GARDEN VISITORS

There's been a small influx of willow warblers around the Island in recent days such as two turning up in the Firs Chase garden, West Mersea on a sunny Friday 28th.

Both willow warblers were feeding in a couple of birch trees and posed long enough for some snaps to be taken of them. One or two willow warblers often pass through the garden in late summer, joining the resident blackcaps and chiffchaffs in this area.

Other birds noted over the garden on Friday included a swift and a low-flying sparrowhawk.

Several butterflies enjoyed visiting the garden on Friday such as two commas, one pictured above, two red admirals, two small tortoiseshells, two holly blues, large white and small white.

A common darter and this migrant hawker dragonfly pictured above, were feeding in the garden on Friday

At the beginning of the day these two red underwing moths were noticed beside our back door in Firs Chase. By the middle of the day both moths had flown off to find somewhere cooler.

There was no sign of the honey bee swarm along the Strood seawall on Friday 28th, except for the empty honeycomb. The picture posted a fortnight ago, showed the comb covered in honey bees.

Birds noted during the Strood seawall walk included 4 common buzzards high over the mainland, two sparrowhawks, 50 linnets, corn bunting, wheatear, 4 willow warblers, 2 greenshank, green sandpiper, whimbrel, 3 wigeon, 4 sand martins, 4 yellow wagtails, 100 grey plover and the first two little grebes of the autumn in the channel.

At the country park a pied flycatcher and a spotted flycatcher were seen near the pond by Steve Entwistle who also noted six ruff on the fields.
Michael Thorley saw 3 wheatears and 4 avocets at Coopers Beach on Friday.

Gary Powell reported seeing a grey squirrel in his garden in Empress Avenue a week previously.