Urban birding at Hull: Sculcoates week 28

 I made two visits to the patch this week. The first one, on Tuesday, was on an overcast, cool morning. Of note were several Bullfinches in two parts of the area. Also, ringlets sat and spread their wings, which made a difference with their usual running around on sunny days.

Ringlet, 13 July.

Bullfinch, 13 July.

I also spent some time recording plants and visited the southern end of the drain.

Views of the drain from Fountain Road bridge.

Today I popped in the afternoon. I was hoping to see some dragonflies. I ended up having just 2 Brown Hawkers, one patrolling in the drain, the other in the north cemetery. Butterflies were plentiful though, especially Ringlets and Small Tortoiseshells. A total of 9 species were noted, plus two day-flying moths.

Green-veined White.

Large Skipper.

Shaded Broad-bar Moth.

Small Skipper.

Comma.

Mating 5-spot burnet.

In the north cemetery a bird made a tchek alarm call. I thought it was a blackcap, but it proved to be a Lesser Whitethroat, possibly a juvenile (top shot), which was very nice. A Great Spotted Woodpecker called from the large oak.

In the last few visits I've had the unwanted attention of the Herring and Lesser-black Backed gulls that are breeding on the roof of the paint factory. Today they were ignoring me, but then they started calling, following a Buzzard. They took turns to dive-bomb it. This communal mobbing might help reduce the chances of a potential predator gathering 'intelligence' on the position of nests or presence of young, and thus reducing the chances of surprise attacks. Buzzards do take young gulls from nests if they can.

Another nice surprise in the drain was finding the mallard duck with her 8 surviving ducklings, all now grown up. She eyed me suspiciously while the ducklings fed on duckweed.

As I went by the railway line I spotted two distant triangular sets of ears, two foxes! They were resting on the grass. They watched me intently. I moved away in a circle, not wanting to disturb them, but one of them moved away.

And to end the visit, I spotted the family of Whitethroats from their patch of Japanese Knotweed. At least 2 young were visible.

Whitethroat juvenile.