RXwildlife Sightings

TV over the past month or two has been awash with shows on Charles Darwin, with quite a bit of repetition, but one new project I learnt about this week concerned an Open University mass participation project to study the evolution of colour patterns in two species of banded snails.  These attractive molluscs will be familiar to gardeners.  The idea is to determine if historical banding patterns across the country compare with what is present at the moment, and determine if the banding pattern may possibly be evolving due to changes in numbers of predatory thrushes and climate change for instance. Always keen to have a go at simple recording projects I logged on to the website and then got searching in my embarrassingly weedy garden.

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Sunday 22nd March 09, There was not much on the pools or the sea, so I decided to go hunt out a Garganey or something, another reason to go to Carters was, it was bloody cold on the sea wall. There was a good selection of ducks and waders with Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Shoveler, Shelduck, but no Garganey! better luck next week hopefully? On the wader front it was much better with Snipe very close to the hide and 8 Bl.T.Godwits one in winter plumage 2 Avocets, with Lapwing and Curlew making up the numbers. But the best sightings of the morning was of a Ringed Tailed Hen Harrier flying along the old sea cliffs with a adult cream head Marsh Harrier in company,with a Sparrow Hawk flying above them. So not a bad morning in the end. Good hunting Pete.

As part of the celebrations, here are two moths out of the 26 of 7 species in my trap in Rye this morning - a fresh Twin-spotted Quaker and a worn Chestnut. Both woodland/garden species but the quaker is at the start of its annual season while the Chestnut, a moth of the winter months, is nearing the end. This time last year I was trapping only single figures. March has been unusually good for early Lepidoptera; I’ve heard of counts of up to 50 butterflies seen in a single outing, including both Large and Small Whites as well as Brimstones, Commas, Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells and a few Red Admirals.

Highlights on the Beach Reserve this morning included 156 Mediterranean Gull and 68 Sandwich Tern (below) on Ternery Pool, three Wheatear and 200+ Golden Plover on Flat Beach Level and 40 Knot on the Quarry. In addition, nine Avocet were present on the new pools behind Ternery Pool mid-morning.