Wednesday, November 3, 2021

The Spiders are out tonight!

Wednesday 3rd November 2021.


The Great Grey Shrike at Backley Common, New Forest. Photo by Andy Tew.  

It was noticeably colder today, despite mostly being a sunny day, though the cloud did roll in by 2pm and even a bit of light rain did fall. I was working over in the Gosport area all day along with Portchester Crematorium and so I kept an eye out for anything of note during my working day. I am now officially on holiday for about 5 days and tomorrow, I hope to kick off my small break with a visit to East Head, courtesy of Sarah Russell’s excellent directions to view a long staying Snow Bunting. Nearby, within Chichester Harbour, there is also a pair of female Velvet Scoters to look out for.


One of the Tube web Spiders in the eaves outside my kitchen tonight.

My day kicked off with a drive to Gosport via the M275 and I quickly pointed out the flock of Brent Geese to my co-worker, who were swimming on the high tide within Portsmouth Harbour. Also along the same stretch of road, a Common Buzzard was perched on one of the roadside street lamps as was a male Kestrel, which looked stunning in the bright sunshine. 


A Double-striped Pug was attracted to my moth box tonight.

Portchester Crematorium held the same moths as yesterday that included the Yellow-lined Quaker, Double-striped Pug, Beautiful Plume and Common Plume and lots of Lacewings still. But it was the local Grey Squirrels that got my attention as I was standing south of the car park and two Grey Squirrels literally parked themselves right by my feet! I did explain to them that I had no food to offer them and it looked as though they understood as they moved off!


Another of the Tube web Spiders poking its legs out tonight.

Tonight, I have put my moth box on to hopefully add to my November list of moths, though it is supposed to be near freezing tonight; but you simply never know. With one of my small torches, I took a look at our local spiders that were lurking under the eaves of the kitchen. Two quite large Tube web Spiders, Segestria florentina and the strangely named Missing Sector Orb Weaver spiders were showing well tonight, although the former were showing only their large legs and the light of the torch reflecting on their eyes. I have no problem with spiders at all, though I tend to simply leave them to get on with life. Should they take a moth, then so be it; that's nature as they say. At 9pm this evening, my moth box had a attracted both a Double-striped Pug and a Common Plume.


One of several Missing Sector Orb Weaver spiders outside my kitchen tonight.

In Hampshire today, the Snow Bunting still resides on the beach at Warsash and the Great Grey Shrike is still in the Backley Bottom area of the New Forest and it or a different bird was at nearby Sandy Ridge. I was very interested in Chris Packham's post on Facebook this evening regarding arguably the greatest ambassador for our planet, the 95 year old Sir David Attenborough’s superb speech at the COP26 Summit with most of the world leaders in attendance. Of course, three of the largest polluters in the world, Russia, Brazil and China were not there at the meeting to everyone’s frustration. I personally believe it is too late to save the world’s climate for Human kind is simply too thick and greedy for change, though I pray I am so wrong. We shall see. I have put a link on my Blog for everyone to listen too and take note. See below.

https://youtu.be/A6SO0xkr_uI


No comments:

Post a Comment

Old Portsmouth & the Cemy.

Thursday 19th December 2024. Pembroke Road, Old Portsmouth. The Royal Garrison Church in Old Portsmouth. The clouds rolled in around 3pm but...