” Hoist with one’s own petard” – to fall victim to one’s scheming.
As with so many phrases its origins lie with Shakespeare, and specifically the play Hamlet, wherein Hamlet tells his mother, Gertrude, how he hopes to outwit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who have been ordered to take him England and have him killed.
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard; and ’t shall go hard
So, the word engineer, etymologically related to ingenious was in Shakespearean times not a maker or controller of machines, but a bomb-maker, a petard being a small bomb. To be hoist would imply being thrown skyward by the explosion of the bomb one had made.
However, things are a little more subtle, as often they are with Shakespeare. The word petard also means a firework or firecracker and there is an implication of not only a flash and an explosion in the use of this word but a release of something malodorous. This brings us to yet another double entendre. Shakespeare spells petard as petar in some folios and this may well be deliberate is relates to a French term for flatus, pet, in other words, a fart; the French for breaking wind is pétarade.
So, being hoist by one’s own petard could, in Shakespearean lingo, imply that someone has released noxious gas and been caught out. In a more detailed article on this topic (here), the conclusion is that “hoist by one’s petard” is actually synonymous flippantly with “he who smelled it, dealt it”.
My friend Andy, who, like myself, is a keen amateur wildlife photographer, often asks me questions about the birds and butterflies he photographs. I can usually come up with an answer. But, today, we were talking about Little Owls and he casually referred to the species as the Small Owl. As far as I know, there is no species known as the Small Owl. I pointed this out and he came back with an intriguing question. Why are the birds “Little” but the butterflies “Small”? As in the Little Owl but the Small Blue, for instance.
The Little Owl species does not have a counterpart Large Owl
Among the birds, we have Little Owl, Little Gull, Little Stint, Little Ringed Plover, Little Egret, Little Auk, Little Grebe, Little Tern. But, for the butterflies, we have Small Blue, Small Tortoiseshell, Small Skipper, Small Heath, Small Copper, Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Small White.
The Large Skipper has a Small Skipper counterpart
It’s puzzling…there is a subtle difference in our perception of what we mean by “little” and “small”, but it’s hard to define. Small is the opposite of big, little is the opposite of large. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that while little is generally synonymous with small, it can have emotional implications associated with it that the word small does not, I can’t quite put my finger on what those differences are. When we discuss dwarfism, people with that condition are often referred to as “little people” but “not small people”. Small perhaps sounds quaint or undersized, whereas little just sounds like the opposite of big.
Small is perhaps a neutral or factual comment on size, while little tends to evoke something more personal or affectionate. “Little” can often feel more intimate, for instance when someone says “my little sister” or “a little treasure.” It can suggest warmth, vulnerability, or even something cherished. We don’t have singers with the nickname Small, it’s Little Kim and Little Jimmy Osmond. It’s less about the objective size and more about the relationship to size. But, why does that work as it does with birds versus butterflies?
Etymologically, the word small, a word of Germanic origin, means “thin, slender, narrow, fine” but also refers to a diminutive animal. Indeed, the true root in proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the prefix (s)melo- used to talk of a “smaller animal”. Little, etymologically speaking, is also Germanic in origin, the PIE root is “leud” meaning small.
So, back to Andy’s question why are the birds “little” but the butterflies “small”? I wondered whether it had something to do with the etymology of the words or perhaps whether the naming happened at different times and one descriptor was favoured for some reason at a given time.
Another possible explanation is that the use of small for the butterflies was done because there is a large counterpart. For the Small Tortoiseshell, there is a bigger but similar species the Large Tortoiseshell. Similarly, for the Small Skipper, there is a Large Skipper. However, there are no pairings among the birds, there are lots of different species of gull, but there is no Big Gull nor Large Gull to be a counterpart to the Little Gull, the same with the Little Owl, we do not have a Big Owl or a Large Owl species. Of course, we do have the Lesser Black-backed Gull and the Great Black-backed Gull. The lesser implying the smaller of a pairing and great simply meaning big, as in Great Britain.
Often these kinds of differences are related to Anglo-Saxon versus Norman etymology, as in the peasants grow the pigs, cattle, and sheep, while the Norman aristocrats eat the pork (porc), beef (boeuf), and mutton (moutton). Stephen Moss just reminded me that he alludes to this in his excellent book Mrs Moreau’s Warbler: How Birds Got Their Names. “I noted that three groups of birds have Norman French names – ducks and gamebirds, which were eaten by French aristocrats, and raptors, which were used to hunt them. Same principle as farm animals and meat!”
