White-letter Hairstreak - Darley Dale

It's been five years since I last heard of a White-letter Hairstreak in Darley Dale but Simon Roddis sent me this photo taken recently in his garden. 
The butterfly clearly still survives in the village but in very low numbers. There are small elms dotted around the local woodlands and these must still support this species.

White-letter Hairstreak (© Simon Roddis)

Another local Turtle Dove record

I was contacted by Simon Moody in the second week of June to say that he had seen a Turtle Dove in Uppertown around the time I photographed the bird in Matlock Forest, could it be the same bird? 
Well since then Simon has had further sightings of the bird in Uppertown and it is clearly another individual. Apparently this bird, another male, has been courting the local Collared Doves and was still in the area earlier this week when he took this superb photo.

Turtle Dove (© Simon Moody)

Record sighting of Red Kite

I've just seen 4 Red Kite together over the woods at the back of my garden in Darley Dale, a record count locally for me. It looks like they were heading towards Matlock but then turned towards Oaker. 
They all look like moulting adults, so could be failed breeders for one of the populations to the north or south of Derbyshire.

Red Kite

Orchids in Wragg's Quarry

There are dozens of flowering spikes of orchids appearing in Wragg's Quarry at the moment. When they first appeared around 2011 I'm sure they were all Northern Marsh Orchids but now there appear to be a wide range of hybrids with what looks like Heath Spotted Orchid.
Many of the hybrids are tall flowering spikes which is a feature of hybridisation.
What ever they are there are some superb examples!

Northern Marsh Orchid with close-up lower petal insert

Heath Spotted Orchid with close-up lower petal insert

hybrid Northern Marsh x Heath Spotted Orchid with unmarked leaves

hybrid Northern Marsh x Heath Spotted Orchid

A second record of Morophaga Choragella the Large Clothes Moth

Simon caught this moth in Darley Dale a couple of days ago. I caught one on July 2016 so it looks like this moth is perhaps recently established in the area. We are not aware of any other Derbyshire records but it would be surprising if there are not some to the South as it looks like the moth is spreading North. 

There are a handful of records from Nottinghamshire but otherwise is restricted to the south east of the Country

Morophaga choragella © Simon Roddis

NBN Atlas records of Morophaga choragella

Mandarin broods - Chatsworth

I had just been thinking that I was overdue seeing Mandarin with young but made up for it this morning with at least nine broods on a 1km stretch of the River Derwent between Chatsworth and Rowsley. All looked to be of a similar age.

Mandarin female with young

Orchid hunting around the Via Gellia

I spent the afternoon, which started cool and overcast but ended in sweltering sunshine, searching for some of our early flowering orchids around the Via Gellia. My main target was the Burnt or Burnt-tip Orchid but I think I was slightly late as I only found three flowering spikes and only one of these was in reasonable condition. Nearby were the shrivelled stems of two Green-winged Orchid which I have still yet to see in good condition locally so will have to return a little earlier next year.
There were however lots of Fly Orchids and these appear to be flowering later than normal, as I usually expect to see them at their best in the last days of May. I didn't search all that hard but only found a single Frog Orchid.

Burnt Orchid

Fly Orchid

Frog Orchid

Marsh Pug and other day flying moths of the limestone grassland

I spent the afternoon exploring the edges of the Via Gellia looking mainly for orchids, which I've posted above but also some of our day flying moths.
I have looked many times for the Marsh Pug which is very thinly distributed in Derbyshire and was very pleased to finely catch up with one today. In some parts of the country they are quite a dark moth but in Derbyshire they are this pale tawny brown. They feed on Field Mouse-ear as larva and I suspect that it what this adult has settled on.

Marsh Pug 

In the same area there were a lot of Grass Rivulet including a rather dark barred individual which is unlike any I have previously see. 

Grass Rivulets typical example at the top and a dark barred individual below

The striking Wood Tiger was also on the wing in good numbers, looking like many had recently emerged. I was also surprised to see the Cistus Forester at several locations and in reasonable numbers so it looks like they are having a good year.

Wood Tiger

Cistus Forester

Finally I saw one or two Mother Shipton with its striking wing markings.

Mother Shipton

Walking around some fields had almost no insects and a very  few plant species and others were a riot of colour with a variety of plant species including several orchids and it was in these fields that the moths were to be found.

Turtle Dove - Matlock Forest

I saw my first Turtle Dove locally in almost twenty years today in the Matlock Forest area.

Turtle Dove - male, in the lower photo it is giving its distinctive purring call

I moved to Derbyshire from Yorkshire in 1997 and at that time the Turtle Dove could be regularly heard calling from the pine trees on Flash Lane. A few years later they had gone locally and since then have gone from much of the UK. The BTO estimated the population decline since 1994 as a scary 93% by 2016 in the UK with a 78% decline across Europe between 1980 and 2013.
It's not surprising therefore that scientists have talked about possible global extinction for the species, suggesting it could go the way of the North American Passenger Pigeon, with a population in the millions in the middle of the 19th Century by around September 1, 1914, the last known Passenger Pigeon, a female named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Experts have put forward four main factors associated with the decline of Turtle Doves. These include the loss of suitable habitat in both the breeding and non-breeding range, unsustainable levels of hunting on migration and disease.
In Derbyshire, according to Frost & Shaw in The Birds of Derbyshire the county population was estimated as probably in the region of 50 to 100 pairs in the late 1990's but is now no more than 2 or 3 pairs. The book also notes;

'..a small outlier [population] existed at around 300m in the pine plantations of the Matlock Forest area, where up to nine territories were occupied during the 1990's, but these are now believed to have gone'

They are secretive birds nesting in tall trees and apart from the distinctive song are very unobtrusive could one or more pairs have continued to breed unnoticed in the area or have birds returned?

I made a sound recording of the lovely purring song. This doesn't seem to work if you use Safari as your internet browser but is fine with Google.

 

Little Ringed Plover - Beeley Flash

In terms of habitat we have no wetlands in the immediate Darley Dale area so species that require these habitats are inevitably rare locally. I've mentioned before the small pool which has appeared for the last few winters at Beeley and which can hold water in to the summer. I try to visit the pool at least weekly as it offers the potential for a number of species which are unlikely to be seen elsewhere. 
Today the pool held a single Little Ringed Plover which is the first I've seen in the Matlock/ Bakewell area.
Only recorded for the first time in Derbyshire in 1950 the species is now regular at many of the counties wetlands and approximately 40 pairs now breed in the County.

Little Ringed Plover

The photo shows well the yellow eye ring which is one of the features which distinguishes it from its larger cousin the Ringed Plover.

Last weekend a moulting drake Gadwall was on the pool which is now home to around a dozen moulting Mandarin and 3 families of Mallard.

Gadwall - moulting male

The water level is falling rapidly now so I'm not sure how much longer the pool will last.

Beeley Flash