13th July. Blackwit

Forcing myself to make a minimum of two visits to Orgreave a day at the moment, early morning and hopefully late afternoon before the shit machine walkers descend. Crossing the railway bridge this morning I could see a decent gathering of Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the far shore, the first sign of birds moving back north. Closure views of the flock immediately revealed an adult Yellow-legged Gull amongst them - not really surprising they'll probably be daily for the next few weeks.
Scanning the small lake revealed a cracking summer plumage islandica Black-tailed Godwit a welcome patch tick.
A return visit after work in promising conditions i.e. rain and an easterly breeze, produced just five Dunlin, five Ringed Plover and seven Common Sands, though the Godwit had been flushed by a dog walker around 9am.


A spot of Moth trapping over the weekend produced about 35 species, though photographing them in the oppressive heat was somewhat testing.

Magpie

Clay

Lg Yellow Underwing

Reservoir Cats

I'm a bit late plugging this, but this has to be the funniest blog currently on the birding scene, it's still a long way behind those old personal favourites The Leicester Llamas and Sir McKinney's Skills and Bills. 'Britain's leading bird spotter' suspects that the latter has a hand in the Cats, though I find Tom's whit bordering on genius and whilst the Cat's is funny it's rather more brutal than Tom ever could be - though I may be wrong!