After two weeks of hard work preparing for the RSPB Council visit, an update of recent sightings is well overdue! Bird wise, we have picked up some nice species in the last couple of weeks, with regular waders including little ringed plover, ringed plover, redshank, oystercatcher and lapwing and more scarce visitors such as three beautiful breeding plumaged dunlin on silt lagoon 7, a common sandpiper on the balancing pond, a black-tailed godwit on Phase 1 and a lovely group of 22 bar-tailed godwits flying over going eastwards.
Wheatears and yellow wagtails continue to delight us, bringing a splash of colour to the new landscaping on Phase 1 and silt lagoon 7 and a stunning kingfisher on the balancing pond was the first I had seen in a while here.
All our migrant warbler species have now arrived and are singing away across the site, with the most recent addition being the first grasshopper warbler picked up during an early morning bird survey on the 2nd May.
Up to three hobbies were present hunting over Phase 2 last weekend and I counted a total of 7 buzzards circling over Phase 1 together.
Invertebrate wise, the cold temperatures, heavy rain and high winds have somewhat hampered survey efforts over the last six weeks! However, the first large red damselfly of the year was spotted on the 7th by volunteer John Ellis, a stunning pebble prominent moth was attracted to our office security light on Wednesday last week – that’s one more than the moth trap attracted(!) and the first Adela reaumurella, or green longhorn moths were spotted in the woodland on the 2nd. These moths are a metallic green colour and have very long antennae (hence the name longhorn). The male’s in particular are massive, being longer than the moth’s head, thorax and abdomen put together.
And finally a bit of botanical news, with the first common vetch just coming into flower on Phase 1 and hawthorn beginning to flower along the public footpath.