Wednesday 12 March 2014

FIRST SUMMER MIGRANT BACK

This common lizard was enjoying basking on a fencepost in the afternoon sunshine on Wednesday 12th
Two adders and two grass-snakes were seen during the day.

Three peacock butterflies, one pictured above, and a couple of small tortoiseshells were seen during the day at the park.

The pair of mute swans was beside the park's borrowdyke on Wednesday.

The first migrant to the Island back from Africa was a chiffchaff seen flitting amongst a hornbeam tree beside the car park early on Wednesday. It gave out a brief song as it hopped from branch to branch.

A female marsh harrier flew over the grazing fields in the afternoon which led to many of the ducks and waders flying around. Rough numbers were 400 wigeon, 200 teal, 100 redshank, 80 curlew, 10 black-tailed godwit, 3 common snipe, 10 lapwing and 20 shoveler.

The pair of kestrels were on their tree in the morning, at one point a pair of jackdaws tried to get a closer look at the nestbox with a kestrel inside. On the pond 3 pairs of pochard, 12 tufted duck and six gadwall were present late afternoon.

At the Point a snow bunting was heard calling in flight and 5 linnets were seen over the sea-blite bushes.

The moth trap was operated during Monday night with this nicely patterned hebrew character one of the sixty individuals seen the next morning. Around a dozen hebrew characters were noted along with lots of common quakers, a few small quakers, red chestnut, twin-spotted quaker, clouded drab and early grey.

This beautiful plume moth was the only micro-moth in the trap.

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