Wednesday 2nd July

Little to report on a scorching midday low high tide with a single Redshank joining the usual huddle of Oystercatcher around The Bight, where a post breeding flock of 29 Canada Geese were chilling out. 

Aside from a Grey Heron was eyeing up a fish meal at the Main Pond, nothing but the usual breeding birds in the reserve.

Other Wildlife: Insects were also less active in the high temperatures, although a good series of records included a female Least Velvet Ant Myrmosa atra on the beach by the geotubes. The female is wingless, looking very ant-like.

Least Velvet Ant Myrmosa atra - Alan Keatley

Also recorded a new bug for the Recording Area, the plant bug Orthops basalis and a Slender-bodied Digger Wasp Crabro cribrarius in Dead Dolphin Wood, the picture-winged flies Tephritis bardanae and Terellia tussilaginis around their foodplant Burdock with Small Spot-eye Dronefly Eristalinus sepulchralis and the spider wasp Anophilus infuscatus in Greenland Lake.

Orthops basalis - Alan Keatley

Slender-bodied Digger Wasp Crabro cribrarius - Alan Keatley

Tephritis bardanae - Dean Hall

Brown Willow Beetle Galerucella lineola - Dean Hall

Small Spot-eye Dronefly Eristalinus sepulchralis - Alan Keatley

Anophilus infuscatus - Alan Keatley