Abbie and I went to Rye Meads yesterday as she hadn't seen a tern yet this summer and the nesting rafts there seemed like a good bet. After a lazy morning expecting fairly poor weather, Saturday turned into a mini-scorcher. I hadn't expected a warm still day and regrettably I'd left my net behind. Believe me, this post would have been even more invert-heavy otherwise!
At the first hide we found the usual mallard, coots, gadwall, tuftie, dabchicks etc plus little ringed plover, Cetti's warbler singing somewhere in the distance and common tern preening on one of the islands. One mallard attended to an impressive 14 ducklings to much cooing from those in the hide.
Back outside, we found a narrow-bordered five-spot burnet which Abbie hadn't seen before. She was really taken by the bright red hindwing colours in flight. At further hides we got to see a solitary cormorant, lots of nesting black-headed gulls ("Cute, it vomited!"), a single pair of breeding common tern and a quick flypast from a kingfisher to cheer us up. Back out on the in-between bits I found Tall Melilot (a new species of plant for me).
Now I have an embarrassing confession to make. Until yesterday, I could not say for certain that I had ever clapped eyes on a reed warbler although I was certain I had. Nearly every bird singing like a reed/sedgie that I'd managed to see, had the strong supercilium of a sedge warbler. I'd seen LBJ warblers in similar habitats but not been too sure. After hearing lots of that agitated, angry-sounding song, I managed to take a good look at one at close quarters through the reeds and it was basically about as vague and nondescript as expected. Boring. Amazing!
What really grabbed my attention was something Abbie spotted over the brambles: a large wasp-looking insect that flew quite badly and scuttled around on the flowers. This was Rutpela maculata a large (and actually fairly common) longhorn beetle and one I was hoping to see sometime in the next couple of weeks.
There were a few hopeful photographers at the kingfisher hide but as they'd fledged brood 1 and were incubating brood 2 they weren't particularly showy.
There was nothing particularly spectacular on the way back either - a kestrel being mobbed by crows, Devil's Coach-horse Beetle on the path near the visitor centre, a Cinnabar moth and some kind of Donacia sp. beetle on the reeds being of note. I'd also picked up a couple of ground beetles with the intention of IDing them once I got home.
I've used the wet weather to sit down with the books and hand lens (I really need to start looking at microscopes!). The first beetle here:
is Badister bullatus, one actually possible to ID by hand lens. Most members of the genus are associated with wet ground or still water.
Beetle #2, which was found in the gardened grounds by the visitor centre:
I think is Harpalus affinis which is a very common ground beetle typically found in gardens and lawns.
