Redstart plus Butterflies & Dragons

A sunshiny day, 30°, light NW.

A surprise day on Lollingdon hill today, initially a male Common Redstart had turned up but keeping to the top hedge and only seen briefly a few times.

Next, a butterfly landed on some bramble just in front of me and stayed long enough to ID it as a White-letter Hairstreak. What it was doing there? I don’t know but an unusual record for this species with only 3 records in the last 20 years. It flew up into the tree canopy and I did not see it again.

While searching for the WLH, I came across a Silver-washed Fritillary, another scarce butterfly for the area. This one very active and soon disappeared and sadly no photos of either.

A Little Owl also seen and 18 Red Kite seen thermalling out at Lollingdon. Also a few Swift, Swallow and House Martin feeding overhead.

Dragonflies: Beautiful Demoiselle, Banded Demoiselle, Southern Hawker, Brown Hawker & Common Darter.

Butterflies: Large Skipper, Small Skipper, Essex Skipper, Brimstone, Large White, Small White, White-letter Hairstreak, Common Blue, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Comma, Silver-washed Fritillary, Speckled Wood, Marbled White, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Ringlet & Small Heath.

Beautiful Demoiselle

Melodious Warbler

Melodious Warbler

Friday 28th May 2021: Cloudy with some very light rain, 15°, light ENE.

I took one of my usual walks out to Lollingdon Hill, nothing much to shout about apart from 3 Goldcrest.

As I stood in one of my usual spots I heard an unfamiliar song coming from the hedgerow up the track.

The bird was in deep cover but singing regularly. I manage to record the song and messaged it to a couple of local birders.

In the mean time I had only seen the bird very briefly and on those views it suggested an Acrocephalus or Hippolais Warbler.

I then checked the song on my phone app and came up with Melodious Warbler at roughly the same time I got a message back concurring with that ID.

I then phoned a few local birders and requested they attend to confirm ID.

Later the bird started to show a little better and the ID was clinched.

A discussion later was then had about releasing the news generally. However, there is nowhere to park out at Lollingdon, all the adjacent fields have crops and it is a single track, private, badly maintained lane with either ditches or raised banks. Plus there has been building work going on out there and heavy vehicles as well as farm vehicles are up and down the lane.

We also have a good relationship with local landowners and residents and did not want to jeopardise that for obvious reasons.

The bird was not seen or heard after 16:30 that day and not since despite searching.

Subsequently I made the decision not to release the news until now.

The following are a series of photographs taken by four of those present.

Alan Dawson, Ian Lewington, Roger Wyatt, Geoff Wyatt, Tony Williams and Myself.