May WeBS and other highlights....

Hello all blog readers – apologies for the absence of blogs over the last week, I have been away on holiday. However, it’s now back to business as usual and my first task this morning was the monthly Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS). It’s a glorious day here, with plenty of birds to see and loads of insects on the wing. Here are this morning’s WeBS results and other highlights –

49 mallard

29 tufted duck

16 gadwall

8 pochard

1 shoveler

55 mute swan – with the year’s first chicks

38 greylag goose

19 canada goose

8 shelduck

102 coot – with the first chicks

4 moorhen

1 grey heron

1 little egret

7 great crested grebe – with the first chick of the year

12 lapwing – one pair with a brood of 3 chicks on phase 3

4 oystercatcher

1 greenshank

8 black-headed gull

1 great black-backed gull

2 common tern

Up to 3 hobby over the visitor trails going after dragonflies, grasshopper warbler reeling from the south western corner of the visitor trail, cuckoo singing from silt lagoon 6 (the reedy one behind the Beach Hut) and a chorus of reed warblers – definitely more than before I went away on holiday.

New insects on the wing today include common blue and red admiral butterflies, the first four-spot chaser of the year, Phyllopertha horticola – the garden chafer and a lovely specimen of Pyrochroa serraticornis – the red headed cardinal beetle. The grasslands are starting to look smashing as well, with several species in flower now including grass vetchling, bird’s-foot trefoil, common vetch, smooth tare, ox-eye daisy, ragged robin and yellow rattle.