Then there are the Great birds…
Great White Egret, Great Tit, Great Shearwater, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe, Great Grey Shrike, Great Northern Diver, Great Crane. The “Great” also essentially means big and there are “lesser” birds that are generally smaller than the common species: Lesser Redpoll, Lesser Whitethroat, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker…
Moss also points out that in the US there are birds with “least” in their names ‘Least Grebe’, ‘Least Sandpiper’, and ‘Least Bittern’, for instance, we don’t have “least” birds in UK English…which maybe a throwback to US English etymology and the great divide between English and American. But, we do have the Least Weasel (which in Britain is just the weasel) and we do have the Least Black Arches moth!
“I have never really thought about why birds are great/little/lesser but butterflies are small/large, and I don’t really have an explanation. I suppose traditions in naming spring up early, and that namers therefore tend to follow an established formula. Some of the small/large butterfly names are 18th century or even, with Small Heath, late 17th century, so it might reflect usage at the time – Georgian vs Victorian? Simple English vs 19th Century elaboration?”
Marren points out that there are a few ‘little’ moths e.g. the Little Thorn – named later, perhaps. But again more usually large/small. He adds that “Great’ just seems the wrong word for a British butterfly or moth, somehow, but not sure I could explain why. ‘Large’ is often (usually?) used where there is also a ‘small’, e.g. Large and Small White, Large and Small Blue, Large and Small Tortoiseshell. But I guess the same pairing is true of birds.”
A pub conversation with a retired friend who was an English teacher, had me saying “All creatures great and small”, which is almost a crossover usage…the hymn should perhaps be “All creatures great and lesser” or “All creatures large and small” but neither would sound quite so poetic as the original hymnal words by Cecil Frances Alexander.
A few days ago I tweeted about a famous picture of a moth, the Death’s Head Hawk-moth used in the artwork surrounding the 1991 psychological thriller “The Silence of the Lambs”. At first glance, the moth looks genuine, but closer inspection reveals that what is thought of as markings resembling a skull on the moth’s thorax is, in the movie illustration, actually an imprint of a well-known 1951 creation of Salvador Dali and photographer Philippe Halsman.
In that image, In Voluptas Mors, a group of naked women were posed in such a way as to create the illusion of a skull. Of course, this morbid allusion fits perfectly with the theme of a murderer who skins his female victims in the movie. The women are lambs to the slaughter, their fleeces flayed from their bodies by the serial killer and a symbolic moth placed on their tongues to silence them forever.
Although a representation of the Death’s Head Hawk-moth (Acherontia atropos) features in the promotional materials for the film. Fellow science writer Rowan Hooper reminded me that in the movie itself, it is the pupae of a different moth, the Carolina Sphinx Moth (also known as the Tobacco Hawk-moth (Manduca sexta) that feature in the plot. In our chat, I mentioned that I wasn’t particularly interested in moths when that movie was first on release, but he said he was very much interested in Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) at the time, Indeed, Hooper was specifically working in research trying to figure out something rather odd about Lepidoptera.
It turns out that the males of all Lepidoptera, all 180,000 species of moths and butterflies produce two types of sperm. They make sperm that carry their genetic material, their DNA, in the sperm’s nucleus, so-called eupyrene sperm, but they also make sperm that lack that DNA, apyrene sperm, or parasperm. Indeed, at least half of the sperm are blanks. In one type of swallowtail butterfly, 90 percent of the male’s sperm lack DNA. That percentage is 96 in Manduca sexta. Even more bizarrely, Lepidoptera are the only creatures that do this.
Obviously, the fusion of sperm with egg is fundamentally all about fusing the genetic material from the male with that of the female to fertilise the egg and create offspring from both parents. So, why would males make sperm that contain no genes to pass on and more to the point would be incapable of fertilising the female’s eggs. To cut to the money shot: nobody knows, for sure.
