Peter Jones Wildlife blog

Local migrants.. 1 Meadow Pipit over the house was a cool surprise, I did record a small number overhead during a pretty big movement a couple of years ago, but otherwise they are fairly rare over the house.. and very common about 200 yards away on the paddocks! The other side of the village, I ventured into the Flexford Road fields on a dog walk, mainly for a look at what the habitat is like these days. Mainly 6 foot high corn crop at the moment, but a few Meadow Pipits, and Linnets, plus a reasonable sized tit flock, with at least 10, probably closer to 20 Chiff Chaffs. Didn't have binoculars, but saw them all well enough to be sure nothing else was lurking amongst them.

A couple of hours around Lymington this morning. I started off East of the River which is pretty underwatched, and I soon found out why as the area is popular for wildfowl shooting.  That aside, I saw a good stream of Meadow Pipits moving South, 1 Common Sandpiper, 30-40 Lapwing, and a few Brents, Wigeon, 2 Pintails, and a Peregrine before the rain started.  I headed on to Pennington, which was fairly quiet except for Black-Tailed Godwit and Snipe. Off shore a mixed flock of Waders included Bar-Tailed Godwit, and Grey Plover, plus a Common Tern. Black-Tailed Godwit..

Myotis Bat identification problems Visited a known New Forest Maternity roost of one of the UK Bats I have never seen before.. Bechstein's Bat.. The roost location itself is not publicised, rightly so, but I thought I would try my luck in the approximate area. Didn't take long to find a small group of 4 to 5 Myotis bats circling round the edge of Oak woodland just above head height. Now the problems start as Myotis Bats are pretty much impossible to identify by Bat detector alone, all having a long straight (Frequency modulated) echolocation call.  The only clue I did get was of a decent sized bat, so ruling out the tiny Whiskered, Brandts and Alcatoes'. The behaviour was not typical of Daubenten's that spend their evenings hovercraft style above water, so I'm left with either Natterer's or Bechstein's. A typical Natterer's is on the left of the attached pic, my bats on the right.. and they look good for Bechstein's with a slower echolocation, and mo