SPAWN BUCKET

It wasn't a complete shock to find a bucket of frog spawn left on my doorstep at the park on Wednesday 2nd, as I had been warned. The photo above shows some of the as yet, undeveloped spawn appearing as masses of tiny black dots in a thick mass of jelly. Having failed to persuade the lady from West Mersea to keep them in her garden pond, I offered them a refuge in the park pond.

The sunshine was warm enough to have the park 's sandy cliff swarming with thousands of mining bees. Sunny days in spring is the peak season for the bees and a close look at the cliff reveals thousands of tiny holes where the bees will have their young.

The sunshine also brought Nigel Cumings, one of the Essex experts in beetles, to the park. With great excitement he showed me a very rare beetle he had found at the bottom of the cliff. I shared his excitement but was a little bit disappointed at the rather tiny specimen in the container. No bigger than a capital letter in this written text, the little black ground beetle with a couple of orange spots on the abdomen scurried round and round while I stared at it through a hand-lens.

This little beetle is nationally scarce and is listed in the Red Data Book. It is apparently found in sandy areas in the south-east of the UK near the coast and in Essex, is only known from one or two other sites. I try to avoid using long complicated scientific names on this blog but I'm happy to supply the beetle's name on request for other beetle enthusiasts out there!

Nigel managed to find time to glance skywards and noted the first sand martin back from Africa along the cliff.

The sunshine brought five adders out in their usual spots in the country park.

Both male and female sparrowhawks were seen separately during the day flying over the park. At dusk a pair of little owls were watched hopping from telegraph post to post along Bromans Lane, as I drove along in the fading light.

The moth trap was checked on Wednesday morning and 18 moths of 8 species were noted, which was an average number considering the night sky was clear and chilly. The pinky-brown moth above was one of a few blossom underwings to be found, along with common quaker, hebrew character, March moth, small quaker, red chestnut, clouded drab and grey shoulder knot.

Martin Cock on Monday morning saw a buzzard fly over his garden in West Mersea and also noted by St. Peters, a wheatear, eider and a shag.