Very Quiet on the Butterfly Front but a Welcome Visitor.

 Needing some exercise, late in the afternoon, I walked around the Woodland Burial Ground.  Things were very quiet on both the butterfly and bird fronts.  However, as I turned a corner of the perimeter path a large familiar form flew ahead of me with a tyical bounding flight: a superb green woodpecker.  Regretting not taking either binoculars or camera, I walked slowly and quietly up to where it had disappeared and was rewarded with two more close views before it flew off, it's laugh-like yaffle echoing round the site.

The few butterflies I did see included: Speckled Wood 2, Large White 1, Comma 1, Meadow Brown 1.

To view large, please click on an image. All from the archives.

Speckled Wood

Speckled Wood

Comma

Meadow Brown, male

Green Woodpecker in Scartho Cemetery

Scartho Cemetery is one of my regular locations for walking and more recently running; well jogging to be fair and very slowly at that.  I have quite often recently heard the yaffle of a green 'pecker on my visits but never managed to spot one until this week when I have seen two - or one twice.  Once while running and today while walking.  This is exciting as we never used to see greens in our area.  I have also heard one once or twice at Scallows where I have my winter feeding station and hear them regularly on our walks through Irby Woods.  In Lincolnshire I have only seen them further south and west on the heathy lands of the Lincolnshire Coversands; in fact growing up in Woodhall Spa it was the only woodpecker I had seen until I went to college in Sheffield and began birdwatching there.
The attached photos are of a bedraggled juvenile bird that I took at few years ago at Old Moor RSPB reserve.