There are hypotheses, of course. It might be that the blank sperm act as some kind of useful filler, inactive biological padding. The blanks perhaps take up the female’s resources somehow while the active sperm do their job. Maybe this precluded further matings with other males ensuring that the first male’s active sperm are the ones that fertilise her eggs. Alternatively, perhaps Lepidoptera females have defences within their reproductive tract to ensure that only the fittest sperm reach their eggs and so the males produce these blanks as decoys (after all blanks would require fewer material resources and energy to produce, if many are going to be wasted). An alternative theory might be that the blank sperm are some kind of nuptial gift for the female, not so much inactive filler as nutrients.
There is evidence that a gene known as Sex-lethal (Sxl) is involved in the production of apyrene sperm in Lepidoptera. A paper in PNAS looked at the activity of this gene in the Silk Moth, Bombyx mori, and found that it was partially responsible for the generation of apyrene sperm. Moreover, the team showed that apyrene sperm have to be present in the male moth’s ejaculate to allow the active eupyrne sperm to travel from the female’s genital opening, the bursa copulatrix, to her spermatheca (where she stores sperm prior to egg fertilisation).
So, while no definitive answer is known for all Lepidoptera that produce eupyrene and apyrene sperm, for the Silk Moth at least it seems that firing blanks is the best way for the active sperm to hit the target.
I’ve had to hack my moth trap, or more specifically, I’ve had to hack my two moth traps.
The white, plastic vanes are broken on my original moth trap (the collapsible wooden one bought from an ex-mother and cabinet maker friend mentioned here years ago). The UV U-tube also failed in the night a week or so ago, So, having previously also acquired a spare moth trap from yet another friend in the village who is also an ex-mother, I have now hybridised the original box and funnel with the vanes and UV tube from the second trap. The U-tubes were 40 Watts, the linear bulb is just 20 Watts, so will be half the electricity cost on lighting-up sessions (although not as cheap to run as the 1 Watt LepiLED, good success with that on a couple of field trips).
As you can see, the Perspex shoulders of the box have clouded over a lot since I acquired the original trap and I ought to replace those. The point of having a transparent upper is so that plenty of light from the lamp gets into the box so that the moths don’t simply head for the exit hole once they’re in the box. As regular readers will know, the box is filled with egg trays to give the moths somewhere to roost overnight until they’re logged, photographed and safely released the next day.
There are at least seven mothers in our village, although only four of us are currently active, I believe. Three are definitely ex-mothers. I have the old traps of two of them and the third disposed of her trap for ethical reasons, although I think having people trap for scientific purposes is more ethical than not knowing anything about the local moths. We are a big village, very long, flanked by farmland and some trees. So, for the County Moth Recorder, it is useful to have records from across the patch and the area is big enough that individual trapping is very unlikely to disturb moth populations and biology in any significant way.
Beaded Chestnut hiding on a leaf
Anyway, it’s mid-October and last night was wet but brought in a fair number of moths, more than the previous session with the now-defunct 40W kit: Beaded Chestnut 3, Black Rustic 2, Box-tree Moth 1, Light Brown Apple Moth 4, Lesser Yellow Underwing 1, Large Yellow Underwing 3,
Red-line Quaker 2, Shuttle-shaped Dart 1, Strawberry Tortrix 2, Vine’s Rustic 1, White-point 1.
UPDATE: 29th October 2022 – Finally added December Moth to the list of Lepidoptera I’ve logged and photographed. This was my 463rd moth species, and 64th new species logged in 2022.
December Moth, new for me 2022-10-29
One might ostensibly refer to mid-October as the point in the year at which the mothing season is beginning to draw to a close. There are still plenty of autumnal moths to be seen, (various Sallows, Merveille du Jour, Red-line and Yellow-line Quakers, Bricks etc, and then winter moths (Winter Moth, November Moth, December Moth etc) around and a chance of rare migrants but from now on, a cold lighting-up night might give you a blank from here on until mid to late February…it can be a gloomy time for moth-ers, although perhaps not quite as gloomy as it is for the moth-ers we know as butterfliers.
One of several Convolvulus Hawk-moths that nectared on my garden tobacco plants in the summer of 2022
Anyway, I’ve done sone totting up from my records. Just in case you’re interested in the details of this year’s mothing here in Cottenham and with a couple of off-site sessions. I have counted about 7500 moths of some 318 species in 200 lighting-up sessions so far this year. I’ve been mothing since July 2018 and have recorded 460 species in that time. 60 of those species were new to me this year alone.
