News From SW Leics

My corner of Leicestershire is often ignored as a birding location. Well things are going quite well this year especially with locally rare breeding birds. At Brascote Pits a pair of Oystercatchers have three chicks and the Shelducks have five well grown ducklings. Neither of these two species breed successfully every year in south-west Leicestershire.

A respectable number of schedule 1 breeding birds have bred in the area this year including the first pair of Red Kites.

I had to travel to deepest darkest Wales to see Red Kites when I was a lad and back then no one expected to one day see one in Leicestershire. Well yesterday I stood enthralled as I watched 14 in the air together in south-west Leicestershire. Eight of them alighted in the same dead tree - how things change!

Red Kite

Whilst I was out yesterday I bumped into Neil Hagley who told me he'd seen some White-letter Hairstreaks at Croft/Huncote. It had been a few years since I last saw White-letter Hairstreaks there, so it was good to know they had survived. Adey Baker and I went to look for them this morning and luck was on our side. Two were nectaring on bramble flowers. The one that I photographed had its head hidden from my position, but at least I got a record shot. From the Huncote end of Croft Quarry you need to park by the metal gates and turn right as you go through the gate. walk uphill and stop just past the double telegraph poles. There is an obvious bramble bush with pinkish flowers and this was where we saw them.

White-letter Hairstreak, Croft Quarry