*** Posting to this blog - Please read ***

*** Posting to this blog – Please read ***

Welcome to the St Helens Birds and Wildlife blog. We welcome your reports from across the borough regarding all forms of wildlife. Please click on the "Report a sighting" tab if you would like to contribute to this blog.

We ask that you refrain from posting exact breeding locations of any species which may be considered scarce or vulnerable, and in particular schedule 1 species. In the context of St Helens, schedule 1 species usually means kingfisher and little ringed plover. Little ringed plover should not be reported at all on this blog between 1st May and 1st August.

Scarce or vulnerable species include but are not restricted to any species of wader, ducks other than mallard, all owls, any birds of prey, grey or yellow wagtails, grey heron, all grebes, Cetti’s warbler, water rail, willow tit, corn bunting etc. If in doubt, please ask.

We reserve the right to edit or delete posts which contravene this rule.

France Holiday

I've just got back from a two week holiday in Brittany with the family. We had a fantastic time and will definitely be going back to France again next year. I didn't really do much birding but managed to see at least three new species - marsh tit, green woodpecker, and manx shearwater. I may have seen a sooty shearwater as well but am not sure...

 
Here's the manx shearwater...(or is this a Balearic??)
 
(See here - http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=265197)

 
 
There were also lots of butterflies and moths about including this beautiful swallowtail which I haven't seen before...
 
I'm not sure what these are..

 
We went to the Sept Iles nature reserve on a boat trip one day, the gannet colony there is amazing.
 
Other birds of note were this stonechat which was happy to pose for me near Ploumanac'h,
 
and this spotted flycatcher which was at Tregamere Zoo. Weirdly, the only two spotted flycatchers I've ever seen have been at zoos!
 
Damian P




Posted by at
Labels:

5 comments :

  1. Paul Brady27 August 2013 at 21:39

    Have you looked up fritillary for the mystery butterfly?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Email27 August 2013 at 22:10

    Yes - it looks like a type of fritillary but I'm not sure which one. The closest I can see are silver-washed but are they all silver-washed? The single one looks good for silver-washed but I'm not sure of the other two.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Email27 August 2013 at 22:15

    Having looked at lots of images, I think they are all silver-washed fritillary. Nice one. They do seem to vary a bit. Any thoughts on the shearwater?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Colin27 August 2013 at 23:34

    The fritillary looks like Silver washed but difficult to say without seeing the under wing. It looks too big for Dark-green, but I'm not sure if you get cardinal in that part of France. I'd go with silver washed though.

    Unless you tell me otherwise, I think there are two different shearwaters. In my opinion, the top one is sooty shearwater. Look how long the wings are compared to the other photo. It can't bee the same bird. Also if it was Manx (or Balearic) you would see at least some of the white throat and body. The second photo looks to me to be Balearic, because it looks more brown than black.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Email28 August 2013 at 09:40

    Thanks Colin, yes they're definitely two different birds - the first was taken on the ferry about an hour before we got to Roscoff, and the second near the Sept Iles Nature Reserve nearly two weeks later. The guide on the tour told me it was a Manx Shearwater (he called it Puffin Des Anglais) - shows what he knew! I'm happy with any of them because they're all firsts for me anyway.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )