Saturday 30 July 2011

Wembury 23rd July 2011

Hot and sunny today, a complete contrast to the last few days at Bude, so I headed off on the bus to Wembury and David joined me later in the car for the usual lunchtime pasty and coffee.

A little egret was roosting on the rocks at Wembury Point at high tide with oystercatchers and 8 curlew. Whitethroats were everywhere including quite a few fledglings, obviously they have had a good breeding year again this year. A pale faced buzzard, a sparrowhawk and a kestrel were all flyovers. A male cirl bunting was heard singing and a juvenile stonechat was seen feeding perched on top of some teasel.

Butterflies were everywhere with 10 species seen including a comma, 3 holly blues and a pair of wall mating. The female wall was busy feeding on a thistle flower when the male approached, flicking his wings at her before they flew off a short distance. The male continued to flick his wings at her before they locked abdomen tips and he flew off with her, a very short courtship!


Holly Blue

Mating Walls

Speckled Wood

Also seen were common lizards sunning themselves on the wooden fence posts.

Common Lizard

After enjoying our pasty and coffee we sat in the sun for a while doing the crossword and reading the paper before heading home to prepare for a garden barbecue to entertain our friends Julie, Lizzie and Sandra. We had quite a good night but I drank far too much and was a little delicate the next day as was David. However the weather had changed again and it was grey and cool so we had a quiet day tidying up, watching TV and wandering around a bus and coach rally on Plymouth Hoe where we enjoyed looking at the old buses and coaches.

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