PEA FIELD ACTIVITY

A male yellowhammer was perched on a bush near the seawall at Maydays farm on Sunday 19th.
There was a variety of small birds flitting about and feeding along one of the ditch-lines between two pea fields. Five stonechats were the most noteworthy, possibly a family from the nearby Langenhoe ranges. Also a couple of corn buntings- one seen with food in its bill, as well as one or two reed buntings, yellow wagtails, whitethroats, linnets and a meadow pipit too.

A hobby flew low and quickly across the fields towards the seawall, a marsh harrier, buzzard and a kestrel were seen too. A couple of common seals were in the top end of the Pyefleet.

On Sunday evening Steve Entwistle reported from the Strood a greenshank, yellow wagtail, marsh harrier, kestrel, hobby, 15+ curlew, 7 little egrets, 40 linnets. There was no sign of the barn owl over the Strood fields that evening which had been reported by Dave Conway on the previous two evenings.

At dusk on Sunday in the Firs Chase garden, 44 pipistrelle bats were counted emerging from the soffit in the gable end of the house. The roost has only started to get used in the last few days as seen by the amount of bat droppings on the windowsill below the soffit. The first pipistrelle emerged at 9.15pm with other individuals dropping out during the next thirty-five minutes.
Andy Field reported three pipistrelle bats showing well over his High St North garden on Friday 17th.

On Saturday 18th a whimbrel was the only wader of interest in the top end of the Pyefleet channel near Bower Hall farm as the tide began to recede. A marsh harrier and a buzzard were seen near here while near Maydays two juvenile kestrels were following the female kestrel. Three yellowhammers, four yellow wagtails, meadow pipit and a brown hare were seen along the Bower Hall seawall section to the Strood.

Along the Strood channel on Saturday were a greenshank. whimbrel, 200+ redshank, 10 black-tailed godwits and 4 common terns. A brown hawker was nice to see along the Strood borrowdyke.

Steve Entwistle watched two little terns fly close to the seawall corner at Maydays farm on Saturday, also a grey seal in the Pyefleet. In the evening Steve reported that between the Golfhouse and the Oyster Fishery at East Mersea were four little terns, 25+ linnets, 35+ avocets, three bar-tailed godwits and a mixed flock of swallows and sand martins.
There was no sign from Mersea of the osprey seen by Glyn Evans near Alresford who watched it flying over the Colne and the Geedons on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday a crossbill flew south over the Firs Chase garden calling as it passed by.
A peregrine was seen by Andy Field flying over the Chatsworth houses before heading north to the Strood on Saturday. Ian Black watched a sparrowhawk take a juvenile starling from his Mersea Avenue garden, while later a great spotted woodpecker and green woodpecker were seen in Firs Road, then at the Dabchicks two little terns, four black-tailed godwits and two Mediterranean gulls were seen by Ian.

Four brown argus butterflies were seen in a field corner of flowering bristly ox-tongue just west of the East Mersea church on a hot Friday 17th.

A common blue was also seen just west of the church, along with 100+ small and large whites, several meadow browns and gatekeepers with a couple of peacocks too.

Two distant stonechats were on the corner of the marsh near Coopers Beach on Friday, the male and either female or juvenile although they were some way off to tell which. Six little egrets, 20 mallard, two Mediterranean gulls, common tern over the boating lake, two whitethroats, eight linnets, 3 reed warblers were the birds of note while a common seal had caught a fish very close to the breach in the seawall.

A black tern flew over Steve Entwistle's garden in Empress Drive on Friday evening - a noteworthy sighting anywhere on the Island, let alone a garden! Also a sparrowhawk and twenty swifts over his garden that evening.

A sand martin was pictured by Andy Field on Thursday 16th peering out of its hole in the Cudmore Grove cliff, as was a predatory bee-wolf peering out of its hole a few inches to the side. Thirty sand martins were seen flying about the beach and park.
Also at the country park were a pochard with four very young ducklings on the pond, two little terns, two common terns, two whimbrel, seven golden plover, 12 dunlin, three ringed plover including a juvenile, hobby, three juvenile kestrels while a pair of marsh harriers were on Langenhoe Point.

Along the Strood seawall on Thursday, a green sandpiper flew out of the saltmarsh by the caravan site, the regular male marsh harrier was over the fields, three greenshank, whimbrel, six common terns were along the channel while ten Mediterranean gulls were also seen.
A sedge warbler sang a bit of a sub-song from a bush as it flitted about, a male corn bunting sang too, while fifty swifts were by the houses and a lesser whitethroat in Feldy View.
A buzzard drifted high north-west over Firs Chase and then over the Hard earlier on Thursday.

On Wednesday 15th three Sandwich terns flew past the Cudmore Grove shoreline calling as they headed west, also six common terns and a Mediterranean gull in the river. Six tufted ducklings were on the park pond with their mother, also at the park 30+ sand martins, yellow wagtail, a dunlin and two shovelers. Two black-tailed skimmers and 10+ small red-eyed damselflies were seen along the park dyke.

Two common buzzards were seen high over Ray Island by Ian Black on Wednesday 15th.

A small copper made one of its rare annual visits to the Firs Chase garden on Saturday 18th.

A common blue was also seen in the Firs Chase garden resting on some knapweed on Thursday 16th.

 Two large privet hawkmoth caterpillars were photographed by David Nicholls, as they munched their way through a lilac bush in his neighbour's garden.

Most of the various hawkmoth caterpillars have the distinctive horn growing out the end of the body.
Matt Cock photographed an adult privet hawkmoth resting during the day on a post in his East Road garden on Sunday 12th.