SUNNY SHOWERS

Managed a walk along the Strood Channel on Monday 27th in the early evening just after another short sharp shower had passed by. The sun soon came out and a rainbow briefly appeared against the black cloud. During the walk the tide was just starting to uncover some of the mud and waders and gulls were arriving in numbers.

The most interesting waders were 2 greenshank, common sandpiper, green sandpiper and a whimbrel. The commonest wader was the redshank with several curlew and oystercatchers too, while flying off some nearby fields were 50 lapwing.

A couple of hundred gulls gathered along the water's edge too with black-headed, herring, lesser black-backed the main ones seen. Four little egrets stood on the brushwood sea defences as the tide turned with a further 4 seen later on. Small numbers of common terns and little terns flew up and down the channels.

Other birds seen inside the seawall included 50 house sparrows enjoying the ripening wheat, 6 linnet, a family of sedge warblers, 5 reed warblers, a singing corn bunting and a kestrel.

During one of the short sunny periods this Essex skipper sat in the sun soaking up the evening's warmth. There weren't many other butterflies seen except for a couple of meadow browns.

The warm and damp air seemed to enhance the aromatic smell of the sea wormwood plants growing along the seaward side of the seawall.


After a day of dodging the downpours, the evening ended on a dry note and the wind had died down too.

At the beginning of the day Steve Entwistle saw the yellow-legged gull at the Strood, also 3 whimbrel too. Martin Cock on his walk along the Meeting Lane footpath in East Mersea had good views of 4 purple hairstreak butterflies.

Received a report of a hummingbird hawkmoth feeding in a garden in West Mersea last week - the first report this summer of one.