Water Vole - Rainham Marshes RSPB

Spent the afternoon again at Rainham Marshes, this time with  the kids. They wanted to see a Water Vole, and we were not disappointed. We had five in total with one down to just a few feet.

Peacock

Comma

Peacock caterpillar

Water Vole and Spoonbill Rainham Marshes RSPB

Spent a leisurely 3 hours ambling around Rainham Marshes RSPB this afternoon. Four Water Voles were seen including this one below that showed really well for ten minutes.  

There were loads of Marsh Frogs about

  

One of the two Spoonbills on site was very active chasing something around whilst the other snoozed

Drinker Moth caterpillar

dunno - comments welcome 

Stag Beetle

A female Stag Beetle in the garden last night (rescued from cat). The 3rd seen this summer.

Poplar Hawk Moth

Another great couple of hours sitting in the garden last night around the moth bulb, with my 13 year old Jamie. It was the 3rd evening in a row that the bulb has been on and the 3rd night in a row it attracted a hawk moth (after attracting Elephant Hawk Moth, both the previous evenings). Early on a probably Lime Hawk Moth visited the bulb but didn't stop and disappeared in bushes. Then at around 10.30pm over the fence and straight onto the sheet crashed a large Poplar Hawk Moth. Superb.
 

Two other moths of note were Oak Eggar (above) and Ruby Tiger (below)

Elephant Hawk Moth

A great end to a totally rubbish week. Last Saturday I had an accident, where I tripped at a friend's house and managed to knock myself unconscious, break my wrist and ribs and possibly my nose. I have spent a week mostly lying on the sofa, often in extreme pain; cracked ribs are so painful! So I have not been able to get out and do any birding or mothing or anything, other than visit A&E and X-ray departments. To cheer me up my 13 year old Jamie offered to set up the moth bulb last night and sit with me in the garden.

After about an hour I certainly was cheered up when we had our first ever Elephant Hawk Moth. It flew around the garden close to the lamp and landed on bushes. It was happy to then walk onto my hand and be placed on the white sheet, where it remained for another hour until we called it a night and placed the moth back onto a nearby bush.