Eccleston Mere

Chiffchaff 1 singing
Tufted Duck 6

Old Coach Road

Curlew 1 flying over

Old Coach Road

There was a cracking male Wheatear in the horse paddocks on the junction of the Old Coach Road and Mossborough Hall Lane today. I saw it at 8am and it was still present at 3pm. This is the second earliest Wheatear I have seen in Britain.

Also in the area, two Shelduck, two Chiffchaffs and two Buzzards.

A few more spiders

The fearsome, large jawed, Pachygnatha clercki. This is a male because it has the large swollen palps. It's about 8mm long in reality.


If the chap below is looking a bit nervous, it's because the fearsome, muscley creature with the big jaws is his date! Erigone longipalpis.


This is the palp of a male Centromerita bicolor. It's about 0.5mm long.

Clwydian range

We had a nice walk in the Clwydians today, generally in the Moel Arthur area. Plenty of Ravens and Buzzards, some of which were displaying, plus a few Stonechats.


Coltsfoot, one of my favourite spring flowers.


Looking towards Penycloddiau from Moel Plas-yw.

Holcroft Moss

Plenty of Hare's-tail Cotton Grass in flower on Holcroft Moss at Culcheth today. Earlier, I heard my first Chiffchaff of the spring at Risley Moss.

A few money spiders

Who could not love the Linyphiidae family of spiders? Otherwise known as "money spiders", there are about 300 species in the UK, varying in size from about 1.5mm to 4mm. They are identified by a number of features including the shape of the carapace (head) in the males, the number of dorsal spines on the tibia, the presence or otherwise of trichobothria (long hair like setae) and the position of the trichobothria on the metatarsus. However, the clinching id features of mature animals are the genitalia. The male genetalia are the swollen boxing glove like palps, and these are unique to each species, particularly the shape of the palpal tibia. The female genetalia is the epigyne which is again unique to each species. The photos below are amongst my first efforts to photograph spiders. The largest spider here is about 3mm long in real life





The above two photos are both male Silometopus ambiguus which has particularly impressive palps.


This is underside of a female Oedothorax fuscus.


The epigyne of Oedothorax fuscus. Compare it to the quite diffferent epigyne of Erigone longipalpis (below).