Saturday 17th August

Seawatching first thing saw four Balearic Shearwater head south out of the bay with 190 Kittiwake, 75 Gannet and 65 Common Tern but the numbers soon dropped off. Small numbers of Common Tern remained over high tide with 160 Sandwich Tern, with wader counts including 385 Dunlin, 268 Curlew, 239 Ringed Plover, 178 Redshank, 42 Sanderling, including the first juvenile, seven Knot, six Whimbrel, two Bar-tailed Godwit and two Greenshank. Also in the estuary 10 Mediterranean Gull and the Slavonian Grebe.

Whitethroat - Alan Keatley

Elsewhere the first Grey Wagtail and two Meadow Pipit of the autumn were overhead with a Wheatear on Warren Point and a Treecreeper and Coal Tit were with the Long-tailed Tit flock in the Entrance Bushes.

Wildlife News: A Black Mining Bee Andrena pilipes by the Entrance Bushes was the highlight. This nationally rare species likes later-flowering umbellifers and brambles, nesting in banks of bare sand.

Black Mining Bee Andrena pilipes - Alan Keatley 

 

Other invertebrates recorded included several Beewolf Philanthus triangulum and Hornet Hoverfly Volucella zonaria, Small Red-eyed Damselfly, Dark-winged Flesh Fly Nyctia halterata and the nationally scarce weevil Sibinia arenariae, the latter both new to the recording area. Butterflies were also present in numbers with 13 species recorded including Brown Argus, Wall, Holly Blue and numerous Painted Lady.

 

 Hornet Hoverfly - Alan Keatley

Dark-winged Flesh Fly - Alan Keatley