Tuesday 26 June 2012

Somewhere Old, Somewhere New

This morning we met at Kilnsea and walked north along beacon lane.  Almost immediately after passing the House Martin colony we heard a Lesser Whitethroat singing.   The remainder of the sightings were almost identical to the last visit on 20th June.  There were more butterflies this time with a Painted Lady, at least 4 Small Heaths and a few Common Blues.  When we reached the reedbed there was another Small Heath, a Cinnabar Moth & several Burnet moths emerging from their chrysalises.  
Cuckoo (c) 2012 David Tasker
 Painted Lady
 Small Heath
 Common Blue
 Burnet-Moth (c) 2012 Phil Hargreaves
 Little Tern (c) 2012 Phil Hargreaves
The best non-bird sighting from the hide was a female Emperor Dragonfly.  We saw the same birds from the hide as last week, and then we joined by Paul Collins and the Little Tern Warden and another helper. We heard that at present there are about 30 Little Tern chicks, so barring accidents of weather and the intervention of the usual suspects of Fox, Merlin, Kestrel, and crows it could be a successful year for these scarce breeders
 Swallow
 Meadow Pipit (c) 2012 Phil Hargreaves
 Sandwich Terns
 Curlew
 Little Egrets
In the afternoon we risked going somewhere new: Kilnsea Wetlands. A flock of 30 Sandwich Terns were seen from the car park.  There was an Avocet on eg~Greenshank had flown into Beacon Ponds since our morning visit and there were more Sandwich terns, but there were few other differences.  The new area had potential, so will probably host a lot more species in subsequent year
Record Shot of Cuckoo (c) 2012 David Tasker
 Tadpoles
 Water Plant
 Whitethroat
 Juvenile Pied Wagtail (c) 2012 Phil Hargreaves
 Cattle (c) 2012 Phil Hargreaves

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