RXwildlife Sightings

With the breeding season now well under way most of the breeding birds have chicks. Avocet, Redshank, Ringed Plover and Oystercatcher can all be seen tending their young from the hides or along the footpaths that criss cross the Beach Reserve and Harbour Farm. There is lots of activity at Ternery Pool with Sandwich Terns, Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls feeding youngsters. At least 15 Little Terns have been present along Shore Ridges on occasions and Little Ringed Plover is still regular on Harbour Farm Pools. 

Redshanks are easy pickings (not the brother of slim) for pictures now as they guard and warn their chicks with alarm calls.

A couple of (long overdue) vists to these great woods this week provided some excellent hoverfly highlights. Yesterday a nice find was a male Brachypalpus laphriformis perched on a bramble leaf, the angle of the picture below is odd but it shows the swollen and arched hind femur rather well as the fly cleans itself. This species is scarce and regarded as a rarity and elusive, it’s range is mainly confined to well wooded areas of southern Britain the larvae are associated with rot holes in large broad-leaved trees . Additional highlights included Criorhina floccasa, C. berberina, Chalcosyrphus nemorum, Sericomiya silentis and the superb Brachypalpoides lentus. Also of interest Bombus hypnorum was present in good numbers.

Male Brachypalpus laphriformis, a hive bee mimic.

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Or perhaps it should be too little too late.  I’m talking about sunshine and rain of course.  This week saw the start of the bumblebee monitoring exercise on the Dungeness RSPB reserve.  Last years timed walks in May followed a cold spring, and numbers of bees recorded were the lowest since habitat management was improved for these insects from 2001 onwards.  No such problem this year.  Bumblebees have been able to start very early with queens and workers of the appropriately named early nesting bumblebee Bombus pratorum foraging in our garden in Northiam for 12 weeks now. 

Consequently this weeks monitoring results for Dungeness were rather disappointing, producing a total count of 22 individuals.  To put this into perspective this was only marginally better than the 15 bees recorded last spring and nowhere near the 68 recorded in May in 2009.

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Yesterday I had a visit from Andy Philips (reserves officer for Hastings borough council) and Graeme Lyons (Sussex Wildlife Trust’s ecologist) who came to look for some typical shingle spiders. We found a good range of species including Sitticus inexpectus, Euophrys frontalis , Heliophanus flavipes and the ubiquitous Zebra Jumping Spider (Salticus scenicus). The highlights were a tiny male Neon pictus at Castle Water and a male Phlegra fasciata. This latter is pretty rare (RDB3) and has not been seen here for nearly 20 years, so it was a good find. Feeling a bit jealous that Andy and Graeme had found it and not me I went to the same spot early this afternoon and quickly found another, this time an immature female.
Phlegra fasciata

Sunday 22nd May, Started at 6.45 am, on the sea wall at the pools, with the tide going down, there was upto 120 Common Scoters on the sea (this is more than we have had through the winter!), also good numbers of terns fishing just off shore and Gannets fishing much further out. Still not much to report from the marsh, but Carters was better, with a single Whinchat,and at least 100 House Martin,a Barn Owl, 2/3 Buzzards, 6 Bl.T.Godwit, 3 Avocet. Good bird watching Pete.

A fine selection of Black-tailed Skimmer in various states of emergence and in close proximity to each other was a nice find this morning at Castle Water. The stiff breeze had caused several to get dislodged from their chosen emergence support but fortunately they where far enough through the process to crawl up again. A selection of pics are below.

At the resting stage. This one was later blown from the emergence support but managed to survive by crawling back up to complete the wing expansion.

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This week has seen the emergence of what can be considered summer species of dragonfly with Emperor and Black-tailed Skimmer at Castle Water. The odd Hairy Dragonfly (early spring species) can still be found emerging and there has been a steady trickle of Four-spotted Chaser and the occasional Broad-bodied Chaser. Damselflies on the wing include Red-eyed, Variable, Azure, Common Blue and Blue-tailed.

Emerged Four-spotted Chaser with exuvia just in view

A BLACK KITE flew SSW over our garden in Pett at 18.25.

I found this 10mm. beetle while turning over pine logs. It is Checkered Beetle - Thanasimus formicarius. A few moments after finding it I found a second one about 20 feet away from the first. Penny Green from the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre has let me see the previous records for this beetle. It turns out the last one recorded in Sussex was 13 years ago, and none of the previous finds are anywhere near Brede High Wood. So this makes for a good record for this lovely little beetle that resembles an ant (= formicarius).

On the 1st May saw good numbers of Br.T.Godwit with 40/50 east over the sea, with a few Whimbrel in with them, and 50/60 in a flock on the marsh, and a further 6 Whimbrel on the marsh. Also on this day I had my first Little Tern, Yellow Wag,Wheatear,Hobby of my year. On the following Sunday 8th May, the only bird of note was a Little Gull (imm) which was hawking on the field behind theWader Pool. There was also 3 Brent Geese on the marsh.This Sunday 15th May Buzzard 2, Hobby 1, Marsh Harrier 1 ( cream head imm) Little Owl 1 (in the usual place on the old sea cliff to the left of the hide) On the whole its been quite slow over the past few weeks, good bird watching Pete.