Sunday, 17 June 2018

Wembury Wander

Friday 15th June and a warm and mostly sunny morning saw me heading off on the bus to Wembury for a walk. With it being the annual National Moth Night Weekend I kept a good eye out for any moths along the walk as unfortunately I was working a night shift that night and so would be unable to use my moth box in the back yard but I managed to see a few decent moths anyway.

The toilet block held a pale tussock, a willow beauty and a dwarf cream wave which I caught and released outside and on the coast path walk I found 2 nettle tap, a buff ermine, a sharp angled peacock and a wood carpet along with 5 mullein caterpillars on mullein and Depressia daucella caterpillars on hemlock water dropwort flower heads.

 Pale Tussock

 Dwarf Cream Wave

 Sharp Angled Peacock

 Wood Carpet

Mullein Caterpillar

It was quiet bird wise as expected with the highlights being 2 little egrets having a barney on the rocky foreshore where 12 oystercatchers were feeding with 3 male mallards moulting into eclipse plumage, 2 ravens, a swallow and a buzzard overhead, a songflighting rock pipit, songflighting whitethroats, 2 chiffchaffs heard, 2 singing cirl buntings with a third male seen and an adult gannet with 2 juveniles offshore flying west. It was nice to see a few fledglings too including blue tits, wrens, stonechats and carrion crows.

Cirl Bunting

Butterflies were on the wing too with speckled woods, a red admiral. large skippers, common blues, meadow browns and a small tortoiseshell all seen.

 Large Skipper

 Large Skipper

 Meadow Brown

Meadow Brown

A digger wasp was seen on the footpath attacking a bee which I disturbed as I walked by and the wasp flew off without the bee and disappeared into a burrow in the ground and later I found another digger wasp resting on some brambles. 

 Digger Wasp Sp.

 Digger Wasp Sp.

Digger Wasp Sp.

2 common lizards were seen, 1 the usual brown coloured and the other quite green.

 Common Lizard

A few small dark bush crickets were also seen along with what I think was a Roesel's bush cricket which disappeared into the grass before I could get a really good look at it.

 Dark Bush Cricket

Roesel's Bush Cricket?

Another great wander at Wembury with a Chunk pasty and a coffee from the beach cafe for lunch ending a very pleasant morning.

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