It was another lovely sunny day today, but it was rather chilly out on the reserve in a blustery northerly wind. Nevertheless, there were plenty of insects on the wing, especially if you could find a sheltered south-facing spot, out of the wind.
Insects were the main targets for my lunchtime walk, starting with dragonflies at the pond, where I was in luck. Two beautifully marked hairy dragonflies were patrolling the pond in search of smaller insects to eat. This species is always one of the first dragonflies to emerge, and May is the best month to see them. They are smaller than the later emerging hawkers and when seen at close range you can clearly see the hairs on the thorax.
Hairy dragonfly by Paul Green
Looking towards the busy sand martin colony, I noticed lots of water voles dropping on their feeding platform of cut stems. The voles themselves have been more elusive so far this spring, but they have clearly been very active. Also active were a mating pair of large red damselflies flitting across the pond.
A little further along the path, several newly emerged common blue damselflies were resting in the brambles, where bumblebees and and hoverflies fed, while a blackcap sang from a nearby willow tree. Meanwhile, one of the school groups found a stunning broad-bodied chaser dragonfly close to Wildlife Lookout - another early emerging dragonfly that is easy to identify due to its broad, flattened body.
The North Wall and dunes were a little too exposed for much insect activity, but it was nice to see the first common bird's-foot trefoil coming into flower, as was a patch of thrift in the dunes. Sea kale has been flowering for several weeks on the shingle beach. A brief scan of the rather stormy sea revealed a dainty little tern fishing alongside several much larger common terns.
As I walked along the sheltered path into East Hide I kept a close eye on the alders and willows as I looked for my next target. The willow blossom was proving attractive to a variety of bees, wasps, flies and hoverflies, and it wasn't long before a different flight shape revealed the presence of two green hairstreaks. This is one of my favourite butterflies, but a species that I sadly don't see often enough. They are best found in May and June, often resting on gorse bushes, where they will lay their eggs, but their coloration acts as a perfect camouflage from predators - and watching humans!
A green hairstreak feeding on willow - sometimes you wish the butterfly would just turn around a little!
Green hairstreaks are small butterflies (similar in size to a common blue). The upperwing is brown, but it's the underwing that gives them their name, being emerald green with a narrow pin stripe - or hairstreak. When perched among bright green leaves, this makes finding them a challenge, but this path is proving a good place to look at the moment - I saw at least four.
Eventually I got to see the colours at their best
Having walked around to East Hide, it would have been wrong not to pop in and spot some birds as well as bugs. As expected, the Scrape was chock full of nesting black-headed and Mediterranean gulls, avocets and common terns, as well as shelducks, gadwalls, mallards and shovelers, kittiwakes, common terns and a few redshanks and black-tailed godwits. Better still, we found a female ruff, common sandpiper and turnstone and a couple of lovely breeding plumage dunlins.
Avocet and redshank (below) from East Hide
Elsewhere, our guides found a breeding plumage knot and a bar-tailed godwit on South Scrape, at least five hobbies hunting over the reedbed, a cuckoo calling in the woods, bitterns, marsh harriers and swifts over the reedbed, and the Savi's warbler reeling at Island Mere, while I had a very close encounter with a young adder along the North Wall. Suffice to say that my sandalled-foot was a little too close for comfort!