch.  Then again I suppose I was lucky to be able to spend a last day appreciating their antics on the ledge. 

Today I was in charge of children.  There were 56 children and me and The Boss split them in half.  The group that is, not the children.  

Children are boring after a while.  Here is a nice moth I found yesterday:

Common wave

Dougal weighed in at 898g today, which is 15g lighter than yesterday.  However he has been stuffing his face all evening so hopefully he will start to get fatter again as of tomorrow. 

Dougal the man is back in town.  Good times.

In other brief news the baby peregrines are no longer babies. Here they are with their handsome father.  They have ingested so many carcasses that they now rival him in size (although not in looks).

The boys

However they will never reach the same dimensions as their considerably sized mother:

Mum and her Boys

In the morning I abandoned my official position to the volunteers and examined the contents of my moth trap.  I found many beautiful beasts inside but this was my favourite:

The Map-winged Swift

House moth

Today I didn't get out much.  I sat and fretted about my Dougal.  Luckily for me a rather sweet little moth came to visit me and relieve my tension:

BEHOLD THE WHITE-SHOULDERED HOUSE-MOTH Endrosis sarcitrella.

Hiding in my window frame

Today I had a nice calm and short day.  The day was begun with moths which is always a good start.  Last time we set the trap we got 424 moths which was impressive.  This time we got 18.  But what beautiful moths they were. The first one was a new one for me: the Nut-Tree Tussock.  This moth is wonderful for two reasons A) It is nice and furry and B) They eat Hazel trees, the tastiest of trees.

Nut-tree tussock

 We also had a couple of Engraileds:

Engrailed

 And a very beautiful Herald:

Herald

After mothing which took only an hour I headed back to the office to do the sorts of important things that people do in offices.  There was no laminating involved unfortuantely but I had fun making new wildflower signs for the boardwalk.  One of my trees was Blackthorn, a tree I like because of the pretty flowers and giant infective thorns.  I also did Elder.  Actually maybe Elder is the tastiest of trees?  The tastiest berry bearing tree for sure.

Blackthorn blossom

 I went past the pond in the wildlife garden and it is filled with tadpoles and frogs.  In the next couple of weeks I will hopefully be going out to check out the ponds for newts.  http://www.newthunt.org/  Newt hunting is a very exciting sport, one of the only sports I am interested in in fact.

Frogs

I will be disappeared for the next few days as I will be going to visit the my beloved Jack2 in England.  I will report back with lovely pictures of Farne Island bird life.

A Happy start to the morning!  I would like to offer my congratulations to Mrs. Pigeon who lives in my bicycle shed.  I noticed the other day that there was a nest like structure on the floor and sure enough this morning there was a shiny white egg in it!

Mrs Pigeon and egg

I will be sure to keep you updated on the progress of the happy family.

Today was another day in Peregrine land.  It was beautiful and sunny and I was forced to strip down to the least amount of clothes I have worn in 6 months.  The sunny weather has been good for the flowers and butterflies and today I got some beautiful pictures walking along the boardwalk.  I have tried my best to identify but I am hoping that my precious mammie might leave some comments...

Forget-me-not

Wood Anemone

Mystery Plant1

Mystery Plant2

Mystery Plant 3

Orange tip butterfly on Cuckooflower

Today was pretty uneventful at the site.  The Peregrines sat on the eggs and I read interesting facts about plants.  Nothing as wonderful as yesterday's fact though.  I stayed till 8 o clock and then headed down the hill.  No badgers tonight: instead I went along the Red Path ready to lay out....

THE MOTH TRAP

Tomorrow is mothing day and very excited I am about it.  Stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting Mothing facts, figures and pictures.