Rye Meads Sightings Blog - May

May on the Reserve

A few people to thank this month – Mel for his usual mutterings which flesh out a bit of variety in these blogs, our monitoring volunteer Nick for his thorough counts of birds and butterflies, and reserve volunteer Millie for collating photos from the Friends of RSPB Rye Meads group for this month. Plus of course, everyone who logs their sightings with us in the Visitor Centre!

Plenty of positives to take from May, but we’ll get the obvious negative out of the way first – unfortunately Avian Flu was suspected on the reserve in April and was duly confirmed, with the Black-Headed Gull population affected over the first half of the month. Fingers crossed though, we haven’t had any fatalities for a good few days now, and it also doesn’t seem to have affected any other species. Thank you to our visitors who have taken note of the measures we’ve put in place to reduce the chances of any spread and hopefully soon we’ll be back to normal.

With lots of the summer migrants appearing in April, May only saw three new bird species for 2023, all brief visits, taking the year’s total in the book to 113. There were also four different species which have been around for longer, but eluded the camera lenses until May!

Heavy on the non-birds this month though. The weather cheering up had already brought a lot of butterflies out, but we’re now into the emergence of Odonata (damselflies and dragonflies) and many of you have also got the macro lenses out and focused on the smaller inhabitants of the reserve.

Kingfishers

Activity at the Kingfisher Hub continues to interest. Incubation of eggs started at the end of April, with hatching in mid-May and both the male and female were very active feeding for a week or so. Just as we started our first run of VIP Kingfisher Mornings though, the female sadly disappeared and the male has been left as a solo parent. On the 28^th, another new female (number three!) arrived and has been busy investigating new nest holes with the male, and they have mated several times since. Fortunately the male hasn’t neglected his duties feeding his first brood but we’ll see what happens as and when they fledge very soon!

New Arrivals and Photos

Cuckoos arrived at Rye Meads in late-April, but have been a source of frustration for many, regularly being heard but not seen. There’s been a handful most days in May and thankfully Mark O’Dell was one of a handful of people who have been able to get some great shots of them in flight.

Peregrines and Pied Wagtails have been around since the winter, but only now have been photographed, while the Greylag Geese have drawn the attention of the cameras now that they’ve got some goslings in tow.

May also saw brief visits from a Spotted Flycatcher, a Wood Sandpiper and Redshank, with the latter also popping up again in early June. Eyes peeled!

Other Birds of the Reserve

One thing that left us a bit stumped this month was a single sighting of what appears to be a juvenile Bearded Tit late in the month. It appears to have come and gone in a day, which would be very unusual, but as the Rye Meads Ringing Group have scoured the entire reserve over the last few months without any evidence that they’d stuck around, we’re not sure what to conclude!

Waterfowl breeding season has led to both a cuteness overload of fledglings and aggressive behaviour from Geese, Gulls and Coots in particular. Kestrels are frequenting the box at the Kingfisher Hub; although not every day, many have seen them perching there to eat their catch. Another interesting sighting at the Kingfisher Hub was a Grey Heron happily swallowing a mole!

As you’d expect, the increase in insects has coincided with a lot of Hobby sightings. Mel was one of the lucky ones seeing up to five over the meadow at once but I think the photo below of a Hobby with a plane in the background is one of my favourites of the year so far! There have also been plenty of sightings of Swifts, Swallows and Martins, for those of you who like a challenge for your camera. Common Terns though are fairly sparse, with just a few breeding pairs around.

It was a good month for the letter W though, with Whinchat, Water Rail, Whitethroat (+ Lesser), and Warblers (Cettis, Garden, Grasshopper, Reed, Sedge and Willow) all seen and heard around the reserve. Mel has been a big fan though of the Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs adding to the orchestra.

Dragonflies and Damselflies

We’ve got some Odonata fans on our volunteer work party, and over the last few weeks they’ve been busy cutting back some vegetation around the ditches to create viewpoints for dragonflies and damselflies, which led to instant success even while they were still being cut. Large Red Damselflies started to emerge in the last few days of April, and they have been closely followed by Azure, Blue-Tailed, and Banded Demoiselles. On the Dragonfly front, the first reports and photos have been of Four Spotted Chasers, and Hairy Dragonflies.

Butterflies and Moths

The butterfly count stands at 11, the same as April, but they are certainly more regular. We have our first photos of Holly Blue, Orange Tip, and Green-Veined White with other species reaching a peak in May. There's also been a rise in caterpillars late in the month. It might be that we hit the “June Gap” soon, where it goes a little quiet after this first wave of butterfly life cycles, but keep your eyes peeled for the likes of Common Blue and Ringlet that are later to emerge.

Mel’s been moth duty with Vicky again, luring a stunning Emperor Moth. He also spotted a white Ermine Moth, while among those seen by our visitors were a Yellow-Barred Longhorn and Small China-Mark.

Legless Things, Little Things and Mammalian Things

The Kingfisher Hub is always a busy place, but its worth keeping your eye out for more than Kingfishers, as noted above. A regular feature over the last month or so has been a Grass Snake swimming across the water. A juvenile Grass Snake has also regularly frequented some of the artificial covers on the reserve, as has a Slow Worm – worth checking under them for critters and reporting what you find to us along with the number painted on the cover!

Wasp beetles have proliferated around the reserve, and the nettle beds are attracting the likes of Nursery Web Spiders, Click Beetles and Nettle Weevils. Mel’s been a big fan of the small stuff, as is regular visitor Allan Burrows, who also provided a great shot of a swarm of Honey Bees which chose to settle down in a Swift box at the back of the Visitor Centre.