We completely missed out of the small arrival of migrant moths that reached other parts of southwest England in recent nights, with our moth-traps providing us with nothing more than a handful of residents. A couple of these were species of minor interest because we don't see them at the Bill all that frequently: Small Eggar is a relatively recent colonist whose larval nests have been found at several sites around the north of the island but not yet at the Bill, whilst Spring Reveller Diurnea fagella is a moth we've often pondered on the origins of - the females are flightless so you'd assume that if the assiduous collectors of the Victorian age couldn't find it then it wasn't here then and never was going to be in the future; however, since 1989 occasional males have been trapped at the Obs and more recently have been caught in some numbers in moth-traps further up the island - surely they can't all be strays from the mainland and the moth must now be established, in which case how and when did the first females get here? © Martin Cade:
One of our more elusive winter visitors is the Water Rail currently residing at Culverwell which, barring a few squeals, is barely detected from one week to the next. A few attempts were needed to finally capture it out in the open via a remote trail camera © Jodie Henderson:
And finally, we nipped over to Weymouth at the end of the afternoon to have a look at the spectacularly early Red-rumped Swallow found by James Lowther at the north end of Radipole Lake. Despite the bird showing ever so well and coming right overhead at times a combination of the leaden sky, shocking light and us not having a decent camera to hand ensured we secured no more than the odd record shot of our first hirundine of the year © Martin Cade:
