John Marchant

@johnmarchant.bsky.social

432 Followers 282 Following

Birds, moths and other British wildlife: I have helped record our declining bird diversity for 50+ years as a BTO staffer and volunteer - in retirement, enjoying what’s left, and paying more attention to other taxa.

Summer Jack Snipes are exceptionally rare as far south as Norfolk. I photographed this one against strong sunlight, which burnt out all of the background to clean white, leaving most of the bird as an irregular blob, standing above a puddle-shaped reflection of bits of itself in the water.
A very fancy, mottled, pale grey fly, with a yellow face and red eyes, forehead and leg joints, sitting on a water-lily leaf.
Dear John 2025 was your 67th year of BirdTrack records… year list of 264 species
I saw most of my L S Woodpeckers in the 1970s, and stopped seeing them annually in the mid 1990s.
A close-up showing a partly folded hind wing, broadly banded black and outrageous crimson-pink, overlain by a section of upper wing with an intricate pattern of scales in black and several shades of buff and brown.
Broom Moth
A black beetle with plain brown wing cases, about a centimetre long. The antennae are long and curved, with seven large teeth along the front margin.
“An analysis of ringing reveries”. “Reveries” should of course read “recoveries” but raises interesting questions on the philosophy of science.
Grapholita internana White-underwing Piercer, flying in numbers around gorse in hot sun. Unrecorded between Breckland and the Suffolk coastal heaths, it seems.
10.5k bird sightings sent to BirdTrack in 2024, mainly from E Anglia, brought my 66-year total to 294k.
Acleris hastiana, Varied Tortrix - about a centimetre long, mainly grey and chestnut but with a golden-buff crossband and flecks of black and white.
A glossy black crow with a dirty white collar and chest, from Africa or from an aviary somewhere - an informed guess will determine whether BOU add it to the official British List.
Cypress Carpet - a moth new to Norfolk in 2011.