Little terns and Black Kite

 31st May

A duty day for little tern wardening and a pleasure to be there in the sunshine even though a fresh NE was keeping it cool. Terns were few and far but the best bird was a black kite? flying overhead heading for Oare Marshes. We, (MC) only saw it as it went passed so only had a back view which was not the best and photos were poor but good enough to show some relevant features. At no time did it look like a red kite, black kites also show similar features ie the pale patches on the top of shoulder especially with the sun shining, the bird had a brown tail without the 'v' notch in it, it did not fly like a red which usually yaw about side to side but dead straight, black wings and MC was seeing six primaries.. that was our call at the time.

                   Photo by S. Rogers, Cornwall ;   'Black and red kite together'    via Twitter

I just saw this on Twitter and posted here just to show a comparison, they both have white near the end of wing. 

Along the footpath a couple of wall browns made an appearance plus a green-veined white and  peacock butterflies. The site at Castle Coote is a couple of miles from the nearest road but proved a nice walk for at least c.75 people enjoying the Bank Holiday.

In the garden a hoverfly Merodon equestris (they don't have English names) was visiting the flowers allowing me some shots. THEY DON'T STING.

            

Cream Spot Tiger and Wall Brown

 29th May 21

A short walk up to the white post and back meeting MC where we saw two wall browns and back towards the huts a cram spot tiger moth.

Back home after lunch a sparrowhawk landed at the bottom of next doors garden and stayed long enough for me to go upstairs get my camera and get some shots.

Seasalter Bees And A New Hoverfly

28th May

It was a quiet day at SS, the tide was out and not many birds as I walked along to the start of the seawall. I noticed a lot of small greyish bees, Sandpit Mining bees, Andrena barbilabris dashing about around  the seabeet and stopped for ages trying to photograph some of them. Also I noticed a couple of other bees, Gold-fringed Mason bees, Osmia aurulenta, one couple mating, didn't know they did it like that!

             The above are the Sandpit Mining bees, Andrena barbilabris, unless informed otherwise.

                                 The female Gold Fringed Mason bee, Osmia aurulenta

                                                                           Mating

                                                         Another shot of the female

Also I nearly missed this new hoverfly Eristalinus aeneus which was close by, at first thought it was the 'sepulchris' version that I had seen once before at Stodmarsh but Chris Sellen thought otherwise.

All along the mud path there were little holes with piles of earth around them made by these tiny bees which are from the Lasioglossum family and very difficult to separate.

Green-winged Orchids and Fox Cub

 27th May

I first went to Chestfield to see the green-winged orchids.

Then down to Pilgrims Way, Wraik Hill but not much going on there so continued onto LA seeing a fox cub in the road late morning and again in the same place evening.

At the London Array no birds to speak of maybe the cettis and buzzard but saw a couple of variable damselflies and a Goodens Nomad bee.

                                                                            Male

                                                          Female Variable Damselfly

Red Kites and Owls

 26th May

A short afternoon visit to Dunkirk triangle seeing seven kites fly over and a couple of buzzards.

Late pm I went to SS seeing the barn owl.

Two Little Terns This Morning.

 24th May

Yet another day full of hopes, starting with blue skies but soon turned into SW gales and rain by mid morning.  Little tern wardening again at Castle Coote, walked up, about four and a half miles there and back seeing a few yellow wagtails on the seawall and several (5-7) corn buntings, the most I have seen in recent years. 

 At the Coote all was quiet, virtually nothing there, not even the eider however that changed when Bob Gomes came along doing a WEBS count, good company for the next one to two hours. A couple of little terns came into sight from the Creek direction.

I was not best placed to get a photo and they only went past once although they fished further out. At one point one landed for five minutes then off again. A common tern came in close to fish when I managed a couple of shots.

Later we saw the eider fly in from somewhere and land, then went on the beach for a preen, seems to have oil on it. It was high tide and the eider soon went fishing catching three or four crabs with little effort.

       After taking off the legs off the crab it swallows the rest whole then sits up briefly to make sure it                                                                            goes down.

Something I have never seen was that it swam into the lagoon and then further up the main gulley, then lost from sight.

I had to endure two rain showers, fortunately, I took my umbrella with me so didn't get very wet, the horrible weather is certainly not encouraging birds to breed yet or maybe not at all.

                                                      Just three or four shelduck seen

                                                       Meadow Pipits in plentiful supply

Another Bee Identified In The Garden

 23rd April 21

Terrible weather this weekend so I didn't get out much but in between the showers I ventured into the garden. My cotoneaster bush always seems covered in bees usually the buff-tailed workers and I saw about a dozen on this occasion but also with them and the same size was a fluffy yellow one with a rosy tail.  After getting photos I have identified it as the 'Early Bumblebee', Bombus pratorum, one of our smaller bumble bees and a new one for me. Its been in the garden for a couple of days now along with 'carder bee', Bombus pascuorum, and the workers of buff-tailed bumblebees Bombus terrestris plus I saw one white-tailed bumblebee Bombus lucorum, with a really gleaming white tail.

                                               Early Bumblebee, Bombus pratorum

                                           White-tailed Bumblebee, Bombus lucorum

Its Just A Hobby

 18th May

I didn't go out until 4.00ish when MC called to say he had a hobby on the seawall. Thinking it would be gone when I got there I was happy to see that it was perched on a fence post after which it flew up onto the wall where it stayed for a couple hours. Clearly it seemed very tired although it had no trouble flying to catch insects but seemed to have no fear of our presence as we could approach to within 10 yards. It still appeared to have no worry of our closeness but when walkers went by it just flew a few yards along the wall and sat there again. Strange???    We went home leaving it there.

Whilst hobby watching we also kept an eye for the little terns that were flying up and down the shore.