Thursley NNR: 30 April

Rachel and I spent the afternoon at Thursley Common. Spent half an hour watching the male Common Cuckoo that photographers are feeding with mealworms at the moment in Parish Field. The bird comes down to a few perches set up just a few metres from admiring birders and photographers. The views were ridiculous! I'm not sure how comfortable I am with a Cuckoo being fed, but then I'm not sure why I should be uncomfortable with it either? The bird seemed very comfortable being so close to people and even started calling from one of the perches at one point!

Other birds noted included 1m Common Redstart at Shrike Hill (and others heard), 3 Woodlark (inc. 2 in Parish Field), 1+ Eurasian Hobby, 2 (1m, 1f) Dartford Warbler, 7 (4m, 3f) Stonechat, 1H Eurasian Curlew, 1H Willow Warbler, 3 (2m, 1f) Tufted Duck (bog), 5 Canada Goose (bog) and 1 Mistle Thrush (Parish Field).

Also tried the Emperor Moth pheromone lure again at SU905418 and had 3-4 males come in after a few minutes, although none of them settled.

Found a pair of Dartford Warblers Sylvia undata nesting right beside the path and fluked this pic of the male as we walked past
(Dartford Warbler is a Schedule 1 species so we didn't linger)

Red Mason Bees in the garden

Plenty of Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa action in the garden over the last week or so. A single female is nesting in our homemade bee hotel and it has been fascinating watching her building the cells and bringing in pollen for the larvae. Several males are also kicking about and frequently rest on the bee hotel waiting for females to appear. Witnessed one trying to mate with the female by grabbing her when she emerged from the nest cavity and forcing her to crash to the ground. But females only mate once and he was quickly seen off. So far only three nest cavities have been completed. However, the temperature has dropped by several degrees over the last few days which has no doubt slowed egg-laying.

All photos below taken with a Samsung Note 4 smartphone. It looks like Google have changed the image compression applied to images uploaded to Blogger and therefore photos on Blogger now look utter shite.

Female Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa after exiting her nest cavity, Worcester Park, 16 April 2017. Note the dusting of pollen - like all
solitary bees, Red Mason Bees do not have pollen baskets like Honey Bees do.

Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa, Worcester Park, 16 April 2017. The males have whitish hair on the face (blackish on females) and much
longer antenna.

Female Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa guarding her nest cavity, Worcester Park, 16 April 2017

Red Mason Bee nest cavity - penultimate cell sealed with mud (left), mud seal after last cell completed (right)

Our homemade bee hotel made from a salvaged piece of felled willow - took hours to drill the holes

Some excellent information about Red Mason Bees here.

Thursley NNR: 10 April

Spent a few hours at Thursley Common this afternoon to try out a recently purchased pheromone lure for Emperor Moths Saturnia pavonia. The lure worked incredibly well. I tried two areas at the north end of Thursley Common and at the first site 2 male Emperors showed up within seconds of opening the lure (in fact moths were flying around me before I had even got the lure out of my bag, seemingly attracted to the lure before I had opened it!). Unfortunately it was quite breezy and none of the moths would settle, so no photos today.

Times:
Site A: SU905418
Set up lure: 15:21
First arrival: 15:21 (15:26 confirmed)
Total: 2m

Site B: SU908419
Set up lure: 16:04
First arrival: 16:06
Total: 1m

Site A: SU905418
Set up lure: 16:36
First arrival: 16:44
Total: 1m

Birds noted include: 7+ Barn Swallow, 2-3 Dartford Warbler (including 1m singing), 5 (2m 3f) Common Stonechat, several Linnet, 1 prob Woodlark and 2 Greylag Geese.