Late-comers

Yesterday I had another look at the Spurn high-tide.  It was very different from the previous visit.  My nephew and I arrived well before the high tide was due, but there were relatively few waders present. A Common Scoter and a Grey Seal were a little out of the ordinary.  We waited until half an hour after the high tide and the situation hadn't altered much.  We went to the other almost derelict hide, where we saw a Whimbrel on the beach & then had a close encounter with a flock of Sanderlings.  We were about to try another bit of the peninsula when suddenly thousands and thousands of Knot could be seen arriving, presumably having been spooked from another roosting site - Beacon Ponds?

Sanderlings

 ditto

 ditto

 Knot

 Knot

 A Finger of Knot

 Knot over the Humber

 Mainly Grey Plover over the Humber

 Record Shot of Common Scoter

 Grey Seal

 Willow Warbler

 Grasshopper

We then had a look at Kilnsea Wetland where we saw 3 immature Avocets & one parent, 2 immature Shelduck and an Oystercatcher.  A Marsh Harrier was hunting over Beacon Ponds & sent up the largest number of Terns Ben had ever seen.  Later, a Greenshank dropped in, but was too distant to photograph. 

Avocets

We then decided to walk along Beacon Lane where a male Wall Brown played hide-and-seek before eventually posing nicely.  There weren't as many butterflies as in other years, and the bird life had quietened down.  At Beacon Ponds there were many Sandwich and Common Terns roosting on a peninsula, but they remained out of range of the camera lens.  

Male Wall [Brown] 

 Underside of Male Wall

 Brown-tail Moth

 Black-tailed Skimmer

A Nice Day Beside the Sea

Wednesday was the second day running I'd spent on the coast, but this time I was some 30 miles or so south of yesterday’s venue, so not many species overlapped.  From the car park some of the class thought they saw a Snipe fly into the Borrow Pits, but it didn’t stay long.  Leaving the car park we saw a Greenfinch performing its slow-motion ‘butterfly courtship’ flight, and then we soon encountered a House Martin colony with a couple of House Sparrows also in residence.  Not long after going through the gate we found our first Common Blue butterfly, but we didn’t add many more.  This area is normally very good butterflies, but apart from a few whites and a pair of Small Heaths fighting and a Speckled Wood in the afternoon, numbers of butterflies were definitely down.  Once it had warmed up by the afternoon a large hawker Dragonfly was also patrolling this area.  Blackbirds and a Song Thrush were singing, but there were very few Linnets, and a few singing Goldfinches.  Near a marshy area we usually see a Sedge Warbler, but this was absent this time, although we did see a whole family of Whitethroats.  At the end of the hedgerow Meadow Pipits and Skylarks were singing and flying above a meadow.   

Cuckoo (c) 2012 Aileen Urquhart

 Speckled Wood

 Small Heath

 Small Heath (c) 2012 Aileen Urquhart

 Blackbird - with damaged plumage & beak full of worms

 There had been changes in the area, as new conservation areas had been excavated since last Autumn.  This meant that we had to take a slightly different path from this point.  Here, we did have good views of a Sedge Warbler and a Large Skipper, and a more distant sighting of a Reed Bunting.  A male Wall Brown basked at the entrance, but a few hundred yards further we stumbled upon a very worn female Wall.  2 Little Egrets flew over as we neared the lagoons.  On the first stagnant pool we discovered a pair of Shelduck, a Redshank and 3 more Little Egrets.  Then we saw our first hunting Little Tern, while 5 Sandwich Terns headed out to sea.  

 Large Skipper

 Wall Brown (male)

 Wall Brown (worn female)

 Little Tern

 Little Tern

 Sandwich Tern

 Ringed Plover

 Ringed Plover (Chick) - had the awww factor

 Ringed Plover - adult in flight

Ringed Plover seeing off a Dunlin

Right next to the hide in the morning was a Curlew, while in the afternoon this had been replaced by a Little Egret.  From the hide we saw a couple of Ringed Plovers and 3 tiny chicks, and a Little Tern also seemed to be on eggs.  A distant Cuckoo we seen heading north being mobbed by small birds before it left them trailing in its wake.  Meanwhile on the lagoon a Dunlin in breeding fettle flew in, but it was soon seen off by one of the Ringed Plovers.  On the return journey a Cuckoo (possibly female) was flushed from the hedgerow, she flew over the fields, but then started to return before perching on the top of a hedge in full view.  We even had time to set up the telescope for everyone to get a decent view.  Exclamations ranged from “Golly gosh”, through “Crikey”, to “it was good, that”, but Brian’s “brilliant” provided the final consensus.  Suddenly the temperature rose to unimaginable heights and the humidity was an amazing contrast to recent weather.  The afternoon started with these temperatures, but by the end a cool easterly wind had started to hit us from the sea. 

Dunlin

 Little Egret

 ditto

 Little Egret under attack by Ringed Plover

 Cuckoo (c) 2012 Aileen Urquhart

Mute Swan Cygnets (above) - again provided an aww factor

The morning group shared cars to the hide on the edge of the Nature Reserve.  There wasn’t a great deal to see, although the 5 cygnets in front of the hide elicited some appreciative, but embarrassing cooing!  Also seen here were a pair of Pied Wagtails, some moulting Mallards, and a few Linnets & meadow Pipits came down for a drink.  In the bushes opposite we observed a family of very colourful Greenfiches and the odd Whitethroat were also spotted.   

Pied Wagtail (female) with Mayfly?

 ditto

 Apprentice Scumbag

 Three of the morning group went on to Sammy's Point where they saw at least 4 different Cuckoos.  However, the afternoon also scored as the morning female had returned to her position in the hedgerows she had patrolled in the morning.  They were all able to enjoy a long look at her as she flew north over an Oilseed Rape field.

 Cuckoo (c) 2012 Tony Robinson