Five southern migrant hawkers were found in a ditch on vange at the end of July along with two great green bush crickets. This small hawker dragonfly has only been recorded as a vagrant in the Uk, there have been less than ten previous records, a fantastic find, nice one Les!
Hot on the heels of the hawker was the discovery of a southern emerald damselfly at Wat Tyler Country Park the first Essex record! A full account of the find by Neil Phillips can be found here.
There have been some interesting bird reports too, in fact very interesting! A cattle egret was seen in the egret roost at Wat Tyler on 25 July. It came in to the roost which is located on the southern edge of the Veolia scrape at around 20.40 along with 40+ little egrets. The following morning the cattle egret left the roost and followed the little egrets to feed on Vange Marsh, it left to feed else where at 07.30. Monday evening saw a group of us gathered in the bird hide, in the hope that it may return to roost again, alas not, although 60 little egrets coming in to roost was a marvellous sight.
A juvenile spoonbill stayed only briefly on Vange Marsh on August 3, a wood sandpiper has been seen recently along with 12 Green Sandpiper, 6 Common Sandpiper, 3 Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 1 Curlew, 1 Snipe, 8 Black-tailed Godwit and at least two garganey.
And finally for this update, the delightful little chap below along with his mates have been delighting staff and visitors to the RSPB Centre at Wat Tyler Country Park. These speckled bush crickets have been posing for photographs in the fig tree beside the main entrance and are becoming mini celebrities!