Green sandpiper drops in
W/c August 5
I saw a green sandpiper from the Lapwing hide this morning. This mid-sized wader with its dark back, straight black bill, pale belly and greenish legs has been visiting several of our hide this week. A group of little egrets have been roosting near the Ramsar hide – our visitors and staff have reported sightings in the mornings. From the Ramsar hide this morning I saw three little egrets and 4 herons fishing near the edge of the water edge. I popped into Ramsar again in the afternoon to see two kingfishers skimming the waters for roach and rudd.
Butterflies continue to show well this week with plenty of peacock butterflies around the reserve, freshly emerging from pupae created by caterpillars that hatched this spring. This crop of peacock butterflies will hibernate as adults this autumn to emerge next spring to lay eggs. I also saw a single brimstone butterfly on the buddleia near the Sand Martin hide along with several red admirals. On the Wet Grassland I spotted gatekeepers, meadow browns and a single common blue on Friday! I watched a pair of green veined whites mating and nectaring on purple loosestrife in the wet meadow in our Woodland Loop. Many visitors are picking up butterfly ID sheets at our admissions desk to participate in the Big Butterfly Count that continues until August 11.
Water mint is flowering in the Meadow Maze and attracting the male red-tailed bumblebees I saw feeding. Brown long-eared bats have been using the ceiling of Sand Martin hide as a feeding perch to munch on the moths they catch in the evenings. A large pile of moth wings appears each morning in the alcove to the right. Most wings are from silver Y moths, named for the Y pattern on each wing.
Many wild ducks are in harder to spot now as they are in summer moult. They lose their flight feathers and go into hiding. The males lose their bright colours feathers first and start to resemble the female ducks. I did spot a female tufted duck with 8 newly hatched ducklings out on Wetlands Discovery area and a family of mallard ducklings inside the Tundra exhibit this week. On Saturday I watched sparrowhawk hunting over the back of the Wet Grassland.
