As is often the case at this time of year, our visitor experience team and our volunteer guides turn their attentions to Minsmere's smaller inhabitants, with a host of insects drawing us away from our desks, or keeping us out of the hides.
Interestingly, though, even the birds have been playing along with the miniature theme today. Among the large numbers of black-headed and Mediterranean gulls and kittiwakes on the Scrape, the flock of little gulls now exceeds 40 birds. There's been no sign of any little terns today, or Arctic terns, but there remain good good numbers of common and Sandwich terns, both resting on the Scrape and plunge-diving into the sea just a few metres offshore.
The small theme continued with our waders as the first little stint of the autumn dropped onto the Scrape briefly this morning. (I know we're still in the middle of a dry summer, but most of the waders visiting the Scrape in July are already southbound waders, hence autumn migrants.) Many of the waders remain in their breeding finery, and it was great to see two dunlins sporting full black bellies, three red knot and a very colourful ruff on East Scrape at lunchtime. Some of the spotted redshanks are still black, but others have already started to moult, acquiring a temporary mottled plumage as they slowly fade. There was an impressive count of 19 yesterday. Other waders to look out for include green and common sandpipers, greenshanks, curlews, ringed plover and oystercatchers, plus the more numerous avocets and black-tailed godwits.
Even the ducks have a bit of a small theme with numbers of teals - our smallest duck - increasing and the confirmation that our pair of pintails have bred successfully as a duckling was accompanying the female on East Scrape this morning. Although common ducks in winter, pintails are rare breeders in the UK, with only occasional breeding attempts in Suffolk, so this is quite a notable record.
Many of our smaller birds are quite visible at this time of year too, with family parties of tits flitting around the woods, young reed warblers showing in the reedbeds, and flocks of linnets and goldfinches feeding on seeding thistles and knapweeds. I managed to grab a photo of this lovely adult goldfinch along the North Wall, for example.
Of course, not all our birds are small, and there are still regular sightings of bitterns and marsh harriers over the reedbed, while a spoonbill was on East Scrape at lunchtime. More unusual was a honey-buzzard along the Woodland Trail yesterday, while perhaps biggest surprise, in every sense of the word, was a golden eagle that was seen yesterday! The latter is an escaped bird that may have been on the wing for a couple of years, but must still been an impressive sight. The chances of a wild golden eagle every arriving at Minsmere are minuscule, though we do occasionally seen the even bigger white-tailed eagle in winter.
But back to the world of miniature, though, as insects once again diverted me away from birds on my lunchtime walk. Butterflies were my first distraction, notably this beautifully camouflaged grayling along the beach.
Graylings are intricately patterned and habitually land with closed wings, making them particularly difficult to spot in their sandy heathland habitat. Not so the next insect that I saw, which was a the beautiful red and black day flying six-spot burnet moth, here feeding on creeping thistle along the North Wall.
This struck me as a bit of role reversal as most people think of butterflies as bright and colourful and moths as drab and well camouflaged, yet here was a highly visible moth and an almost invisible butterfly, proving once again that rules are always there to be broken in nature.
My next stop, as usual, was Digger Alley. After watching a couple of pantaloon bees and a green-eyed flower bee disappear into their burrows at high speed, and several ruby-tailed wasps waiting in dash into an unguarded nest chamber, I spent a bit of time watching the beewolves.
The first bit of action was interesting, and I wander what Whsitling Joe and Mrs WJ think was going on here.
One beewolf was guarding its burrow entrance, alongside which lay what I assumed was a discarded bee. A second beewolf waiting nearby, and a partially decapitated bee was a little further away. Had the beewolves been fighting over their victims? Whatever had happened before my arrival, it wasn't long before the burrow owner grabbed the bee, pulled it inside the burrow, then returned quickly to the entrance, while the second beewolf hovered briefly nearby.
After this excitement, I spent a few more minutes watching the comings and goings around Digger Alley. The beewolves were active enough, but they didn't seem to be bringing many bees in. Perhaps the overcast conditions had reduced the number of bees on the wing - though I did spot several brave honeybees feeding on bramble flowers right alongside the path. Eventually though, I did spot a beewolf with prey. I knew that I'd need an element of luck if I was to get a photo as they often disappear rapidly into their burrow with their prey. As expected, I only got one chance, but I was quite happy with the result.
What do you think Whistling Joe?
Back at the visitor centre I had one final bit of insect spotting to do as two of our visitors asked me if I could catch a moth that was resting above the door inside the toilet block as they couldn't identify it! The things we do in the name of visitor experience! Anyway, job done, the moth turned out to be a ribbon wave - a common species after all.
Not bad, not bad :-) The trick for in-flight shots is to lay on the grass at the top of the sloping path side (avoiding any burrows!) so you're shooting down the path edge. That way the AF on the camera can isolate and lock onto the Beewolf a bit easier (I'm not saying it's easy, just a little easier :-)). You either get very dusty, or use a foam roll to lay on.
Regarding the unusual behavior... Whilst most Beewolves head straight down the burrow headfirst, slipping the bee backwards slightly as they do so to get it down, occasionally we do see a bee dropped at the entrance, the Beewolf go in, turn round and then drag the bee in backwards. Whether the bee is just a little bigger than normal it's difficult to say. I'm guessing that's what has happened here, and the second Beewolf was flying past and thought "Oooo, a freebie!" and was about to pinch it when Beewolf 1 came back out and they had a little standoff.
There is another possibility though. Once before we have come across two Beewolves appearing to work together sharing a burrow. One would fly in with a bee, drop it at the burrow entrance and a second would come out, have a brief chat with the first and take the bee down. Who knows, maybe we're seeing the start of a new sub-species of socializing Beewolves!
The abandoned bee has likely been rejected after the Beewolf's quality control inspection. It gets thrown out if it has mite or similar. Sometimes a Beewolf will take 3 or 4 bees out of its own burrow and dump them - my assumption there is that it has returned and found a parasite has snuck in, so it throws them away. The broken state is likely someone walking on the body, or possibly another wasp (like the German wasps we've seen before) interrupted in its dissection of the tasty snack :-)
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