Silver Washed Fritillaries and another Yellow Legged Gull

Thursday 10th August and a rare sunny day between the rain and wind of recent weeks saw us heading off to Cawsands for a day on the beach - this time I hadn't been suffering from gastric distress and so actually quite enjoyed my day. The ferry to Cawsands from The Barbican was packed out and people were having to be turned away so we were very lucky to get a seat.

Walking to the beach at Sandways and there were lots of butterflies on the buddleia bushes along the cliff base again - large white, red admiral, meadow brown, gatekeeper, small white and best of all around 4 silver washed fritillary. They were very active and flighty and a little on the worn side and it would have been nice to have seen them on my last visit when I did the Big Butterfly Count but good to see anyway.

 Silver Washed Fritillary

 Silver Washed Fritillary

Silver Washed Fritillary

An adult winter and a juvenile Mediterranean gull were flying around along the shoreline off the beach but more unusual were 4 noisy redshanks on the rocks which eventually flew off towards Plymouth. There was no sign of any purple hairstreaks in the oak tree again on the walk back to Cremyll through Mount Edgecumbe Park and another (or the same) adult winter Mediterranean gull was feeding in the currents off the Cremyll Slipway as we waited for the ferry back to The Barbican.

Thursday 15th August and another sunny but cool and breezy day saw me heading to Wembury for a walk before yet another dreaded night shift. It felt very autumnal on the walk from Wembury beach to Wembury Point and back with the most interest being around The Point on the high tide despite the dog walkers along the beach.

Roosting on the rocks were 2 whimbrel, 48 oystercatcher, 7 little egret and 6 curlew while on the rotting seaweed mass near the sewage pipe were a redshank, a dunlin, a common sandpiper and another whimbrel. 15 eclipse male and 2 female mallard were also present on the seaweed mass and amongst the herring, black headed, great black backed and juvenile lesser black backed gulls I managed to find a juvenile yellow backed gull, my first at Wembury - I first saw it fly low along the beach as I watched from above on the cliff top and it settled on the sewage pipe amongst other gulls where I managed to get some nice views. It wasn't as large or imposing as the bird I saw recently at South Huish Marsh and wasn't as dominant so presumably a female bird but it was still very distinctive looking - cue some rubbish record shots.

 Common Sandpiper

 Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull (right)

 Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull

Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull

 Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull (centre)

Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull

Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull 

Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull (right)

 Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull

 Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull

Juvenile Yellow Legged Gull

Moulted Scapular (centre) - buff with blackish anchor-shaped mark

Land birds were represented by chiffchaff, whitethroat and blackcap seen and heard in the bushes, a singing male cirl bunting with a male later seen feeding on caterpillars along the footpath and 2 juvenile wheatears feeding in the horse fields. Swallows and house martins were flying around overhead and 2 swifts were seen over the village from the bus on the journey down to the beach.

A few butterflies were on the wing - a comma, a holly blue, a peacock, common blues, meadow browns, speckled woods, red admirals, large whites and gatekeepers - but there were no clouded yellows and no moths in the toilet block. A nice walk finished off with a coffee and Chunk pasty on the crowded beach before heading back home to prepare for work.

Holly Blue