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Recent sightings

• 24 May 2012

  The Original Butterfly...

  Continuing the theme of emerging Butterflies in the warm weather, Dave McGough took these stunning shots of a Brimstone in our Wildlife Garden yesterday...

  

  

  24-5-12

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 24 May 2012

  OMG! Sunshine! Heat!

  We love to moan about the weather. " Oooo...nothing but rain for weeks on end.... cannot get out to cut the grass.... everywhere flooded.... no butterflies anywhere!" and now it's... " Oooo.... butterflies on the wing!... but it's too hot to go outside... risk of getting burnt.... grass all crispy....wish it was cooler!"

  I have a solution!  Wear a wide brimmed hat and get out there and enjoy the sudden flush of insect life and the associated frenetic feasting of the small bird population desperate to feed their young or summon up the energy to produced eggs!

  

  Whitethroats do not seem as numerous this spring... listen out for their scratchy song.... which by the way, lasts as long as it will take you to say scratchy, scratchy, scratchy!!! (Image by Chris Lowe)

  

  Despite coming out earlier than normal, in late March, this year; there are still some delightful Orange Tips on the wing (Basil Thornton)

  

  Green Hairstreaks have colonised in recent years. This one is on Green Alcanet  (Dave McGough) 
  

  24-5-12

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 24 May 2012

  There's Clingons on the Mantlet Wall, Mantlet Wall, Mantlet Wall......

  These tiny baby Wrens ventured forth into the big wide world on Sunday morning with proud parents looking on. The mantlet is so full of spiders and such like that they should have had no problem finding enough food for them despite the inclement weather that day.

  

  

  Clinging on for dear life....

  

  Parent looking on... all images by David Dent

  24-5-12

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 23 May 2012

  You're Gorgeous! Baby Birds everywhere!

  Step outside at the moment and you will hear the 'wwwwiiiiiiissshhhhoooo' calls of countless cute baby Starlings. They erupted from their nests en masse late last week and are constantly following around their parents and begging for food. The adults are very diligent but I am sure that any baby Starling that opened its bill and 'wwwwiiiiiiissshhhhoooo'ed at them would receive a belly full of leather jackets!

  

  (Les Harrison)

  They have to be on the lookout though as our regular pair of Magpies are very adept at nonchalantly ambling up to a feeding party and then deftly stabbing one in the head while it is not looking! Much Starling screaming ensues but rarely to any avail and several swift head blows usually does the trick but although this may seem cruel it is simply nature at work, wheedling out the less able and quick to react. Survival of the fittest (and quickest) has never been more apt.

  23-5-12

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 23 May 2012

  Swans part deux

  A closer inspection of our two Mute Swan broods revealed that one of the seven Aveley Pool cygnets is in fact a Polish youngster. It is strikingly different from its siblings being off white rather than grey and as it grows up it was stay white with the bill acquiring its pink colouration at an early age. I suspect that the legs will also be pinkish.  It is not an albino, just a colour morph. I have always wondered whether it was pronounced Polish or polish and some digging on the Swan Santuary website revealed the following:

  "The polish mute swan is a ‘pure white’ version of a mute swan. The legs and feet are a pinkish-grey colour instead of the usual black colour. A pigment deficiency of a gene in the sex chromosomes is what causes the whiteness.When a female mute swan inherits only one melanin-deficient chromosome she will be a Polish swan, whereas the male of the same parents will be normal. If the next generation is produced by two of their offspring the brood will contain numbers of both Polish and normal cygnets of either sex.

  Polish swans were given their name when they were imported from the Polish coast on the Baltic sea into London around about 1800. Mistakenly thought to be a new species they were given the name ‘Cygnus immutabilis’ (Changeless Swan)"

  
  

  Ahhh!  ....  (Julie Dent)

  
  

  Side by side (David Dent)

  

  A truly non-ugly duckling (Brandon Anderson)

  

  Causing trouble again... they had the whole of Aveley Pool to play with and Dad brought them back to harrass the Coots again!. You can clearly see the Polish youngster with his six grey siblings.

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 20 May 2012

  A new bird for the reserve!

  Yesterday a Bonaparte's Gull was found by Rich Bonser at Crossness and Barking Bay yesterday.  This is a very rare visitor from North America where it is sort of the Black-headed Gull equivilant. This is the first record for London and Essex and was watched from both sides of the Thames!

  From where I was watching it yesterday evening in Barking Bay you could see Tilda Rice, the landfill site and the Concrete Barges. Not too far to fly to get itself onto the Rainham Marshes list! Luckily today, after spending a few hours in Barking Bay it did just that and became our 12th species of gull the year.  Just wish I could have escaped to see it!

  

  ...and here is a shot taken by Shaun Harvey yesterday....

  20-5-12

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 20 May 2012

  Crack of Dawn ... again

  One week on and another Dawn Chorus beckons. It is 0335 and the birds ar already in full song in preparation for the arrival of those bold enough to get up at this time! It is a little warmer this week and there is a fairly stiff breeze but this does not seem to be putting off the birds. Song Thrushes, Blackbirds, Robins, Wrens, Skylark, Reed and Sedge Warblers, Redshank, Lapwing and even the Cuckoo are proclaiming their territories in the darkness.

  

  This is what a Skylark would look like if you could see it in the dark..... (Barry Jackson)

  also the invisible Song Thrush (Les Harrison)

  

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 19 May 2012

  On the prowl

  Several of these almost prehistoric looking critters have been seen recently on the trails, especially around the woodland. They are the very active larvae of the Glow-worm (which of course is not a worm but a beetle!). Will have to check but pretty sure that their favourite snack is snails and slugs!

  

  Not glowing yet! (Chris Lowe)

   

  Posted by Howard Vaughan

• 17 May 2012

  Skimming low

  The wind and rain have beenkeeping the Swallows, Martins and Swifts so low this week that they are close enough to hear the sound of their wings as they zoom past your head. the Swifts are particularly energetic at the moment and although these are probably not our local birds they are still engageing in display chases and peculiar fluttering flight when the lead bird appears to be offerings itself to the one behind.... However, no mid-air mating seen yet!

  With all these Swallows and House Martins we are overdue a Red-rumped Swallow and although one was seen by one lucky observer on the 2nd, there are quite a few around and a lingering bird would make many a local birder smile!

  

  You can see in this picture that a House martin is in fact a rich blue above, not black!  (Les Harrison)

  17-5-12

  Posted by Howard Vaughan