We have a fabulous little activity sheet for children called Nature's colours. It's a simple piece of card with 20 different colours and shades. The idea is to walk around the reserve and see how many different colours you can match. For example, the marsh mallow flowers perfectly match one of the shades of pink, and the reeds match one of the greens.
Anyone lucky enough to have spotted some of today's star birds could have ticked off several colours in one go. Unfortunately, the only people to see the four bee-eaters were our Retail Manager and a reception volunteer, as the birds flew east over the car park at about 8.30 this morning. Kingfishers are a bit easier to spot at this time of year (though you still need to be in the right place at the right time), and they too would allow you to tick off several colours.
Bee-eater by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Another bird that is more colourful than many people realise is the turtle dove, and one was again seen in the car park first thing today. This is the best place to look at the moment for this difficult to find bird.
The birds on the Scrape will mostly allow you only to tick off the browns and greys, but there's still a good selection of waders present. Species seen today, mostly in single figure counts, included little stint, little ringed and ringed plovers, knot, dunlins, ruffs, snipe, black-tailed godwits, spotted redshanks, redshanks, greenshanks, green and common sandpipers, plus oystercatchers, avocets and lapwings. The little gull flock increased again to an impressive 70 birds, and at least one Sandwich tern was present.
Elsewhere, bitterns, marsh harriers, bearded tits, sedge and reed warblers and otters were seen at Island Mere, and the water vole at the pond.
The butterflies on the buddleia are another great source of colours, and the hummingbird hawkmoth was once again seen, if only briefly, today. Other colourful insects to look out for include common blue butterflies on the dunes, various dragonflies and damselflies, and the yellow and black bee-wolfs ont he North Wall. Close to these it's worth keeping an eye open for lesser whitethroats feeding on blackberries, or for the stone-curlews that are being seen occasionally north of the North Wall.
Another bird adding a subtle shade of pink to nature's colours is the long-tailed tit, and I was pleased to manage to photograph this one at the car park entrance yesterday morning.
Long-tailed tit by Ian Barthorpe
Tomorrow is the next bird ringing demonstration. Will the ringers catch any of these beautiful birds.