RXwildlife Sightings

This week I completed the last of the timed walks on the Dungeness RSPB reserve, monitoring bumblebees. Previous monitoring sessions posted very high counts, and I anticipated a similar result, however numbers were unusually low for August because the commonest species this year peaked in numbers in July - an indication of how warm the early part of our summer was.  

Key points were as follows:

1.  The number recorded throughout the summer was another record high of 361 bumblebees (previous best 344) Read the rest of this entry »

Quite a crowd of waders at midday today: 55 Dunlin, c50 Lapwing, 13 Black-tailed Godwit, 5 Ringed Plover, 2 each of Avocet, Common Sandpiper, Greenshank & Spotted Redshank, 1 Little Ringed Plover; Curlew, Oystercatcher & Turnstone on the beach.
Along one of the marsh tracks, we came across 12 Wheatears, in groups of 3 then 9.
Raptors: 4 Kestrel, single Sparrowhawk & Buzzard.

There were plenty of birds on the move today, the most notable of which were three pied flycatchers seen in Christmas Dell this afternoon. Other passerines moving through included yellow wagtail, wheatear, willow warbler and chiffchaff. Three wood sandpipers, six green sandpipers, one greenshank, four dunlin and two snipe were seen at the ARC pit, whilst a little ringed plover was on Burrowes pit and a whimbrel flew over. Hobby, peregrine and two ravens were also of note.

The small patch of Fleabane near the approach to the veiwpoint is full of wildlife its hard to know what to look at, Long-winged Cone-head, Wasp Spider with caught Common Blue Damselfly, at least nine species of hoverfly including Helophilus trivittatus and Eristalis tenax, a fair selection of butterflies Common Blue, Brown Argus, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown and Painted Lady. A selection are pictured below. 

Long-winged Cone-head

Read the rest of this entry »