We may be approaching the quiet summer period when it comes to birding, but there has still been some good sightings in the last week and whilst the bird breeding season may soon be coming to an end, entomological interest is still high on the agenda, with plenty of butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, beetles, diptera and more on the wing at the moment. Highlights from the last few days include –
Peregrine – an individual over the Beach Hut last Thursday during our opening event, seen by Nick Crouch and a pair over the visitor trails this morning, seen by myself and volunteer Dave Roberts.
Hobby – still at least two birds, look for them on warm sunny day hawking for dragonflies over the visitor trails.
Turnstone – a group of three on the old silt lagoon 7 (the bit you can see from the southern visitor trail on the other side of the fenceline), provided only the third site record of this species and the first ones since May 2012.
Yellow wagtail – an individual regularly seen from the southern visitor trail.
Tree sparrows! There have been two reports of tree sparrows recently, one from the scrub behind the Beach Hut and the other from the public footpath hedgerow by the lagoons. Please do keep an eye and ear open for these birds and let us know of any further records.
Red-eyed damselflies – look for them on emergent vegetation around the water’s edge. This species can survive underwater for up to 30 minutes and yesterday Paul and I watched a pair in cop, climb down a Juncus stem into the water and continue to mate half way down the stem, completely submerged. I had never seen this before - fascinating!
Brown hawker – the first brown hawkers are now on the wing. Look for a very chestnut brown coloured dragonfly, they give the impression in flight of being very brown due to the pigmented wings – the only dragonfly species in the UK with coloured wings.
Painted lady – there have been two seen in the last few days from the visitor trails, keep an eye open for this migrant species.
And perhaps the pick of the week….two spotted flycatcher seen this morning (Tuesday 10th June) from the car park, by volunteer Dave Roberts. Sadly, the spotted flycatcher has undergone a massive decline since the 1960’s, although this is thought to be uneven throughout the UK (1), with perhaps one of the main drivers of the decline being reduced survival rates of first year birds (1). It’s scientific name, Muscicapa striata comes from the Latin meaning lined flyseizer, however the English name actually refers to the spotted juveniles. Although they don’t breed here, it is a pleasure to see these birds at Langford and good to know the site is providing for them as they pass through.
1 Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Leech, D.I., Massimino, D., Eglington, S.M., Johnston, A., Noble, D.G., Barimore, C., Kew, A.J., Downie, I.S., Risely, K. & Robinson, R.A. (2014). BirdTrends 2013: trends in numbers, breeding success and survival for UK breeding birds. BTO Research Report No. 652. BTO, Thetford. http://www.bto.org/birdtrends