The bird of the day was a male Golden Oriole which spent at least an hour singing in the trapping area during the morning. The Patch continues to provide considerable interest with at least 22 Mediterranean Gulls, a first-summer Little Gull, an adult Roseate Tern and a first-summer Arctic Tern there along with the Mediterranean x Black-headed Gull hybrid (see picture on DBO website). An Arctic Skua also flew west offshore.
David Walker (from DBO website)
Grey Squirrels From Greyfriars visit the school grounds once the pupils have left in order to plunder the waste bins. In former times they have made do with a few brown apple cores.
Recently, however, the government has intitiated a scheme to supply all KS1 children with fruit on a daily basis and a good deal of it gets thrown away. Today, it was bananas and the squirrels have been gorging themselves. They delicately strip the pith from inside the skin before extracting the fruit which they attack rather in the way I eat sweetcorn.
There’s one out there now - if only I had a camera as good as Barry’s, I could post a heart-warming picture. The downside is that banana skins are strewn all over the paths. If I were to break a wrist, could I sue the squirrels?
While carrying out a dragonfly and damselfly count at Castle Water today, I noticed that one of my subjects appeared to be in some distress. On closer examination, I saw that this immature Common Blue Damselfly had fallen prey to a large, bristly robber fly, Dysmachus trigonus. As the name suggests, robber flies are predatory insects, pouncing on their prey and delivering a venomous bite with their piercing mothparts. Damselflies are actually quite an unusual prey for robber flies, but the fact that this individual was an immature and hence less active and vigorous than an adult probably accounts for its’ falling victim in this case.
Several of the common orchids are now looking their best. Common Spotted (below) and Pyramidal Orchids are widespread, but the Bee Orchid is more localised.
At Carter’s Flood last night there were 3 imm Little Gulls, 1 Green Sandpiper, c5 Teal and a Barn Owl along with many well-grown broods of Mallard.
Nearby, there were 2 broods of Little Owl and a Hummingbird Hawk Moth.
At Pett Pools this morning, there were 18 ad Tufted Duck, including a f with 6 tiny new ducklings.
Up to two Roseate Terns were present around the reserve yesterday, being seen at Ternery Pool, on the Quarry and at the River Mouth, while Ternery Pool also played host to up to eight Black Tern! At dusk, the latter were feeding offshore among other Terns, while a single Roseate Tern and an immature Little Gull were on Ternery Pool.
Photos of the black terns seen today at Ternery Pool.
Four of the flock of seven black terns seen on Ternery Pool and feeding inshore.
Four species of terns on one of the Ternery Pool islands, including two black terns and a roseate tern.
At Ternery Pool this afternoon 3 Roseate and 7 Black Tern could be seen.
This morning 17 Little Tern chicks were present on Shore Ridges.
Sam
After the evening storm passed over Hastings a movement of gannets was evident past West St Leonards. Over 80 were seen heading east in just a few minutes very close inshore. The movement filtered out as the low cloud moved east and the tide went out.
2 Crossbills >N over Winchelsea this morning.
Also, Green Sandpiper heard twice yesterday evening over Pett.