Spooky Birding

A couple of hours early doors around Frodsham No. 6 tank produced a few goodies, but the most interesting aspect of the walk is pictured above!

The trees and bushes that run for a good couple of hundred metres along the north end of No.6 were absolutely covered in silk and thousands of larvae. It reminded me of the inside of all the haunted houses featured in episodes of Scooby Doo when all the furniture seemed to be cloaked with cobwebs!

I have done a little research on the internet and it looks like the culprit may be the White Ermine Moth (Spilosoma lubricipeda Arctiidea)? It’s fairly common and the larval food plant is right I think (mostly White Poplar)…one hell of an irruption nonetheless.

Also of predominantly white appearance was a cracking Avocet probing the margins of the small pool created last spring by workings to the drier section of number six. They seem annual down here now, albeit in ones and twos. Coming to think of it, I think my first ever Avocet was a pair on the Weaver Bend a few years back.

Not surprisingly there were few butterflies around on such a dreech morning, but I did manage to find my first Painted Lady of the year.

A Cuckoo on number five tank was a nice surprise and it looked to all intents and purposes to be a female scouting for somewhere to deposit an egg – spoilt for choice at the moment!

The last notable bird was a Gropper opposite the airstrip. After peering in the grass looking for the reeling male without success for what seemed like an eternity, another Gropper – perhaps its mate – rather co-operatively plonked itself on top of a fencepost for a few seconds before realising this was madness, and in a blink of an eye it joined the other bird deep in the undergrowth.

Until later.