RXwildlife Sightings

Saturday 24th August 2008
The concrete bridge leading to Toot Rock is a good place from which to look for warblers in the canalside bushes, (as long as you don’t obstruct the road) with up to 9 species at a time Those flitting around the bushes on Saturday morning, however, were mostly Chiffchaffs & Willow Warblers, with a few Lesser Whitethroats and the odd Cetti’s.

As I arrived on the beach, I was very surprised to flush a GS Woodpecker, where it had presumably been clinging to a groyne. Several Wheatears were scuttling along the seawall nearby, especially around the shingle disturbed by current sea defence works.
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Holiday neglect has permitted the appearance of 7 spikes of Autumn Lady’s Tresses on our back lawn. They are pretty self-effacing little flowers though, and all too easy to mow once you start to get things Back Into Shape. that’s why there are just 5 today.

The more calculated neglect of our front lawn over several years has led to a varied meadow of Ox-eye Daisy and Yellow Rattle, with the odd Broad-leaved Helleborine in the shade and this year, for the first time, a Common Spotted Orchid.
While this colourful spectacle has its admirers - most recently the man come to read the gas-meter - my children are not among them.

The grazing marshes on Walland Marsh are not great places for orchids so I was slightly surprised to come across a few specimens of autumn ladies-tresses Spiranthes spiralis in a grazed field just behind Camber Dunes on Friday. They were growing on the sandy margin at the edge of the dunes and in low numbers, although whether this reflected their true abundance or the attention of sheep and horses was difficult to say.

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