End of Year round up

So, another year of nature watching around Little Hadham parish. New records for the year included just one bird; a pair of greylag geese in March whilst 2 new dragon and damselflies were discovered. A broad bodied chaser was witnessed along the dry River Ash valley on 11.07.10 and a single banded demoiselle was found at Caley Woods on 17.07.10.
The year ended with me completeing my book on the natural history of the area and should be published in mid January, 120 pages including all records, details of walks along with recipes using local wild food etc.
Bird highlights were my 2nd ring ouzel, a local merlin, a pair of lapwings entering Little Hadham air space along with a solitary snipe in fields near South Cottages. 2010 will be remembered for its very hot summer and very cold winter, with snow falling by November and basically staying until the end of December.
It was ayear when I began recording moth species, totalling 45 identified and several as yet, not. 2011 will be a year when I continue to broaden my knowledge of this area of natural history. 2011 also offers the chance for me to become involved in more scientific recording, with a bio diversity action plan to follow up as well as collating bird num bers through a variety of timed surveys. It is hoped to involve the local community, including the primary school in these ventures, with 2nd January put aside for a 3 hour yellowhammer survey. Lated in the year I intend to organise a village nature day which will involve all volunteers visiting a series of sites to record a selection of birds and insects, giving me a good insight into parish numbers on the same day at the same time. Other planned recording days will be to survey breeding species, such as cuckoo, barn owl and common buzzard as well as survey all birds at least once a month at specific sites.

Just to remind ourselves that it was once summer, I include a few warming photos from earlier in the year. From the top:

• spring bluebells
• comma butterfly
• white plumed moth in flight
• latticed heath moth
• red legged partridge

Other highlights away from the village were trips to North Norfolk (92 sp of birds) Dungeness (86 sp) and The Camargue (78 sp) A few photos from these trips below.

• dunlin (Norfolk)
• snow bunting (Norfolk)
• red kite (Camargue)
• red veined darter (Camargue)
• flamingoes (Camargue)

In all, I have recorded over 250 bird species for the year (207 in the UK) along with 14 British dragon and damselflies, plus another 3 in France as well as 21 species of British butterflies and 2 others from France.
It is hoped that I shall record the 100th bird species for the village in 2011, maybe waxwing, brambling, lesser spotted woodpecker or  a few duck species such as wigeon, shoveler, gadwall or pochard. iT will be interesting to see what 2011 offers.;