It seemed to have been raining for what felt like days, so when the sun came out earlier in the week, Gail and I headed to the Wyre estuary for a 'wee dander', as my beloved Uncle Tommy would have said. The Wyre is close to home, not quite walking distance, but at most five minutes in the car. Of course, it depends which bit of the estuary we walk, but even the furthest reaches are only ten minutes away.
We left our first couple of walks until the afternoon at the start of the week, to maximise our chances of encountering some butterflies. Nothing scarce, but a nice selection of some of our more common species. Our first walk was towards the mouth of the estuary along the quay, somewhere that as you know we visit often. It's an urban fringe, post-industrial, sometimes brown-field backdrop to the estuary, but this combination provides the ingredients for wildflowers, and of course invertebrates.
The House Sparrows love it here because it is untidy, lots of insects to feed their chicks with, and some dereliction for nest sites. Not unlike our garden, at least it is certainly untidy, and we have plenty of House Sparrows too. Along the edge of the Quay, where it abuts the old ferry car park that is festooned with flowering Buddleia at the moment, eight - ten House Sparrows kept us company with their chirpy cheeping. They always seem so upbeat!
The commonest butterfly by far was the Small White, and we had at least thirty during our walk. Our walk isn't very long, perhaps just over a kilometre each way, but it does take us at least an hour and a quarter, with plenty of stopping and staring. It can take a bit longer if we enjoy a Wallings ice cream before the return leg! Our totals for the other butterfly species that we enjoyed were, five Gatekeepers, eleven Common Blues, four Meadow Browns, one very worn Comma, two Red Admirals, a Peacock and a Speckled Wood.
Speckled Wood butterflies occur in woodland, gardens and hedgerows, and I always associate them with partially shaded woodland with dappled sunlight. Along the Quay, there isn't really any habitat like that. There is some scrub, dotted Hawthorn, Rowan, Willow, Wild Pear etc, but nothing that provides that dappled sunlight of a woodland glade, except for under the footbridge. The footbridge has a bit of scrub either side, some Bramble underneath, but more crucially, the structure of the bridge creates dappled sunlight, and that's where the Speckled Wood was. I like things like that.
About half way along our walk, we like to sit on the edge of the Quay and spend a few minutes just sitting quietly and observing. Our quiet contemplation was shattered by a winged beauty that whizzed past at about an insect equivalent of Mach two! I didn't get on it straight away, but thankfully it threw out the anchors when it passed some Buddleia on the edge of the Quay, and I could see by its characteristic hovering, it was a Hummingbird Hawkmoth. Marvellous! The Buddleia only seemed to hold its attention for what just seemed like a nano-second, and it was off. A first for the site.
We've noticed that the number of Gulls roosting on the end of the saltmarsh is increasing by the day as more and more Gull chicks fledge, and today we had 117 Herring Gulls, seven Black-headed Gulls, nine Lesser Black-backed Gulls and four Great Black-backed Gulls. We just had a single Little Egret feeding along the tide line, but numbers will increase as we move further in to autumn.
There's a section of the Quay close to where the ferries used to dock, and I have always thought that it looks good for a Common Sandpiper. It's a concrete slope, covered in sea-weed, and full of invertebrates, so perfect habitat for Common Sandpipers. For some reason they do like to feed on slopes, perhaps it reminds them of their upland riparian breeding haunts, who knows? Common Sandpipers aren't unusual on the Wyre by any means, and at this time of year further upstream, double figure counts are easily obtainable, but I have never seen them here, until today. As Gail and I walked along this section, I could hear a Common Sandpiper calling, and there it was, flying from the slope in a wide arc with those characteristic flaps, and short glides on bowed stiff wings. Superb!
We then heard a second bird calling that sounded very close, and it too was on the concrete slope, but as soon as it clocked us it was off. The Common Sandpipers made our day. They're not rare, indeed they are fairly common, but we hadn't seen them on this patch before, and that's what observing a local patch is all about.
There's still plenty of Swallows about, and we had thirteen feeding along the wall of the Quay, and I suspect that some of them will be on with second broods now. It's a shame that we couldn't say the same about Swifts, as all we had was a single bird.
It was the Swallows that alerted us to the presence of a female Sparrowhawk as it flap-glided across the mud with it's hirundine escort! A Buzzard on the far side of the river quartering some farmland, was the only other raptor that we had.
On our return leg the tide was starting to run in, and three Black-tailed Godwits were feeding in the Quay just beyond the fishing boats. A nice way to end a pleasant afternoon.
Yesterday, we headed further upstream towards the country park and headed out in the late morning sunshine, again hoping for a few insects. The saltmarsh looked absolutely stunning with all the Sea Lavender in full bloom, providing that contrast of the purple flowers and the green of the saltmarsh.
It wasn't long before we were recording a few butterflies, but they weren't as numerous as yesterday, and we had two Large Whites, just two Small Whites, four Speckled Woods, five Gatekeepers, a Peacock, a Meadow Brown and a Red Admiral.
Along the edges of the path there were lots of flowers in full bloom, including Ribbed Melilot, Wild Parsnip, Perennial Sow-thistle, Hogweed, Hawkweed Oxtongue, Wild Mignonette, Upright Hedge Parsley and Common Fleabane to name but a few.
A few dragons made an appearance, but it was a few, two Brown Hawkers and a magnificent Southern Hawker that I managed to photograph as it hung from a branch sunning itself.
The path along here is set back from the estuary, and as I didn't have my scope with me, we didn't count any of the waders feeding out on the mud. Maybe next time. On our return we just added a calling Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler. Still, it was a pleasant morning.
I was just about to press 'publish' on blogger to post this blog, when I noticed that the sun was starting to appear after what had been a dreich morning, and I decided to head up to the Quay again to stretch my legs. It was a solo trip, as Gail was out having lunch with friends.
Redshank numbers on the mud in the Quay had increased to 22, and they had been joined by a Dunlin, my first returning Dunlin of the autumn. As I headed along the quayside, I noticed 7 or 8 Goldfinches perched up in some Elder, with about six House Sparrows, and it was obvious that the Goldfinches had been bathing in a puddle on the old ferry car park, as they were busy preening their wet plumage.
I counted the butterflies as usual, and I had sixteen Small Whites, ten Common Blues, four Gatekeepers, three Holly Blues, a Meadow Brown, a Red Admiral and a single Silver Y moth.
I was heading towards the point where I turn round and walk back, when a large black insect shot past me, and I thought "that looks interesting". Luckily for me it had landed on a leaf of a Sycamore, and I was able to take a few pictures of it, even though the leaf was moving around in the wind. I must admit I had no idea what it was other than I thought it was one of the ichneumon wasps. Back home I looked it up and identified it as a Black Slip Wasp Pimpla rufipes.
As you can see below, it is a striking looking beastie, and its bright orange legs contrast with its black body. I found out that it predates butterfly and moth larvae, laying an egg in each one. And it can sometimes be seen visiting flowers. With a lot of these insects, it is quite common, but like many ichneumon wasps it is under recorded. It was a new insect species for me, and it certainly made my day.
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