Light Crimson Underwing was drawn to the LepiLED in the New Forest session in 2022
In the previous three seasons, the new-for-me numbers were in the 30s. However, a mothing session in the New Forest, one in Dorset, and success with garden tobacco plants here, bumped up the NFMs, that and my being more diligent in logging micro moths. If I remember rightly, I did far fewer sessions in 2019, but had some nights with several hundred moths and my total that year was 12500 moths of almost 300 species.
Male Oak Eggar seen in the summer while butterflying along Devil’s Dyke, Cambridgeshire in 2022
TL:DR – The Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus, was formerly known as the Bearded Tit. It is not a type of tit, although it has a passing resemblance to the Long-tailed Tit. It is the only species in the genus Panurus.
THE best photo I ever got of a Bearded Reedling (formerly known as the Bearded Tit) was from a hide WWT Welney. That was about a month after I’d bought the Sigma 150-600mm zoom for my old Canon 6D camera (March ’17). I’ve been chasing a better shot ever since.
Now there are record numbers of Beardies at RSPB Ouse Fen (I saw more than a couple of dozen of them last week at the Earith side right next to the car park). But, there are no hides so no real chance of getting as close as I was in a hide to that first one at Welney.
Incidentally, the name change from Tit to Reedling isn’t some kind of political correctness gone mad, it’s simply that although superficially, the shape of this species resembles the Long-tailed Tit, they are wholly unrelated to any of the Tit species. Indeed, they are the only known species in their genus! Personally, I think it should be the Moustached Reedling as those black facial markings on the male are more ‘tache than beard!
This was an interview for my Personal Reactions column on the old ChemWeb site from 1999 featuring Carolyn Bertozzi, who this week was announced as one of three recipients of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Biography: Professor Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi, born 10th October 1966. Boston Massachusetts.
Position: Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley
How did you get your current job?
The usual way. I applied for faculty positions in 1995 in response to advertisements in C&E News
What do you think clinched the deal?
Good fortune and a strong publication record from my graduate and postdoctoral labs
What do you enjoy about your work?
Everything. I love the variety, the interesting and brilliant people, the challenge of figuring out data and the thrill of new discoveries. Best of all is seeing how young people get turned on to research and develop into top-notch independent scientists. This must be the best job in the world.
What aspects would you change?
In the perfect world, there would be a more entrenched system to accommodate the demands of both work and family, and perhaps a better representation of women on the faculty. These are not out of the realm of possibility in my lifetime. Also, higher salaries to match the cost of living would help ease the burdens of everyday life
What was your first experiment? Ever?
I don’t remember it has been so long. My first research position was in the summer of 1986 and I performed experiments with lasers and cell membranes with the goal of understanding how photogenerated oxidants damage membranes
Did it work?
I don’t remember but I learned a lot and it was fun
Was your science teacher inspirational?
My high school biology teacher was a true inspiration. Then in college, I had several chemistry professors who inspired me to switch my major to that subject
What would the teenage you think of the present-day you?
Too serious
What is your greatest strength?
Versatility. I am reasonably competent at many things
Weakness?
Too quick to pass judgement. Perhaps also too limited attention span
What advice would you give a younger scientist?
Try to resist peer pressure and pursue those areas of science that you find truly fascinating
What would you rather be if not a scientist?
Nothing else compares but if forced out of science by factors beyond my control, I would pursue medicine or music
Which scientist from history would you like to meet?
Hermann Staudinger, the German Nobel prize-winning chemist who was far ahead of his time
What would you ask them?
How did you conceive of these reactions?
How has the Internet influenced what you do?
It has greatly facilitated our ability to understand genomic information, and to process literature in many areas of science. I am sure that the Internet has also provided information on my lab to others around the world, which helps us gain recognition, collaborations and new colleagues
In what ways can scientists improve their public image?
Participate in outreach programs so that young people can see the beauty and excitement of what we do
What might be the biggest achievements in science in the next century?
Complete sequencing of the human genome, structural elucidation of membrane proteins, real-time mapping of chemical transformations inside living animals. More globally, effective cures for cancer and microbial infections will affect millions of people.
What’s your favourite chemical reaction?
The Staudinger reaction between azides and phosphines
Which living scientist do you most admire?
