The last few days have been sunny and warm - our Indian summer, with a parched ground to match. There was a bit more cloud and breeze on Friday 14th and this rather tatty small copper couldn't decide whether to rest up for the day, or enjoy the last of the late afternoon sunshine. Only a few small white butterflies were seen in the late afternoon whilst southern hawker, migrant hawker and common darter were seen on the wing.
The very warm days recently and the light northerly breeze have made it very difficult to find any small migrant birds in any of the hedges. They all seemed to have headed south.
One tiny bird that always makes a big impression when it turns up is a real gem, firecrest. I was lucky to have the windows and back door open to enjoy the morning warmth, when I recognised the fast but faint high pitched song of the firecrest coming from a tree by the back door. There was no sign of the bird by the afternoon and without the song to hear, tracking it down was impossible.
I grabbed the bins and was able to quickly locate one of the smallest of British birds. As it hopped from branch to branch, it showed off its distinctive and colourful head markings. Firecrests are scarce migrants to Mersea with one sighting every other year or so. However most sightings are in the spring when the males can be located by their songs.
Talking of migrants, the first stonechat of the autumn was seen at Maydays farm on Wednesday.
There are still a small group of house martins and swallows flying over fields north of the park. Most of the large flock that was present last week seems to have moved on. Even the young sand martins from the cliff have moved out and vanished from the scene.
On the park pond, a male gadwall appeared to be nearly out of his moult as he looked very recognisable and smart. Most of the 20 mallard are still moulting as is a shoveler and 15 teal.
I was told about an adder that had been found dead on the seawall having been attacked by something. Not sure what could've killed this one and can't rule out an unsympathetic human.
Had a quick walk to the Point late in the afternoon where one or two plants were still catching the eye such as this Japanese rose above, with its large fleshy hips - the size of tomatoes. The pale pink flowers were all gone on the bush except for one last rather tatty looking one.
Along the top of the strand-line on the beach were one or two sea rocket clumps with their pale lilac flowers. The plants flourish where the high tides have washed up the seeds onto the beach.
On the saltmarsh the flowers of the sea aster are providing a little bit of late summer colour. This saltmarsh plant is usually recognised with the lilac petals but there are often plants without any petals as in the back of the photo above.
The tide was just heading out at the Point and a small selection of waders were seen including 100 ringed plovers, 30 dunlin, 3 bar-tailed godwits, 10 black-tailed godwits, 50 oystercatchers, 20 curlew, 10 turnstone, 20 golden plover and an avocet. There was no linnet flock although four birds were seen flying out of the sea-blite bushes. The usual little egret was seen too.
The moth trap was switched on late in the park and by the morning a hundred moths of 20 species had been noted. This pale moth above is the L-album wainscot, strangely named but it refers to the white L shaped mark on each wing. It used to be a scarce migrant moth in Essex but it has been a regular moth to the traps here in recent autumns.
The commonest moth at the moment is this setaceous hebrew character with its fine intricate markings and subtle colours. Around 40 were in the trap by morning which bulked out the haul. Also seen were frosted orange, latticed heath, rosy rustic, angle shades, canary-shouldered thorn, garden carpet, small square spot and lots of square spot rustics.
There were several of these cryptically marked willow beauties. This one headed straight for a thick wooden post and immediately settled down with its wings spread out, its markings matching the colours of the post. It was still present several hours later in the afternoon.
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