Thursday 25th July

Offshore at least two of the summering Great Northern Diver remain, along with 30 feeding Gannet, including several juveniles, hopefully indicating a good breeding season and recovery from avian flu, and 21 Common Scoter. Elsewhere a juvenile Willow Warbler near the Dune Pond was a sign of early autumn passage.

Willow Warbler - Dean Hall

Rain coincided with the mid-morning high tide, but didn't bring in anything unexpected to the estuary, where counts included 150 Black-headed and five Mediterranean Gull, 102 Sandwich and three Common Tern, 92 Redshank, 25 Sanderling, 25 Turnstone, nine Greenshank, seven Dunlin, the six Eider, three Bar-tailed Godwit and a Ringed Plover.

Other Wildlife: The rain put a dampener on flying insect activity with most sheltering in vegetation including the first Jersey Tiger of the year, as well as the soldier fly Dull Four-spined Legionnaire Chorisops tibialis and a Slender Wood-borer Wasp Trypoxylon attenuatum. 

Jersey Tiger - Dean Hall

Hoverflies included a Superb Ant-hill Hoverfly Xanthogramma pedissequum, Marmalade Hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus and Common Twist-tail Sphaerophoria scripta, the last two species presumed migrants.

Superb Ant-hill Hoverfly Xanthogramma pedissequum - Alan Keatley

Elsewhere a young Fox was ambling along The Bight shoreline.

Fox - Dean Hall