My father William Bertozzi, a physicist at MIT. [Carolyn’ sister Andrea Bertozzi is a Professor of Math and Physics at Duke]
TL:DR – The Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus, was formerly known as the Bearded Tit. It is not a type of tit, although it has a passing resemblance to the Long-tailed Tit. It is the only species in the genus Panurus.
Lots of Beardies, Bearded Reedlings, Panurus biarmicus, at the Earith side of RSPB Ouse Fen, the site represents a nicely growing colony of the species.
Bearded Reedlings
I counted at least a couple of dozen today. I’d first heard a lot of pew-pewing (or ping-pinging) in the reeds close to the car park. The sound is reminiscent of a low-power sci-fi B-movie laser gun or a twee little ringing bell. But, when there are lots firing off it once it’s quite wonderful, like a live-action video game in the reed beds.
Beardie is an affectionate nickname for the Bearded Reedling, formerly known as the Bearded Tit. It was misnamed on account of its passing resemblance in shape to the Long-tailed Tit, but the two species are not related. Indeed, the Bearded Reedling is doubly misnamed as those black markings on the male’s face might be, at a stretch, perceived as sideburns or moustaches, but definitely not a beard. But, while changing from tit to reedling is happening, it’s unlikely to lose its beard.
Meanwhile, taxonomically, the species (scientifically Panurus biarmicus) is the only one worldwide in the Panurus genus. A truly unique little bird living almost on our doorsteps…well…if your doorstep is lined with reeds, that is.
Mrs Sciencebase and myself were celebrating a significant wedding anniversary last week and so took a trip to Dorset. I didn’t carry a proper landscape lens with my birding camera, so these are just a load of highly processed phone snaps.
Britain’s most photographed pubView from North Hill, CorfeBankes Arms, Corfe Castle, less photographed, but just as goodView of Corfe from Corfe CastleThrough, the round, square, arched windowCorfe CastleCorfe Castle DragonCorfe CastleCorfe Castle StationSignals at Corfe Castle StationCorfe Castle StationCorfe Castle StationView of Corfe from North HillGolden Hour TreeThatched Cottage, Corfe CastleAnti-tank dragon’s teeth, StudlandDurdle DoorMan O’War BeachDurdle DoorFort Henry, StudlandOld Harry RocksOld Harry RocksPoole HarbourStatue of Robert Baden-Powell, Poole HarbourPub we didn’t visitBarber shop I didn’t useBuddhist shop we didn’t shop inPoole BoatPoole town centreView of Poole Harbour from RSPB ArneCliff carvings, Knoll Beach, StudlandSwanageChippy we didn’t use, SwanageSwanage PierSwanageDiesel locomotive, SwanageLocomotives, SwanageTravel inspiration, StudlandConvenient advice for gents
TL:DR – We finally caught up with White-tailed Eagles on a trip to Dorset in September 2022 after seeking them out in various places over the last couple of years.
We took another trip south in September. Stayed some way inland in the historic town of Corfe Castle but couldn’t keep away from the coast and visited RSPB Arne, RSPB Lodmoor, RSPB Radipole Pond, NT Studland, and took a boat trip in Poole Harbour up the Wareham Channel, and a train journey from Corfe to Swanage where we were plagued by Geography Fieldtrips measuring the groynes on the beach.
White-tailed Eagle
RSPB Arne is the English homeland of the Dartford Warbler and plenty of other wildlife, although we saw very little of it on our visit for some reason, apart from some “wild” pigs and distant waders. We also missed, by just a few minutes, a White-tailed Eagle fly-by and also failed to see an Osprey way over the moor towards Corfe itself. We didn’t see any Dartfords there either, that would wait until we got to the moors behind Knoll Beach at Studland.
Dartford Warblers
While at Arne, missing the Osprey and WTE, we spoke to various people one of whom recommended a visit to Lodmoor and Radipole Pond (spotted a Clouded Yellow butterfly there) and those sites were generally much busier in terms of birdlife, Great White Egret, Grey Heron, Oystercatcher (dozens), Avocet (hundreds), Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit, Great Crested Grebe etc.
We were lucky enough to see dozens and dozens of House Martins and Swallows when we climbed East Hill in Corfe. Seemingly, Monday the 19th September was a good day for seeing hundreds of departing migrants. Also towards the top of the hill, a couple of Clouded Yellow butterfly.
