#shawford

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2023 (challenge No. 3 - old unpublished pics) - Day 272 - Morning mist at sunrise, Shawford, Hampshire, England 2010 by ambabheg https://www.flickr.com/photos/31518985@N04/53221439053

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21/04/19-St. Catherine’s Hill on Easter Sunday 

After a big meal with the family today we wanted to come somewhere to let the dogs cool off and a nice one to walk off all the food. It was very hot and really sunny as it has been all Easter so far. I hope you all have had a great one. I took the first picture in this photoset of the river Itchen beside the hill there and second and third of reflections into it. The fourth to sixth pictures in this photoset are landscapes I took on the hill which looked absolutely stunning and green. One is also a view over my work city Winchester which is where it overlooks. 

Along the river and on the hill we saw so many butterflies. Its been the Easter weekend of butterflies really for me with eight, seven and today again seven seen. Along the river I saw female and male Orange Tips, I am surely having my greatest ever spring for this one of my 11 favourite butterflies with the amount I have seen and how well for some of them. 

When on the hill we spotted our first Dingy Skipper of the year as shown in the seventh picture in this photoset. This was one that felt brilliant and crucial to see but for a bittersweet reason really. This is because if as the forecast suggests the weather gets cooler and wetter this week I am happy that I snuck this one in whilst so hot and before that as its not one to worry about afterwards with butterflies having time limits of when they’re out. But obviously I worry for the individual insect I looked down at that its emerged now and the weather could change, but this is the right time for it to be out so its all part of it I suppose. 

Although I didn’t see one last year and I’m gonna be saying this a lot due to the slower start to 2018 with the cold start to the year until 20th May at Martin Down. This is my 13th species of butterfly seen in 2019 and I don’t look at what I had on this day in previous years for butterflies as much as I do birds but this is ahead of where both the last two years were on this date. I have got five butterfly year ticks in four days as my year has boomed with all the common ones seen that are out at the moment and dipping into the rarer ones now. Soon after it was fascinating to as we got to the bit overlooking the M3 see a Buzzard hunting over it and on a verge. I also took the eighth picture in this photoset of one of a few Brimstones seen today. With it this hot the day I saw my first this year as my first butterfly of 2019 though sunny in February seems so long ago. 

As we walked back down through the reserve I said to my Mum with me needing it and this habitat being good for it it would be the icing on the cake if we saw a Yellowhammer. We then discussed how we thought we may struggle to see this bird this year. We were looking at a Mistle Thrush on the hill and some anthill mounds when I saw something yellow dart behind it. Luckily it then proceeded to come on top of the mound and come over it and I could see it was the Yellowhammer in the record shot in the ninth picture in this photoset. This bird now on my B list of favourite birds was another fantastic one to see this weekend. It completed seeing in 2019 my what I see as a key spring quartet this year now of Linnet, Skylark, Wheatear and Yellowhammer. 

This took my year list to 147 which means it will end Easter Weekend at least level with what my 2018 year list was on as it reached this figure a year ago tomorrow. Its often when I come to St. Catherine’s Hill that one big bird species and year tick and the same with a butterfly stands out and I certainly had this today. As we looped back round along the river I took the tenth picture in this photoset of a Holly Blue. 

Wildlife Sightings Summary: My first Yellowhammer and Dingy Skipper of the year, one of my favourite birds the Buzzard, one of my favourite butterflies the Orange Tip, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Pheasant, Herring Gull, Moorhen, Mallard, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Goldfinch, Linnet, Speckled Wood, Brimstone, Peacock, Green-veined White and Holly Blue. 

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Photo context post: View down the River Itchen by Shawford last Sunday 

With 18 photos produced in the last weekover the two weekend trips and my big butterfly count over Lakeside on Friday evening, I felt like doing one of my now more occasional reflective posts. But for a repost on my Twitter Dans_Pictures via a quote or replied to tweet there was no obvious theme of the week to tie it to, so another picture context post this morning felt like the thing to do.

