WELCOME OF THE WILLOW WARBLER

After the hectic Easter weekend for visitors at Cudmore Grove Country Park, Tuesday 10th was a quiet sunny and warm day that allowed the wildlife to reclaim the park. There was the delightful cascading song of a willow warbler, heard all day during its brief stop-over here. The little warbler made its presence known to everybody with its continuous singing and while it perched on a tree close-by, you could see the all the physical effort that was being put into each burst of song.

Another welcome migrant to our shores is the wheatear and local birder Andy Field located one on the seawall near the Point. Later in the day, the smartly marked male was seen on the beach before flying onto the nearby pillbox. The combination of grey-blue upperparts, black mask across the eyes and the cinnamon chest all stood out in the evening sunshine.

There was a sizeable flock of 400 golden plovers on the fields, most with their summer plumage black bellies. When they took to the air, there was the wonderful plaintive whistling sound from them as they wheeled back and forwards in a tight formation. A male pochard flew away from the fields and although several teal and mallard were present, all the wigeon seem to have gone.

On the mudflats the waders were arriving for their evening feed. Some of the 45 black-tailed godwits are pictured above as they waded in the shallow waters with a few noisy oystercatchers. There were also 25 turnstones seen and 50 dunlin flew past as well.

They say that if your foot can touch at least 12 daisies, then spring has arrived. This part of the park is coated with daisies although some of the cars that drove across the flowers at the weekend have left their marks. Three speckled wood butterflies were noted as was a peacock, whilst the adder tally reached eight including two new ones near the cliff-top.

The moth trap run in the evening produced similar results as in recent sessions with about 30 moths of 10 species such as dotted border, angle shades, clouded border, double-striped pug, early grey, hebrew character, common quaker, small quaker, lead coloured drab, red chestnut. There was also a large brown caddis fly in the trap.