Dalgety bay - Silver Darlings

Braw

An interesting evening kicked off yesterday when my missus asked me to take some rubbish out to the bin. As I went a Whimbrel flew SW over the garden, calling and obviously keen that I didn't miss out on it.

Enchanter's Nightshade

I headed out for a walk around the bay, knowing that since I'd been away for over a week three was bound to be something new. First up was Enchanter's Nightshade in the woods behind the house, before arriving at the sailing club at high tide to find massive shoals of small fish all around the bay. Tens of thousands of them with the occasional breach of the surface and some silver sides evident as individuals twisted and turned. I decided to go home for a net! First though I ran up Erysiphe on Heracleum and a nice flowering patch of Field Bindweed between parked yachts and the bay. Here's a video of a small shoal breaking the water surface.

After a brief loop I headed home and grabbed a net and bucket from the garage. That was the easy part!

Back at the harbour the water was dropping and I tried the slow approach. They swam away slowly. I tried the fast approach. They swam away really fast. Finally I went for the gannet/tern approach and smashed the net into the water from a height - bingo!

Four specimens were secured. Back at the lab the dorsal fin originated clearly before the ventrals and the eye was pretty big, which seem to separate it reliably from the only other option I could see, which was Sprat. Though I've seen and eaten a fair few, this was the first herring I remember seeing alive.

When I was growing up my dad used to wear a hand-knitted arran sweater and had a huge beard. With my uncle and aunt they used to sing folk songs with a guitar in the back garden, and I still remember some of them. We also used to listen to stuff like this in the car on journeys, though I remember a faster version that I liked better than this (by the Spinners, maybe).

Numbers:

1059	*	flowering plant	Mahonia aquifolium	Oregon Grape
1060		flowering plant	Polygonum aviculare	Knotgrass
1061		lep-moth	Udea prunalis	A pyralid moth
1062		coleoptera	Aphodius rufipes	A dung beetle
1063		lep-moth	Diachrysia chrysitis	Burnished Brass
1064		lep-moth	Hylaea fasciaria	Barred Red
1065		lep-moth	Cosmia trapezina	The Dun-bar
1066		lep-moth	Apamea scolopacina	Slender Brindle
1067		lep-moth	Noctua janthe	LBBY Underwing
1068		lep-moth	Ochropacha duplaris	Common Lutestring
1069	*	lep-moth	Caloptria margaritella	Silver-stripe Grass Veneer
1070		lep-moth	Acleris forsskaleana	A micro moth
1071		lep-moth	Eudonia lacustrata	A micro moth
1072		lep-moth	Autographa gamma	Silver Y
1073		flowering plant	Malva moschata	Musk Mallow
1074	*	flowering plant	Campanula persicifolia	Peach-leaved Bellflower
1075	*	flowering plant	Circaea lutetiana	Enchanter's Nightshade
1076	*	flowering plant	Convolvulus arvensis	Field Bindweed
1077	*	fish	Clupea harengus	Herring
1078		fungus	Erisyphe heraclei	A fungus
1079		bird	Numenius phaeopus	Whimbrel