RXwildlife Sightings

At Iden Moat last Sunday and today, 15+ White-legged Damselflies (Platycnemis pennipes). The book The Dragonflies of Sussex (2005) shows them as unrecorded east of the Bodiam area, so this is of special interest. They like unpolluted well-vegetated slow rivers, lakes and ponds. It’s an unusual damselfly in a family of its own, with a delicate buoyant flight; the photos show a mature milky-blue male and a whitish immature (I found only 2 mature males); the abdomen with its fine black streaks curves down and the legs are indeed white and “feathery”. The moat also held a few Azure and Blue-tailed Damsels, Four-spotted Chasers and Black-tailed Skimmers, a few common butterflies, and birds including Turtle Dove, Reed and Garden Warblers, Lesser Whitethroat and Bullfinch. 
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The wet weather seems to have been to the liking of the Sweet Briar, Rosa rubiginosa, growing on the beach and at Castle Water. It is flowering profusely and is quite scented. Identify it by crushing a leaf and smelling… like apples. More detail here.

A good year for this species at Castle Water, the two pictures below were taken at the hide. The larger size and faint chequered pattern on both sides of the wing distinguishes this species from the similar Small and Essex Skipper, which can also be found near to the hide.

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Little Tern chicks have started to hatch, they can be seen from the Tern Watch Caravan set up on Shore Ridges, the adults are busy bringing in tiny morsels of food.

The Nature Reserve has produced a new book on The Flowering Plants of Rye Harbour. It is A5, 48 pages, lists all 460 species with brief notes on each and has 24 colour photos of the rarest plants.
Click here for more detail.

The weekly dragonfly count at Castle Water today found a good range of species. New for the year were Brown Hawker and Ruddy Darter (below, female), while also present were large numbers of Black-tailed Skimmer (over 30 males at the northern end of Castle Water alone!) and a few Four-spotted Chaser and Common Darter.

Female Ruddy Darter

Although many Black-headed Gull chicks have already fledged and left Ternery Pool, there are still new chicks hatching every day. You can watch live video of some young chicks and also some of Common Tern on our webcam by clicking here and following the instructions (requires broadband). Ternery Pool also has hundreds of Sandwich Tern chicks being fed with sandeels by busy parents, but sadly not near the webcam!

A surprisingly poor morning in the Lime Kiln moth trap, with all the rarity interest provided by micro moths. These included a couple Viper’s Bugloss Moth (Ethmia bipunctella), Evergestis extimalis, Donacaula forficella and Schoenobius gigantella. These last two are among the largest micros, reaching up to four centimetres in length. The larvae of both species feed largely on Common Reed and are able to move from plant to plant by floating on pieces of their foodplants leaf, a sort of lepidopteran white-water rafting!

At the viewpoint this afternoon, 2 Hobby, kingfisher, Green sandpiper and kingfisher. Butterflies included, Clouded Yellow (pictured), Painted Lady, Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Red Admiral, Small Copper, Small Heath, Meadow Brown and Common Blue.

From the DBO website for yesterday: 

The Great Reed Warbler was still singing just west of Lydd at TR028208 and the  Crane was feeding in a field alongside the entrance road to Lydd Airport in the morning.