EVENING ENTERTAINMENT

For once we had a day without rain although Friday 6th was windy. A very productive walk around the country park in the early evening was much more rewarding than sitting in front of the TV.
In the car park the sweet chestnut trees are in full flower with masses of golden yellow strands like the old fashioned pipe-cleaners. There was a faint sickly smell from the flowers close up which was effective enough to attract a few flies and bees. My eye was caught by a butterfly high up in the tree flitting from leaf to leaf. Using the binoculars I was able to see it was a purple hairstreak which was good to see. This is the first of the season and seeing it in the car park is well away from their usual haunt in the park close to the oak trees.

Calling from the thick bushes on either side of the car park were a pair of nightingales who were easy to hear and locate but impossible to actually see. Even standing five metres away from the bird as it repeatedly called and croaked like a frog, it didn't want to come out into the open.

A sunny corner sheltered from the wind was where I saw the first hedge brown, or gatekeeper, butterfly for the year. This one pictured below was resting on the leaves of bushes and was content to keep its wings tight shut unless it flitted to another branch. Hedge browns are a very common summer butterfly all over the Island and especially along hedges and the edges of grassy fields.

Several other butterflies were seen including small tortoiseshell, red admiral, speckled wood, comma, large white, small white, small and Essex skippers, and masses of meadow browns.

Checked out the sparrowhawk nest and I could just make out the white down of one of the chicks. The previous day I had managed to see the female standing beside at least two downy feathered chicks, their sharp little beaks already very evident.

The other bird of prey highlight was a male marsh harrier that suddenly appeared over the pond resulting in lots of loud anxious squawking from the waterfowl. The female tufted duck seemed to shout the loudest but then she probably had the most vulnerable brood with seven tiny ducklings. The harrier turned away and headed back over the grazing fields, flying low over the ditches and creeks for 5 or 10 mintues, maybe hoping for a young coot or duckling.

The colours of the clouds and the sky became very eyecatching late on in the evening. The photo above was in the last hour of daylight while the one below was closer to sunset but with a very different colour tone.

As the light faded I stood and watched a male kestrel feeding into the darkness as it caught summer chafer bugs that were buzzing around the tops of the bushes and trees. The kestrel perched on the car park signs scanning the nearby bushes and then it would dash out and snatch one of these small but chunky bugs with its talons. It would fly onto another perch to feed on the bug before carrying out more scanning for supper.

I noticed that the local barn owl came into the park once the gates had been closed and the site was empty of people. It could now hunt the long grass in peace.

Whilst walking along the seawall I noticed this large hairy brown caterpillar of the ground lackey moth, close to the ground. Last summer I found a group feeding on saltmarsh plants such as sea purslane and sea lavender nearby to this same spot. It is listed as a nationally scarce moth as it is mainly found only on the saltmarshes of the south-east of England and one or two coastal sites in the south west. Hopefully I will get one of the adults at the moth trap later in the summer, as happened last year.

It has been really good news seeing the sand martins returning to the sandy cliff to nest. The colony seemed to get abandoned last spring probably because it was so cold. Signs didn't look promising for this spring but since early June, there has been a small flock around. This evening there looked like there were about 30 holes in use and actually flying over the nearby fields were about 100 birds.

Whilst on the trail of breeding birds I went to look at the avocets on the saltmarsh pools near the Golfhouse as there was a report that the birds were possibly sitting on nests. Sure enough on one pool there was the distinctive black and white head with the long upcurved beak, neatly concealed amongst a colourful clump of sea lavender. The male was happily feeding in the shallow water close-by. In the neighbouring pool the second pair were also doing the same thing with a female sitting tight while the male did a spot of feeding before having a snooze.

One or two plants caught my eye along the beach such as sea rocket and this big clump of sea kale. This plant maintains a tenuous toe-hold on the Island as it flourishes just above the high tide mark making it very vulnerable to high seas. Sea kale only returned back last year to the park beach after an absence of about 20 years.