RXwildlife News & Events

Similar conditions to those of yesterday today resulted in a small but varied arrival of migrants. The highlight was a singing Golden Oriole at the Long Pits for a time during the morning but other significant records included a male Hen Harrier, a Hobby, a Ruff, a Common Sandpiper, 81 Swallows and 16 House Martins, seven Tree Pipits, a Redstart, three Garden Warblers, three Willow Warblers and seven Spotted Flycatchers. A Grey Partridge and 17 Corn Bunting were also seen.

David Walker from DBO website

Today’s dull lighting was good for photographing the first Sea Pea flowers to appear this year. The yesterday’s rain should be good for the shingle plants after a long period of drought. A good area to see them is on the seaward side of the road 100m west of Ternery Pool, but please be careful - they do not like trampling!

and the Sea Kale is looking great…

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It is just one week until the start of the RX WILDLIFE AND CULTURE FESTIVAL 2008. So plan your visit around the many events on offer in the countryside from Hastings to Dungeness.. click here for more info.

During my week of work experience I have noticed lots of colourful flowers on the shingle. Today was the first time I have seen the delicate yellow flowers of Yellow Horned Poppy.

Sally

Yesterday we had another school visit the Nature Reserve, this time it was all the children from Tilling Green Infant School in Rye. Whilst hunting around on the saltmarsh for crabs and other creepy crawlies, we found 4 Sea Slater woodlice (Ligia oceanica). The largest one can be seen below. The body was over 2cm long.

Sea Slaters can be clearly identified by the large size, flattened body and pair of long ‘tails’. They can be found around the high water mark, but even though they have a pair of gills they do not live in the water, prefering to hide in a nice damp environment. The maximum size they can grow to is 3cm long.

The hot weather has really encouraged the Odonata to emerge - literally, as the aquatic larva finally crawls up a stem through the water surface and the winged adult breaks out of its final skin (or exuvia). Today at Iden fishponds I was surprised to find two male Downy Emeralds patrolling a sheltered bay, but they were too quick to photograph. More obliging was this male Four-spotted Chaser at Iden Moat. This is one of the easiest British dragonflies to photograph, often basking in full view and allowing very close approach. Also this morning, my first Common Blue Damselfly of the year near Castle Water, and on Sunday a female Broad-bodied Chaser on a pool by Houghton Wood.

A group of year 8 students from Thomas Peacocke Community College visited the nature reserve today and found this enormous group of squid eggs on the shore. The eggs would normally be “glued” to weed or rocks, so this stranded mass has little chance of hatching.

Harbour Farm continues to provide some good ‘birding’, with 25 Avocet (below - not all of them obvously!), four Little Ringed Plover, eight Whimbrel, Common Sandpiper, Yellow Wagtail, Wheatear, Corn Bunting and Grey Partridge all present this morning, and all visible from one footpath or the other.

Lots of Red Kites have been seen in Sussex over the last week - even a flock of 9 reported at Northiam on Sunday. I was beginning to feel that I was the only person in the county not to have seen one until I noticed one flapping and gliding languidly over Guestling Thorn at 07.10 this morning, while I was out in TQ81M, doing the last of my Early Visits for the Breeding Atlas. I saw several Kites after that, which all turned out to be Herring Gulls, and felt sufficiently encouraged to re-interpret a Kestrel as a Red-footed Falcon (another species drifting westwards in large numbers). (It did look very dusky in the early morning light…) Read the rest of this entry »

The moth morning at Pestalozzi on Saturday 10th May was a great success, with ten people turning up to investigate the contents of the moth trap (biscuits and coffee kindly provided by Raymond and Maureen Kemp, who also allowed use to use their back garden for the event!). Thirty-two species were trapped, with the highlights being around 30 Cockchafer beetle (below), Puss Moth, Poplar Hawk, Orange Footman and a wide range of ‘prominents‘.

Cockchafer
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