After a few days of rain to wet the soil, we are back to scorching sunny weather again. Insects such as crickets, grasshoppers and beetles are thriving in the dry weather. Look out for great green bush crickets here on the reserve - they are huge!
Although the adult cuckoos have bred, laid their eggs and left, the juveniles are still around. Cuckoos are fantastic birds and are brood parasites, journeying all the way here from Africa so the females can lay an egg in another birds nest; especially meadow pipits, dunnocks and reed warblers. Once hatched, the cuckoo chick ejects all other eggs from the nest so it's adoptive parents focus their sole attention on the one chick. Cuckoos feast on hairy caterpillars and they particularly love the brown-tailed moth caterpillar which we have in abundance here. Regular visitor and photographer Graham Parry captured this image yesterday of a reed warbler feeding its cuckoo baby. How they don't realise that this isn't their chick by this point we will never know!
We've also seen a few (very early) passage waders starting to migrate through. Many are still in their summer plumage such as ruff and black-tailed godwit. Our great white egrets have also returned to site with 5 of them being seen at Denge Marsh today.
Plenty of seabirds have been sighted on Burrowes Pit including our nesting common terns and gulls. We have also had Mediterranean gulls and black terns around too.
If you are new to bird watching, we have a Bird watching for Beginners walk on Monday 27th August. For more information please click here.