A lovely warm Spring day with masses of insect activity - my phone says it reached 23 Centigrade. There was an early gathering of 500+ swift over Castle Water and then 8 hobbys (rather than hobbies?) took over catching small (invisible from the ground) insects quite high up (above). Then the Meditteranean and black-headed gulls started hawking for insects and the sky was filled with their calls.
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Lapwing are trying to squeeze in a late nesting attempt after the cool wet May. They haven’t got much time because they will start their annual moult soon and the large moulting flocks usually start building in the first week of June. So, as the chicks from the early nesting pairs are about to fledge, there is a flurry of aerobatic display from pairs that failed… best seen all along Rye Harbour Farm. Read the rest of this entry »
The old shingle ridges around Camber Castle have turned crimson as the flowers of sheep sorrel have come into bloom. Like many other plants it seems to have enjoyed the cool wet spring. Find out more about the plant by clicking here and for a close up… Read the rest of this entry »
In the RX area there are many members of the carrot or umbellifer family, from the tiny marsh pennywort to the 2 metre tall hemlock. Now is the time that they are growing rapidly. Hemlock is widespread along the coast and is one of the poisonous species -famously used to kill Socrates - find out more by clicking here. The leaves of hemlock are similar to those of carrot (which also grows along the coast), but hemlock has distinctive purple blotched stems as in the photo.
common tern courtship
It seems that there is now plenty of fish in Rye Bay for the terns. The Sandwich terns arrived back in good numbers way back in March, but did not start nesting, so it’s good to see around 500 pairs have now settled at Ternery Pool. The common terns are still arriving but there is much courtship display and feeding going on, so all looks good for them. But little terns are few and far between and they are struggling with the windy weather… perhaps they will find food in the sheltered channels of the new saltmarsh. Read the rest of this entry »
At Castle Water the background noise is a continuous squeaky sound. It is the begging calls of nestling cormorants demanding to be fed. They peck at the yellow patch around the bill until the adult lets them in… and the chicks head and neck goes right into the parents throat where their fishy meal is waiting.
Listen to the chicks by clicking here.
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The list of activities in this years RX Wildlife Festival is now nearly complete and can be viewed by clicking here. It includes a Bee Festival at Dungeness!
With this declining summer visitor so much in the news recently - click here I havent heard anyone question their food supply here in Britain. They specialise on eating hairy caterpillars and it is generally accepted that populations of moths have declined. Here at Rye Harbour the population of cuckoos is steady AND there are many hairy caterpillars available. Even in this cold wet weather it is easy to find two species of large hairy caterpillar on the shingle habitat - the irritating brown-tail moth and the nationally rare pale grass eggar - and it is easy to watch the cuckoos eating them… Read the rest of this entry »
Today there were several broods of tiny lapwing on view at Rye Harbour Farm, especially in the central and western fields that have many ponds and scrapes in. I can’t make my mind up if the recent cold, wet and windy weather has been good or bad for lapwings. The weather deteriorated on the very day the first chicks hatched, but being small they can easily find warmth and shelter under their parents. BUT they must find food, and cold weather probably means there hasn’t been so many insects about and the chicks have to be brooded for longer. BUT, the wet weather has created more ideal feeding areas for chicks - wet muddy margins - that should now last long enough to see the birds fledge… lets hope todays mild weather continues.
A male Pied Flycatcher has just (5.30pm) been reported from the Wood at Winchelsea Beach, just south of Castle Farm barns - near the “Jeff Gates”!