Thursday 21st May

There was no sign of the Temminck's Stint over the morning tide, although a fine summer plumaged Little Stint was present, the second of spring. Also in the estuary at least 110 Sanderling, 70 Dunlin and 50 Ringed Plover, four Grey Plover, four Turnstone and, flying high north, a Great Northern Diver. 

Little Stint - Luke Harman

Little Stint & Sanderling - Luke Harman

Elsewhere the first Marsh Harrier of the year headed north midmorning with the first two Spotted Flycatcher around the Main Pond and offshore the female Eider, 12 Common Scoter and four Great Northern and a Red-throated Diver. 

Year List additions:
150. Marsh Harrier
149. Little Stint

Other Wildlife: Summerlike weather conditions encouraged more insects to make their first appearance of the year including Minute Black Wasp Diodontus minutus, these hyperactive digger wasps were numerous around their nest holes in sand hollows along the Back Path. Sharing the same location the tiny dune fly Trixoscelis obscurella, with the first Red-banded Sand Wasp Ammophila sabulosa on the Dune Ridge. 

Trixoscelis obscurella - Alan Keatley

Other hymenoptera on the wing included five species of bumblebee, a Hornet, several species of Andrena mining bee including Black, Catsear, Short-fringed, Ashy A.cineraria and Grey-patched A,nitida, the last two first emergences, both often late here, and the spider-hunting wasp Agenioideus cinctellus.

Ashy Mining Bee Andrena cineraria - Kevin Rylands

Agenioideus cinctellus - Alan Keatley

Beetles included the first Warren record of the tumbling flower beetle Mordellochroa abdominalis, a couple of Wasp Beetle Clytus arietis and Garden Chafer Phyllopertha horticola, five species of ladybird and increasing numbers of Swollen-thighed Beetle. 

Mordellochroa abdominalis - Kevin Rylands

14-spot Ladybird - Dean Hall

Wasp Beetle Clytus arietis - Dean Hall

Hoverflies included Pied Plumehorn Volucella pellucens, Superb Ant-hill Hoverfly Xanthogramma pedissequum and Large Stripe-back Helophilus trivittatus, with several Azure Damselfly across site and an Emperor Dragonfly at the Dune Pond, the first of the year.

Pied Plumehorn Volucella pellucens - Alan Keatley

Azure Damselfly - Dean Hall