A key thing that did stand out the week just gone in my photos is I took on Sunday two of my favourite ever looking down a river landscapes, this one and the one taken just before it which can be seen on my blog of the walk here http://dansnaturepictures.tumblr.com/post/175920078073/150718-sedge-warbler-chalkhill-blues-and-more. I thought they both made use of another really sunny day and just had a freshness and quality I’ve certainly not seen in my views down this particular river which I’ve known my whole life before. 

As that blog from a week ago also explores this was one of my most memorable days out this year for wildlife and photography with one of my favourite birds the Sedge Warbler along the river and one of my favourite butterflies the Chalkhill Blue at St. Catherine’s Hill proving key first of the year sightings for my bird and butterfly year lists. My bird year list reached 171 yesterday but the Sedge Warbler took it to 169 ensuring it was higher than my 2013 and 2015 joint total and as my 38th butterfly species this year the Chalkhill Blue levelled last year’s total making this year my joint second highest ever butterfly year list and it gave myself a shot of reaching 40 and beating that record for me. 

Alongside this I saw some other brilliant wildlife and lots of people enjoying a cooler area by the river and the views of St. Catherine’s Hill has to offer and these two river landscapes were the brightest sparks of a varied and high amount of photos produced that day also including butterfly and caterpillar macro pictures, a flower, a first bird picture in a while and more green land dominated landscapes.

When I look back at how this picture was taken this one over the other river landscape had the most interesting story so I chose it to do this post about it. I originally took this landscape on the way to St. Catherine’s Hill but with my big up to 400 lens which I mostly use for birds and mammals. To save time of changing lenses back to my up to 300 one which is the one I mostly use for landscapes I sometimes take landscape shots with my big lens which usually don’t wok out as its not suited to capturing them to the level I usually do but other times do. It was 50/50 as to if this one had worked out I was leaning towards saying it did. 

But I also was contemplating changing the lens quickly. But I kept the big lens on it had been on as I had just got past the bit where my Mum had said she’d seen target Sedge Warbler earlier this year. When I contemplated changing lenes I remember saying no as I had just seen a bird fly into the reedbed. When I looked at it and took ID camera shots to confirm this was the Sedge Warbler I saw. So this instantly made this scene I have captured in this picture memorable. 

But after walking back I was impressed initially with the other river landscape taken with my normal lens that now with my normal lens on when I looked back over this scene and reflected on seeing the Sedge Warbler it was so beautiful that I could not resist snapping another with this lens and this picture is the result. I didn’t initially think it would be as good as the landscape taken before it though but when I got them home and processed I saw they were both ones I could admire, be happy with and really see as a picture of the extraordinary summer of 2018.

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15/07/18-Sedge Warbler, Chalkhill Blues and more along the River Itchen at Shawford and at St. Catherine’s Hill 

Today I decided to make use of my season train ticket and get off at a station between my home and work stops Shawford where you can walk alongside the River Itchen which I have done since I was a child and you can pass and enter the St. Catherine’s Hill reserve where I’ve seen Chalkhill Blues before. As you can see from my first picture I took in this photoset today I succeeded in seeing this butterfly again today. 

I did this walk in 2016 and it’s a classic little trainable trip out for me. I had my first amazing wildlife moment of the day before I even left Eastleigh though when I saw a bird in a tree by Lakeside as I walked to the station. I thought “that looks special” and sure enough a closer look revealed one of my favourite birds the Jay. It was really close and looked beautiful, with my camera and lenses in my bag I was simply too slow to get a picture before it flew. I arrived at Shawford and walked down the river taking the second and third pictures in this photoset of a Mallard ending a recent usual for this time of year bird drought since my last Puffin picture at Thornwick Bay in Yorkshire in late June and Purple Loosestrife. 

