I headed out to Wembury for a walk on Thursday 1st May on what was forecasted to be another hot and sunny day. High tide was due at around 9am so I caught the 7am bus in the hope of beating the dog walkers to it and on arriving off the bus at Wembury I headed straight down to The Point to see what was about.
There was quite a mass of seaweed on the beach near the sewage pipe and busily feeding on it were a Ringed Plover, 3 Sanderling, 3 Dunlin, at least 10 Whimbrel, 5 Bar-tailed Godwits and at least 21 Turnstone, all gave great views and with not a dog walker in sight.
Not so nice was seeing the Cardy D fishing boat P600 arriving to pull in fishing nets again very close to the beach in the Wembury Marine Conservation Area despite it being a (voluntarily) no fishing zone. This time they pulled in 2 nets and were even closer in to the beach, more large silvery fish (Sea Bass?) were caught in the nets along with Spider Crabs and what looked like a large Wrasse.
I have reported the incident from the 17th April to Devon and Severn Inshore Fisheries & Conservation Authority and have also reported todays activities too but don't know if anything can be done to stop them.
It began to cloud over as the morning wore on but the heat kept the butterflies active and I saw my first Small Copper and Common Blue of the year and I had good views again of 2 Green Hairstreak.
I caught the bus back to Plymouth and stopped off along the way to visit a site where Dingy Skippers are present. I had hoped to meet Dave the Butterfly Guy there but had to leave for home before he arrived which was a shame, we'll have to catch up another time.
It was hot and humid but increasingly overcast and it wasn't looking too promising as I wandered around the area looking for the Skippers, there were a few Common Blues flitting about which were looking very smart, presumably recently emerged, and some Early Purple Orchids were in flower too but there were no Skippers to be seen. I did find a Small Yellow Underwing, I had seen one here on my visit last year but couldn't get a photo of it, I was more successful on this visit but it was tiny and constantly active so only a record shot was obtained.
Eventually I found a pair of Dingy Skippers in a prolonged aerial tussle before they dashed off in opposite directions and I lost track of them. I had forgotten how small and how fast they are but eventually I refound them resting separately on the ground, one was very, very worn but the other was pristine. They continued to regularly skirmish in the air together, sometimes for a few minutes at a time, they also had a go at any Common Blues passing by and I was surprised when finally getting good views of them that the worn individual was able to keep up with the other intact one.
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