Pairing up after a chilly night.

A rather chilly night with a minimum temperature of 2.2C and a fair amount of dew this morning.  41 moths of 7 species in the trap overnight.  Apart from the usual Orthosias there were single Yellow Horned, Early Tooth-striped and Early Grey. The full list was

Yellow Horned (Achlya flavicornis) 1
Early Tooth-striped (Trichopteryx carpinata) 1
Common Quaker (Orthosia cerasi) 19
Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta) 3
Twin-spotted Quaker (Orthosia munda) 2
Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica) 15
Early Grey  (Xylocampa areola) 1

At dawn this morning, sorting out the catch in the garden, I could both Green and Great spotted Woodpecker, Tawny Owl and Chiffchaff singing as well as the commoner garden birds.

Talking of which, two male Greenfinches are now virtually resident at the bird table as I'm down to the last bag of food for the season and it's mainly sunflower seeds, so they two happy finches. The hen Blackbird has finished lining her nest though she isn't sitting yet but the first egg will probably still be laid in March. Wrens are going in and out of the nestbox occasionally but I still haven't  seen them with any nesting material. The Robins have paired up as they are often together now whereas even a few weeks ago, the resident bird, which looks like having been the female, was chasing every other Robin and occasional other bird that ventured into the garden. The Dunnocks have deserted the garden and nesting across the road, just using the garden as a feeding area and song post. I don't think the male, at least, is the same bird (poor Dennis) but interestingly they are nesting in a conifer again.