The first real moment of note was a bird year tick and a favourite bird of mine, I inspected the reeds where my Mum had said she’d seen Sedge Warblers before. It was just after the point she mentioned where I was taking a landscape picture down the river its the scene of the tenth picture in this photoset but I took this one on the way back and found it better than the the initial one so took it forward and I spotted a bird flitting about in the reeds. I was eager to look at it in the binoculars and I could just make out the iconic eyestripe to top all eyestripes of a bird that had been among my favourites since 2012. As I snapped an ID shot where I caught it just as it flew off but it still allowed me to make out the other features of the Sedge Warbler it turned into a lucky sighting. 

But I was both thrilled and relieved to see it, this is a bird I usually see every year and I felt I was struggling to see in 2018 which few places left where I felt I could see them. This was the first Sedge I had seen ever myself on this stretch of river. This culminated a few years of angst with this bird for me where I’d not seen them closely for a while and I’ve had quick views of them and ones where I’ve had to take my Mum’s word for it but seen the bird. But today I felt a real sense of recognition of seeing the bird and knowing without any doubt it was a Sedge Warbler. 

This was my 169th bird of 2018, a favourite bird of mine taking my year list higher than my 2013 and 2015 totals meaning only my 2014, 2016 and 2017 year lists finished higher than this current figure. I’ve known I could make my year list one of my top 4 since my marvellous Scotland trip propelled end of January total and since then this year has stayed higher than what I had seen on any given date than any other year so it was a long time coming in the end but I dare to dream about where this year list may finish for me now. I set off early today due to wanting to be back well in time for the World Cup final at 4 so this was probably my first year tick since 1st January seen before 9 o’clock. 

Another of my favourite species would take another of my year lists to an amazing place when I reached and spent about an hour at St. Catherine’s Hill. I had thought when I saw Chalkhill Blues here in 2015 and 2016 I had seen them as soon as I got through the gate. Before evening opening the gate I thought I’d done it again but the Holly Blue retreating back onto the Itchen navigation path was a false alarm. 

Two or three minutes later though when debating if to go with my original plan and climb the hill opposite the actual St. Catherine’s I caught sight of a blue and this one was a Chalkhill. As I proceeded on my route I was delighted to see a flurry of these one of my favourite butterflies. I have surely said this before but they are such a natural work of art and a real credit to the rural Hampshire/South Downs area. I was truly honoured to see them again. I took the fourth and fifth pictures in this photoset of them also. They took my year list to 38, level with last year’s total already and this meant it’s my joint second highest ever butterfly year list total with two to beat the record and a few I can see left. 

As I walked round I was amazed how many butterflies of different species I saw before 10 o’clock, including the Marbled White shown in the eighth picture in this photoset. Sunday is often my lay in day with my work body clock rarely allowing me one on a Saturday so a time I may usually be asleep resembled midday on this summer Sunday which was brilliant. The views across my work city were lovely as I tried to see if I could pick out my office, I took the sixth picture in this photoset of the hill looking very summery. I also took the seventh and ninth pictures in this photoset of a Cinnabar Moth caterpillar at the hill and another river view as I headed back. This was one of few Cinnabar moth caterpillar pictures of the many I’ve taken which wasn’t on a ragwort and being on a slope allowed me to easily adjust to get to a good position to take it with my macro. This solo journey for me today was in amazing weather and it will surely go down as one of my highlight trips of 2018. 

Wildlife Sightings Summary: My first of one of my favourite birds the Sedge Warbler this year, my first of one of my favourite butterflies the Chalkhill Blue this year, one of my favourite butterflies the Red Admiral, one of my favourite dragonflies the Golden-Ringed Dragonfly, Herring Gull, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Linnet, Robin, Blackbird, Swallow, House Martin, Mallard, Peacock, Small White, Holly Blue, Small Blue, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Small Skipper, Marbled White, Banded Demoiselle and I heard one of my favourite birds the Green Woodpecker as well as Skylark and Yellowhammer.