Osprey
The 2.5 hour boat-trip with the charity Birds of Poole Harbour was much more of a success than the trip to Arne. We had sightings of Shag and Sandwich Tern within minutes of setting sail and a large flock of Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis, the Chinese Cormorant sub-species, which is much more gregarious than its relative the Common Cormorant.
Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis, “Chinese” Cormorant
One of our incredibly well-informed guides (Paul) spotted an Osprey perched in a dead tree on the non-public edge of RSPB Arne, then the other equally well-informed guide (Liv) spotted a White-tailed Eagle (turned out to be the juvenile female with the radiotag ID G801). She was perched high in a pine tree a little further up the channel. It was hard to get clear photos through the heat haze and at a distance of several hundred metres, but worth a try. When the eagle took to the air, I got a reasonable shot at it before a second (a juvenile male) was sighted.
Dutch Spoonbills (some of 60+) and Oystercatchers (100s)
These eagles and the ospreys are both part of reintroduction programmes on the south coast to bring back raptors to this area that were persecuted to local extinction. Unfortunately, there are rich landowners with a vested interested in breeding and killing millions of game birds (pheasants, grouse etc) for a very lucrative sport. They claim the birds of prey are a threat to their industry. The birds are no threat to this vast industry given the huge numbers of game birds involved. The raptors may eat dead game birds, but the industry dumps most of the birds that are shot for sport. Farmers often protest that eagles could take valuable lambs and counter the awarding of reintroduction licenses, they know full well that this is an incredibly rare happening and it’s just an excuse to protect their game birding, which makes them thousands of pounds per person. Eagles will find plenty of carrion and smaller wild birds to eat without needing to tackle lambs.
Interestingly, the eagles, which we used to think needed high mountain and moor, seem quite happy to live in this coastal zone. So, ultimately, translocation schemes will hopefully be successful. We’re still hoping that the Wild Ken Hill licence will be allowed in North Norfolk.
Sika Deer
Meanwhile, back on the boat, we continued to add many more species of bird to the boat trip list (which ultimately amounted to 48 bird species) before heading back to the harbour and the lagoon on Brownsea Island where 60+ Spoonbills were feeding.
One of two Spoonbill at RSPB Lodmoor, NC4P, ringed in Netherlands in Jun 22
The Spoonbill is another growing success in England where once the bird was eaten to extinction in the 17th Century. There is a breeding colony in North Norfolk, but dozens are now seen in Dorset and Somerset. The flock we saw on Brownsea is mostly comprised of visitors from The Netherlands. Also had a flyover of Dunlin and sighting of at least one Curlew Sandpiper, Redshank, Greenshank and more. We have seen Spoonbill at various times over the years, but usually only one or two together and perhaps three; there were two at Lodmoor even.
We “twitched” the juvenile Red-backed Shrike and first-winter Citrine Wagtail mentioned in BirdGuides that and previous days. The Citrine made an appearance close to where birders told us it would be. There was some initial doubt that it might have been an Eastern Wagtail, but an expert who heard it call, pinned it down to Citrine.
Juvenile Citrine Wagtail
The juvenile Red-backed Shrike took a lot more hunting down as it was on what local birders know as the old dump, not the Lodmoor reserve itself. BirdGuides was pretty close with its grid reference from earlier in the day. There are usually only a couple of breeding pairs of RBS in the UK each year, and it is essentially extinct here. However, a couple of hundred migrants do skirt the east and south coast of the UK on passage. They’re often known as butcher birds because they hang their prey on thorns or even barbed wire to eat later.
By the end of the holiday, we’d almost forgotten about trying to spot Dartford Warbler (we had seen them at Dunwich Heath on a Suffolk trip earlier in the year). However, after visiting Old Harry Rocks, we headed through Studland and up on to the heather and gorse encrusted dunes behind Knoll Beach and saw perhaps half a dozen, as well as numerous Wheatear and Stonechat.
For those who like lists, these are the 74 or so bird species we saw* and noted during our September 2022 week of birding and sightseeing in Dorset:
There were probably a few other species we saw but didn’t note bringing the total for the week to at least 60. Oh, we also saw quite a few Sika Deer and I did a bit of mothing in Corfe with the LepiLED and added L-album Wainscot and Ruddy Streak (Tachystola acroxantha) to my moth life list.
The stunning L-album Wainscot, seen only on the south coast
