Earlier today I was privileged to walk across one of my favourite bits of Dungeness with some splendid relatively undisturbed shingle ridges, or so I thought.
A low hummock caught my eye in a shingle hollow - poking out of the vegetation, rather incongruously, was Read the rest of this entry »
A 2 hour walk in TQ81K (Quarry-Place Fm-Lovers’ Seat-Brakey Banks) turned up 42 bird species, including many migrant warblers. for the most part, these were difficult to see, their presence only indicated by little contact calls, the rustling of wings in the willows and the click of beaks closing on hapless insects. Read the rest of this entry »
Numbers are dropping off slightly now that we are getting towards the end of August, though there is stil an interesting range of beasts present. Highlights rarity wise this morning were a couple of Great Silver Water Beetle, another one of those species which while rare nationally does quite well at Rye Harbour, while a smattering of migrant species included Dark Sword-grass, Rush Veneer and Diamond-back Moth. The trap also included one of my personal favourites Canary-shouldered Thorn (below), so called because of the bright yellow thorax. This individual is a male as can be seen by the comb-like antennae used to pick up chemical signals from the female.
Canary-shouldered Thorn
Highlights this morning included a Spotted Redshank, 4 Common Sandpiper and 2 Green Sandpiper at Ternery Pool, 2 Whinchat and at least 25 Wheatear on Harbour Farm, 5 Black-tailed Godwit were again present on Harbour Farm Pools.