Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: Local Patch Update......26th June & 2nd July 2022.

Friday 8 July 2022

Local Patch Update......26th June & 2nd July 2022.

Another compilation of visits to the local birding patch at East Halton,with some nice birds seen and also some cracking insects over the two visits.

19th June

An early start today in usual style,starting at Winter's saw this site showing just how good it is for migration,with 2 adult Green Sandpipers being present now,but also the welcome sight of a Great-white Egret passing by north,with a stunning adult Med Gull heading in the same direction.

Both these species were new additions to the local patch year list,the Egret being only the 3rd i have seen here.

A nice surprise here also,came in the form of a female Gadwall seen with a brood of 5 ducklings,the first breeding for the species i have noted on the local patch to date and really nice to see.

Other sightings around Winter's consisted of a couple of Willow Warblers and fledglings of several species including Blue Tit,Great Tit,Chiffchaff,Dunnock and Goldfinch.

The shoreline held a few species also,with Curlew,Cormorant,Shelduck and Oystercatcher's all showing nicely.

I then decided to walk along the length of the mitigation area,with little bird sightings along here due to the ever dwindling pools,i concentrated on counting insects,with some decent counts noted.

Meadow Browns featured heavily,with 131 being seen,with 12 Small Heath,7 Small Skipper,27 Ringlet and my first sighting of the year of Gatekeeper with just one noted.

The roadside verges between the Skitter and East Halton village really have been impressive insect wise lately and today things were notched up a level,with me finding the first patch records of both Volucella zonaria and Eristalinus sepulchralis.

The former was first seen in this country on the south coast in the 1930's,but then had been spreading slowly north,but this has accelarated rapidly during the 1990's.It has an unusual social life as a larvae,living in social Wasp nests,such as Hornets,scavenging food from the nest cavities.

The latter species,i had suspected would be here and was nicely confirmed after i got some decent photographs showing the hairs on the lower parts of the eye only when compared to its sister species Eristalinus Aeneus,which has hairless eyes.This shows that both species do occur on the patch,another species added to the ever growing list.

The remainder of the visit saw more of the same species recorded,such as Meadow Brown and Ringlets,with no more notable birds seen.

2nd July

Winter's again proved to be the most productive sight for bird sighting's again on today's visit,with it being high tide,a few nice species were bathing and feeding on the grassland and included a partially summer plumaged male Ruff,a juvenile Little-ringed Plover,now 3 Green Sandpipers and the first decent flock of Islandica Black-tailed Godwits of the autumn,with 87 birds being present.

I looked,as always through the Black-tails and managed to find one colour-ringed bird,with the combinations of Red over Black Flag on the left tarsus and Blue over Green on the right tarsus.I had recorded the same bird here on the 27th of September 2021 and just goes to show how this species uses particular sites as stop offs on migration.

It was also seen at Leighton Moss RSPB on the 22nd of April this year,no doubt fuelling up before heading for Iceland to breed.

Also around Winter's today were pretty decent numbers of fledged species and included 17 Long-tailed Tit,14 Blue Tits,10 Great Tits and a Cetti's Warbler.

The Skitter area proved productive again on the insect front,with me finding one of the most distinctive Flies i think i have ever seen,the Soldier Fly Oxycera trilineata.This lime green stunner was found sheltering from the brisk south westerly wind on the edge of the plantation and is a new record not just for the patch,but also for me as well.

Bird wise the Skitter held a few bits which included another Green Sand making it 4 for the day,the first 2 Common Sands of the autumn,9 Avocet and three broods of Shelduck,14,9 and 2.

So another couple of really productive visits to this cracking patch of mine and long may it continue with more interesting insects and cracking birds.