Whitethroat, Wheatear, Whinchat and Wryneck at Wembury

Wednesday 5th September was a beautiful autumnal day and with my butterflying year now completed I headed off on the bus to Wembury for a walk to do some birding. It was quite a surprise though to find that Stagecoach are no longer running the service and it has now been taken over by Plymouth Citybus, there is still no service on a Sunday or on Bank Holidays but the service is almost hourly and the first service is now at 6:30am.

With the end of summer holiday hell and the children finally back to school it was fairly quiet along the walk which was nice. The toilet block held a few moths too which was a good start - mullein wave, flounced rustic, rusty dot pearl and single dotted wave - and along the walk I found a silver y flitting about in the grass. Butterflies were flitting about too - speckled wood, small copper, small white, common blue and meadow brown with a single gatekeeper - but the highlights were a painted lady and a very smart clouded yellow.

Mullein Wave

Clouded Yellow

Wembury Point was where all the bird action was with a whinchat, 5+ wheatear, 6+ whitethroat, a singing chiffchaff and 3 grey wagtail together flying over heading west all being seen but the highlight was an elusive wryneck which I managed to get 2 brief flight views of only before it disappeared.

Whinchat

Whinchat

Whinchat

Wheatear

Other birds seen included a calling and tumbling flyover raven, a hovering male kestrel, skulky and mobile cirl buntings in the sewage farm hedge, 3+ more wheatears in the horse fields, a single gannet offshore and pied and white wagtails along the beach.

Wheatear

I had the moth box out in the back yard that night, the first time for over a month, and the next morning I had a few moths in the trap - pale mottled willow, Vines rustic, willow beauty and lesser yellow underwing were the highlights.

 Willow Beauty

 Vines Rustic - differing sizes and colouring

Pale Mottled Willow

Thursday 6th September and with grey skies and a cool breeze we headed off to South Huish Marsh for a walk to Hope Cove and back. It was quiet bird wise with the best being a wood sandpiper with 4 dunlin and 5 black-tailed godwit on the marsh with a few swallow and house Martin overhead and the toilet block at Hope Cove holding a mullein wave and single dotted wave.

Wood Sandpiper with Dunlin - awful record shot

Friday 7th September and with a night shift looming I headed out to Wembury again for a walk on another warm and sunny Autumn day. There was just a single flounced rustic in the toilet block this time but the clouded yellow was still flitting about at The Point and I also found a nice comma feeding on buddleia flowers.

Flounced Rustic

There had been a clear out of birds too with no sign of any wheatears or the wryneck and just 2 whitethroats in the bushes but there were a few chiffchaff and blackcaps around and the whinchat was still showing well too. Along the beach white and pied wagtail were still feeding on the seaweed mass and a bar-tailed Godwit was feeding in the rock pools with oystercatchers. A 2nd winter Mediterranean gull was amongst the herring, black headed and great black backed gulls roosting on the rocks and a great spotted woodpecker and a coal tit were feeding in the pines at The Point.

And on a different note it was lovely to be paid a visit by Birdy our herring gull fledgling, he turned up for a drink from the water bowl and a nibble on the rotten plums that had fallen from our Victoria plum tree onto the roof - he was looking very healthy and quite unperturbed by our prescense as usual before flying off.

Birdy

Birdy