MORE ALIENS

Living on an island is no barrier to foreign invaders and these alien harlequin ladybirds have been noted in large numbers in recent days by Michael Thorley in his garden alongside the East Mersea road. They are slightly larger than our common seven-spot ladybird and have a variety of colour combinations.

The harlequin is also known as the multi-coloured Asian ladybird as it is native to Asia and first arrived in the UK in 2004 in Essex. It is described as "the most invasive ladybird in the world." The first one on the Island was found nearly two years ago in the garden near the East Mersea church by Trevor Hearn.

A distant shot with my small compact camera of the avocet family near the East Mersea Point showing a chick on the right with two adults just left of centre. Checking the pools on Saturday morning, revealed three young from one pair and a single from the other. The little chicks fed continuously, sweeping their little up-turned bills from side to side as they waded through the shallow waters. The parents every so often would rise up in the air with lots of loud calling as they escorted gulls away from the airspace over the pools.

A common sandpiper flew low along the dyke and out onto the mudflats, while a bar-tailed godwit flew overhead as it changed feeding grounds. Reed warblers, linnets and meadow pipits were noted too along the seawall.

In the grassland strip between the dyke and the seawall are lots of pink clumps of the spiny rest harrow. A widespread plant especially around the Essex coast, it possess lots of sharp spines amongst the pretty pink pea flowers. Growing beside clumps of yellow slender birdsfoot trefoil provided a colourful contrast.

I wasn't expecting to see this drinker moth during the day, clutching onto a dead clover flower beside the path. If it could stay still for only another twelve hours, it will survive another day. It is quite a common large moth in the summer here and the large caterpillars are often seen too.
A six spot burnet moth was also seen flying past with a blur of its rapidly beating red wings.

The cloud and breeze restricted many of the butterflies to sheltered spots but peacocks, red admiral, meadow brown, hedge brown, skipper sps, speckled wood, small white and large white were all noted. Only ruddy darter and black-tailed skimmer and blue tailed damselfly were the only dragonflies noted.