Wednesday 30th April

Single Swift and Yellow Wagtail were overhead with other migrants limited to a Sedge Warbler at the Main Pond and two Chiffchaff and a Willow Warbler on Warren Point.

Willow Warbler - Dave Jewell

Counts from the estuary on the morning tide included 18 Shelduck, 18 Dunlin, 15 Bar-tailed Godwit, nine Ringed Plover, six Whimbrel and two Sanderling.

Offshore there were six Eider, four Sandwich Tern, two Common Scoter and two Great Crested Grebe, with evening counts of 245 Black-headed and a 2cy Mediterranean Gull, 54 Manx Shearwater and 21 Great Northern Diver.

Other Wildlife: The continuing warm and sunny conditions saw the year's first Brimstone, a site scarcity, head east along the Dune Ridge, with Cinnabar, Large White, Red-banded Sand Wasp Ammophila sabulosa and, having presumably emerged at the Main Pond, an teneral Azure Damselfly in the Crocus Meadow, all on the wing for the first time.  

The highlights were two new ground beetles for the Warren, a springtail hunting Loricera pilicornis and a Bluish Plate-jaw Leistus fulvibarbis in the damp areas in the Entrance Bushes. Enjoying the same conditions in Greenland Lake, the second record of Fleabane Tortoise Beetle Cassida murraea.

Bluish Plate-jaw Leistus fulvibarbis - Alan Keatley

Loricera pilicornis - Alan Keatley

Fleabane Tortoise Beetle Cassida murraea - Alan Keatley

Bugs included the first Hawthorn Shieldbug Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale and the black and red Corizus hyoscyami of the year, with Orthoptera represented by Common and Slender Groundhopper. 

Slender Groundhopper - Alan Keatley