ALLOTMENT ATTRACTION

It was a case of dodging the heavy showers during Sunday 13th, interspersed with some nice warm and sunny spells. I paid the Island allotment field a visit having been invited to judge some of the classes in their summer show! There was a great display of flowers, fruit and vegetables around the site.

When the sun came out the butterflies were quickly seen on some of the flowers such as this small tortoiseshell nectaring on some verbena. Other butterflies seen were peacock, small / Essex skippers, meadow brown, gatekeeper and small whites.

The grey heron joined some of the seven little egrets for the high tide roost in the trees over the park pond on Sunday 13th. On the park pond three little grebe chicks were making lots of noise as they were being fed. A reed warbler was singing from the reedmace on the edge of the pond.

On the pools the pair of avocets were still nervously guarding their two week old chicks, especially as just a few metres away a cow had just given birth to a small brown calf, partially hidden amongst the thick marshy vegetation.

A greenshank was heard calling as it flew off the mud with the tide coming in. A song thrush was singing loudly from the north side of the car park during the day.

Late on Sunday night a tawny owl was perched on a fingerpost sign beside the East Mersea road near Fen Farm.