Saturday July 2nd
The Bay
With glorious weather a visit to the Bay called, I did not expect much bird wise, reverse migration will probably not start until the end of the month.
With bright sunshine, there were butterflies everywhere, I lost count of the number of Meadow Browns, Small Whites and Small/Essex Skippers I had, certainly 50+ for each species.
Also on the wing were Gatekeepers, no Common Blues seen but these should be out again shortly, hopefully a Brown Argus amongst them, the site is perfect for them.
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| New insect bank at Barking Bay (click on photos too enlarge ) |
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| Closer views |
On the bird front, 3 Oystercatchers were seen and another noted incubating, very likely a failed breeder, also good to see was 2 broods of Shelduck, both pairs were hugging the large jetties to avoid predation from Herrings/Lesser Black Backed Gulls.
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| Common Buzzard, I know crap photo |
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| Black Tailed Skimmer |
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| Oystercatcher breeding on the Common Tern colony, for protection? |
My 3rd Common Buzzard of the year was seen, these are taking off locally, good to see. Common Darters were out with around 6 seen, also at least 6 Emporers with the same number of Black Tailed Skimmers.
The Valley
Just a quick visit to check the Reservoir and was surprised to see 4 Hobbies hawking up highish, not sure what they were feeding on in the heat, they were taking insects but they were not Dragonflies.
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| Hobbies all |
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| Shorter winged male |
Longer winged female
Another Common Buzzard was a dot in the blue and a Common Tern gave good views sitting on a post.
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| Male Yellow Wagtail |
Yellow Wagtails have obviously bred nearby with no less than 6 seen, some juveniles, also a calling male in a tree.
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| Common Tern |
Pied Wagtails, adults and juveniles were everywhere.
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