LAST HAZY DAY OF SUMMER

It was quite a surprise at dawn whilst checking the moth trap to find thick fog covering the country park on Sunday 31st. The sun soon burnt off the fog and the lack of wind during the morning made for a very pleasant first half of the day. The river Colne was flat calm at the Point, pictured above, although the visibility was still hazy by mid-morning. Following the recent unsettled weather in recent weeks, it has been nice to have a sunny weekend for a change - probably the last of the summer.

There seemed to be lots of bird activity about the park with the highlight being a spotted flycatcher in the car park. Also in the same section of hedgerow were several common whitethroats, lesser whitethroats, chaffinches, blackbirds, roving mixed tit flock, song thrush as well as green woodpecker and great spotted woodpecker. House martins and swallows were passing over the park in small numbers as did a single swift.

On the park pond three little egrets roosted along the edge and duck numbers had increased with gadwall, 4 wigeon and 4 shoveler being the first of the "winter" ducks. Along with the 30 mallard were 4 teal and a single young tufted duck.

Along the seawall were 3 wheatears hopping ahead and a common sandpiper fed on a muddy patch of saltmarsh. The incoming tide forced lots of waders closer with a greenshank calling out loudly being of interest. Four hundred golden plovers gathered on the mud near the Point and there were 200 black-tailed godwits scattered across the same area. Through the haze 10 avocets were the only other waders of note to catch the eye. One kestrel was seen passing over the mud in very determined mood and kept flying southwards from the park heading out to sea.

More small bird activity was seen near the Golfhouse with 12 yellow wagtails feeding in a horse paddock and a few whitethroats and lesser whitethroats seen too. Nearby 25 goldfinches had plenty of thistles to feed on, while 10 linnets flew around the saltmarsh. Four reed warblers were seen in the reeds and a willow warbler had been feeding by the seawall.

Further round the seawall at Reeveshall, Martin Cock and later Andy Field saw the wood sandpiper on the Pool, along with 2 snipe and 3 green sandpipers. Despite lots of searching through the waders along the Pyefleet, there was no sgn of little stints or curlew sandpipers. Other than 20 knot and 40 avocets, it was the usual selection of waders there.

The warm weather brought out a few butterflies such as red admiral, meadow brown, small white, large white, green-veined white, common blue, speckled wood and a nice small copper at the Point. The usual dragonflies were southern hawker, migrant hawker, common darter and ruddy darter. A wasp spider was seen close to the area where a handful of common lizards were basking in the long grass.

Following the warm weather on Saturday, the moth trap was put out again and checked on Sunday morning. Over 25 species were noted including a few of this very distinctively marked frosted orange moth pictured above.

Amongst the regular moths of recent sessions were also canary-shouldered thorn, maidens blush, blood vein, white-point, engrailed, straw underwing, burnished brass, rosy rustic and coxcomb prominent

The most numerous moth was the large yellow underwing, some having the reddish-brown wings shown above. Concealed beneath these fore-wings are the striking yellowy-orange hindwings which are ready to burst into flight when the moth is disturbed.