RXwildlife Sightings

The tree sparrow colony here at Dungeness RSPB goes from strength to strength and is now worthy of its title ‘colony’. Three years ago, 15 nestboxes were put up on 3 short telegraph poles around the Boulderwall Farm area. 7 pairs bred that year, last year about a dozen pairs and this year 25 pairs! They are now using additional boxes around the farm buildings as well as a purpose-built ‘condominium’, built by one of our volunteers, containing 16 separate nest chambers! It has been great to see these once common birds every day I’m at work.

The two cranes are still with us, most recently seen from a distance from Hide 1. Four black-necked grebes, two golden plovers, two greenshanks, two black-tailed godwits, a wood sandpiper, black tern, common tern and peregrine were all seen at the Hanson-ARC site this morning. Passerines on the move included yellow wagtails, wheatears, lesser whitethroat and spotted flycatcher.

Numbers of species and individuals are dropping off slightly in the Lime Kiln moth trap, though still over 200 individuals of 41 species this morning. The majority of these were either Large Yellow Underwing or Vine’s Rustic, while the only really notable species were Viper’s Bugloss Moth and White-point. However, I did get a Great Silver Water Beetle (below), one of a run of several over the last week, the attractive Caddis Mystacides longicornis (see here) and less welcome, several Harlequin Ladybird.
[caption id=”attachment_6313″ align=”alignnone” width=”420″ caption=”Great Silver Water Beetle”][/caption]