SLOW-WORM SLOW-DOWN

Driving down Shop Lane in East Mersea on Monday 13th, this slow-worm was spotted in the middle of the road. By the time I realised what it was, I had passed over it. Having reversed the car back for a second look, the slow-worm was still lying unharmed in the middle of the road, probably enjoying the warmth off the tarmac.
This individual was only about 30 cms long so not particularly long and probably the average size for slow-worms. Although they look like snakes and move like them too, they are actually legless lizards. They are not generally seen out in the open countryside on the Island, however their favoured habitat seems to be back-gardens. There are several reports each year in East and West Mersea of slow-worm families being found in people's gardens, so there still seems a reasonable population on the Island.

One of Mersea's first "twitchers" Philip Bawden, returned back to his old stomping ground for a walk along the Reeveshall seawall. Having lived on the Island nearly 25 years ago, there have been some noticeable changes in the birds since Philip's time here. The most impressive change is in the marsh harriers numbers now seen around the Island throughout the year. We scanned the Langenhoe Marshes opposite and saw at least 10 birds flying around. This included two family groups of juveniles rising up in the air to get food from a returning adult. Three birds were seen over Reeveshall including a youngster sitting on a bush.

The tide was slowly coming in and a small selection of waders were on view. Avocets were real rarities 25 years ago but today they were some in small groups feeding or roosting with 12 birds seen. Black-tailed godwits can be counted in their hundreds these days but 25 years ago they were not a common sight around the Island. Only 70 birds were seen today, many still in their ginger plumage. Other waders seen on the walk included 2 greenshank, 2 spotted redshank, 20 grey plover, 4 turnstone, lots of redshank and the first autumn flock of dunlin with 50 seen.

A stop at the Reeveshall pool provided views of about 25 black-headed gulls and little else. On one of the recently cut grass fields a high count of 50 stock doves was notable.

The highlight of the Reeveshall walk was seeing a common seal emerge out of the water followed by a small seal pup. The mother laid over on her side and the youngster then suckled for short while. This is the first young seal sighting of the year here and there have been surprisingly few seals around this summer. Seal pups have been reared in the quiet Pyefleet for almost 10 years now, although none were seen last year.

Along the side of the seawalls there were colourful patches of the slender birds foot trefoil amongst the grass. Still good numbers of meadow brown butterflies, both Essex and small skippers as well as a common blue too.

At Cudmore Grove the family of 4 sparrowhawk chicks were still sitting low in their nest, 50 sand martins flew over the cliff and 4 tufted ducklings and 4 cygnets were on the pond. Earlier in the morning the nightingale perched briefly in the open, while in the nearby hedgline a mixed flock of 30 tits, whitethroats, chaffinches etc were seen.

One of the fields beside the East Mersea road has been catching the eye for the last two weeks with the blue flowers of an echium crop. This crop was first grown on the Island two years ago and certainly adds a bit of colour to the countryside and it makes a change from looking at fields of wheat.
Echium is related to borage which has also been grown on Mersea in the past. Echium flowers differ from borage in being more bell-shaped as opposed to the star-shape flower of borage. The flowers of echium vary between blue, dark red, purple and even white.

The flowers are popular with insects and this female ruddy darter was enjoying basking on this flower in the sunshine. A group of bee-hives in the corner of the field were alive with bee activity as they made the most of the echium in flower.

Martin Cock watched 4 ringlet butterflies, the first records for the island, near Meeting Lane on Sunday and also at Maydays Farm on Monday.

The moth trap was operated at the park over Saturday night with an average selection of species discovered at dawn the next morning. About 40 species were noted including the first drinker moth, marbled brown and shaded broad bar, new for the year.

Martin Dence reported from Bromans Farm that the barn owls appeared to be feeding young, the little owl chicks have left the nestbox while the swallow and mistle thrush families have suffered from predation.