Friday 27 July 2012

Butterflys and Waders at Wembury - 25th July 2012

It was hot and sunny so I headed out to Wembury on the first bus from Plymouth, arriving at Wembury at 09:30 to find the beach was already packed out although the tide was high. It was already very warm and as the day went on the temperature rose to around 25 degrees.

As a result of the recent good weather the most noticeable thing on the walk were all the butterflys flitting around, the most I have seen for a long time and proof of how amazing nature can be. The weather has been pretty cold and wet and windy for the last 3 months and yet after a few days of hot and sunny weather everything has come to life. Meadow browns and gatekeepers were eveywhere and I also saw quite a few ringlets, large whites and small whites. Some of the small whites may have been green veined whites, I couln't be sure as they wizzed past in the hot sunshine. Also on the wing were a very tatty wall brown, 3 small coppers, 2 speckled woods, 3 red admirals and quite a few small skippers which were busily harrasing every butterfly that so much as looked at them. I also saw a marbled white fly past the bus at the petrol station at Staddiscombe so by the end of the trip I had seen 11 species of butterfly.

Small Copper
Ringlet


The toilet block held a few moths too - a riband wave, a snout, a common white wave, a common footman and a rusty dot pearl - and along the coastpath I saw 2 silver y and some six-spot burnets. I also found the remains of a cocoon of an emerged six-spot burnet.

Bird wise it was quiet, no surprise at this time of year, but the wader roost at Wembury Point at high tide had 2 winter plumage dunlins and a common sandpiper amongst the 2 whimbrel, 13 curlew and 53 oystercatchers. Also seen were 3 male and 3 female mallards (the males in eclipse plumage), 2 little egrets, a song thrush and a single adult gannet offshore. 2 cirl buntings were heard with 1 of the males also seen and whitethroats, chiffchaffs, linnets and swallows were obvious all along the walk.

I headed home on the 13:30 bus and was glad to get back indoors and out of the sun and heat but I had had a very pleasent morning.

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