After a relatively quiet start to the Breeding Bird Survey season, the warblers have finally started to descend on us in numbers and this morning’s survey was alive with song!
From the office to silt lagoon 6, we recorded 18 sedge warbler, 11 reed warbler, 3 chiffchaff, 4 willow warbler, 6 whitethroat and a lesser whitethroat. This number should increase too over the coming weeks, with a while to go to reach last year’s totals of 41 singing reed warblers and 28 sedge warblers – I hope we will get there soon!
Other bird news includes a lovely party of 10 ringed plover on Phase 1 yesterday afternoon, my first glimpse of a cuckoo along the public footpath by the viewing screen and dunlin on silt lagoon 7.
Frustratingly, insects are still rather scarce at the moment. I had my first green-veined white butterflies yesterday on the public footpath near the woodland, along with a few peacocks and a small tortoiseshell, but no speckled wood, orange-tip or holly blue, which I would expect any day now.
A new ladybird species for the site was on Cottage Lane yesterday, a pine ladybird, or Exochomus quadripustulatus to be scientific. A small species, black in colour, with usually four red spots, the front two shaped like comma’s. It is a fairly common and widespread species in England and feeds on other invertebrates.
And finally, a bit of potentially exciting news about hoverflies! I found an interesting looking specimen yesterday on the public footpath at woodland edge. Obviously a bumblebee mimic, the insect was round in shape and furry, with a black base colour, white tail and two yellow bands. On investigation, I think this is Pocota personata – a species with a very southern distribution and rare this far north, with only scattered records from Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire in recent years. I didn’t manage a photo unfortunately, so please keep your eyes open along the stretch of woodland edge on the footpath and do let us know if you see one!