The nice sunny weather seemed to bring out a nice selection of wildlife at Blacktoft Sands today from water rails to butterflies and dragonflies.
Water rails have been brillant these last few days with 3 of them being seen on townend on a regular basis. They have also been seen on first and xerox a lot lately, with a nice view of one of xerox from reception today standing out in the sun.
The sunny weather today meant that we saw quite a bit of insect activity which is good to see. Red admirals and speckled wood are showing in wonderful smart colours as the start emerging to join the likes of small tortoiseshell and peacock butterfly. There also was a bit of a dragonfly get together out the front of reception with migrant hawkers and a southern hawker. Then along the trails look out for the wonderful different marked hoverflies.
The weasels also made their daily appearance on the track approaching reception.
On the lagoons townend was once again tops with many wader species including lots of snipe (30+), lapwing, greenshank(14+), spotted redshank (around 20), ruff (10+), green sandpiper. The little egrets started there and then moved towards marshland. For some ducks head to singleton where pintail continue to be seen and wigeon can be found.
Yellow wagtails and curlew can be found up at Ousefleet from time to time and look to the sky for peregrine and hobby,
I will leave you now with a photo of a speckled wood butterfly taken out the front of reception today.