RXwildlife Sightings

Saturday May 2nd

Nine species of warbler were present in the bushes in front of Toot Rock, the two more unusual ones being Willow Warbler and Garden Warbler, which are now just migrants in this strip of coast.
Sadly, no sound of Turtle Doves emerged from those bushes as it used to, neither did any Cuckoos call along the canalside wires.
In last week’s Times (click here to read), Simon Barnes described how his pleasure at the return of spring migrants is increasingly tainted by anxiety for those which fail to appear, and though that same weekend I found Whitethroats and Sedge Warblers - trans-Saharan migrants both - in near saturation densities at RSPB Dungeness, the situation at Pett was not encouraging. The barest trickle of Swallows, one or two Yellow Wagtails… a couple of Whimbrels.
Up until a few years ago, at this time of year I could find 85, 90, even a hundred species around the level at this time of year but this morning the tally ground to a halt at 78. There are species here now that were not around then, but the number and variety of migrants seem to get fewer.
I’m not sure whether it cheered me up or not to read the tally from Breskens (NL) from last Saturday, when 20,285 birds of 101 species were logged in a day’s migration watching (www.trektellen.nl)

Bird highlights fom the Beach Reserve over the past few days have included 9 Little Tern (pictured) , 1000+ Sandwich Tern, 17 Whimbrel, 4 Little Ringed Plover, 19 Avocet, 10 Bar-tailed Godwit and Marsh Harrier. At Castle Water, 2 Hobby, 5 Garganey, 20 Swift, 15 Swallow, 2 Turtle Dove, White Wagtail and 12 Little Egret.

The warm weather at Lade Pit this week made for perfecting conditions for breeding marsh frogs which were very noisy (click on the link to hear the call of this species - underneath the photographs of marsh frogs).  These frogs differ from our native common frogs in having two vocal sacs either side of the head that can be inflated like small golf balls to produce a loud cackling croak.  Careful search of beds of waterweed are likely to produce scattered clumps of spawn. Unlike our native frog the spawn is laid in a series of small fragments, dispersed within beds of weed.

[caption id=”attachment_9481″ align=”alignnone” width=”300″ caption=”calling marsh frog”][/caption]

In some scrapes nearby there were numerous small metamorphs.  Normally I would have assumed that these had come through the winter in that state, however I have also found overwintering tadpoles in the same pond - the first time I have observed this with this species.

Thanks to Dave Rogers for use of the above photograph.  An exhibition of Daves photos can be viewed in Natural Images, an exhibition of his wildlife photos at Horsebridge Arts & Community Centre, 11 Horsebridge Road, Whitstable, Kent CT5 1AF between 6th and 12th May.