Numbers of painted lady butterflies have been building up in recent days at the park and this one pictured above was enjoying a buddleia bush in the car park on Saturday 25th. At least ten were seen on this bush with another handful on another buddleia, whilst in total there could be about 50 painted ladies on the wing.
Joining the painted ladies were the big colourful peacocks with similar numbers and usually feeding on the same plants like buddleia, thistle and brambles. The white buddleia bush also had numbers of large white, meadow brown, hedge brown, comma and red admiral present.
There wasn't much beach for visitors to use in the afternoon because the high tide had most of it covered. It probably gave the sand martins a bit of peace as a few of them are still raising broods in the cliff. On the pools in the grazing fields 12 black-tailed godwits were noted.
A walk along a path near Meeting Lane in East Mersea provided good views of more butterfly activity in the sunny conditions. Of the regular species seen the most notable sighting was of a purple hairstreak fluttering around an oak tree, as they haven't been recorded away from the park in the last 12 years.
A couple of common blues were seen along the grassy path and amongst an area of long grass where this one above was feeding on some fleabane.
Only the one small copper was seen pictured above, feeding on the bramble flowers in the hedgeline.
Just this one green-veined white butterfly was noted although there seem to be good numbers of both small white and large whites everywhere. Also seen on the walk were meadow browns, hedge browns, red admiral, comma, painted ladies, peacocks and large skipper.
It was very quiet on the bird front with song thrush, common whitethroat, chiffchaff, green woodpecker being the only ones noted on this hot morning. More gulls were swarming after the flying ants above Chapmans Lane with 2000 black-headed gulls in the air.
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