With no volunteer guides in to help visitors today, I took the opportunity to enjoy a morning stroll around the Scrape in the lovely early autumn sunshine. With not a breathe of wind in the air, it really was an enjoyable walk, topped off by some unexpected wildlife sightings.
The first highlights were the butterflies. After a few cooler, damper days, it was nice to see several red admirals, small whites and small coppers flitting around the North Bushes. They weren't the only insects on t he wing either. Common and ruddy darters and migrant hawkers were numerous, and I spotted common blue damselflies, honeybees, bumblebees and this lovely hoverfly nectaring on fleabane - I think it's called a sun hoverfly.
We're hoping to open the North Bushes seasonal trail tomorrow to give you the chance to spot migrant warblers, finches and thrushes as well as insects taking advantage of the relative shelter on this trail. There are also some great fungi along the trail, like this puffball.
I had barely started out along the North Wall when news came that the Waveney Bird Club had caught five bearded tits that they were going to ring. Today was their penultimate ringing demonstration of the year - they are back on Thursday 26 October during half term, and they caught a good selection of warblers, tits and finches, but the beardies were undoubtedly the star birds.
Male bearded tit after ringing. Photo by Hannah Jones
In fact, it was a very good day for seeing bearded tits as I watched a small party feeding right in front of East Hide and saw two other groups between the Sluice and Wildlife Lookout. We're just finalising plans for some special bearded tit walks this autumn. Check out our Facebook and Twitter pages in the next week or so for details.
From East Hide I was able to watch a good variety of ducks and waders. Wader migration has passed its peak in terms of numbers, but there were still 90 black-tailed godwits, 22 avocets, six spotted redshanks, a knot and three ruffs on East Scrape as well as 40+ lapwings, 200+ teals and good numbers of gadwalls, shovelers and mallards. There were only a few pied wagtails though, so the wagtail migration may also have peaked.
This beautiful little egret fed close to the Public Viewpoint, but the star sighting there was a kingfisher that hovered, back to me, no more than ten metres from the hide. Sadly, it was too quick to photograph.
Continuing along the dunes, my walk was interrupted several times by insects - various crickets and grasshoppers, large white and peacock butterflies, common and ruddy darters and migrant hawkers, and a lovely leaf beetle called Chrysolina banksi (photo below by Davene Everett).
There were birds to distract me along the dunes too. A juvenile wheatear and male stonechat were north of the sluice, while at least four stonechats, four whitethroats and a juvenile willow warbler were in the sluice bushes. Later in the afternoon, a group of home-school children helped us to cut a trail through the bushes to make it easier to see autumn migrants. They were excited to find an ancient apple tree with tasty apples growing there too. Sadly, our Learning Officer was also handed a dead female adder that had been found nearby. We suspect it was a victim of a bird attack, most likely by a pheasant.
Two hobbies and a kestrel had a brief tussle of hunting rights above the Levels, and this swallow posed for me close to the sluice.
My return walk from the sluice was equally exciting, with common sandpiper and reed warbler seen around the Konik Field, peacock and comma butterflies and southern hawker dragonflies added to the insect list, good numbers of coots, gadwalls and little grebes behind South Hide, and a further good selection of waders from Wildlife Lookout. These included up to five green sandpipers, a common sandpiper, two ruffs, four spotted redshanks, seven snipe, six ringed plovers and about 30 dunlins. A handful of wigeons were among the ducks too.
The best, however, was left till last. A minor disturbance among the waders suggested the presence of a raptor, but they had been fooled. In fact, the bird flying low over the Scrape was a very late cuckoo - presumably the bird seen earlier by the ringers as it flew around the car park. The cuckoo settled briefly behind East Hide, then on the Scrape fence, before heading south. Next stop? Who knows, but with luck it will make it the Congo rainforest in the next few weeks and safely to breed next spring.