Waders

Autumn is here, at least in the ornithological calender, as return wader passage has begun. The mud on the Budge fields is looking really good, although frustratingly obscured by tall vegetation,  it is attracting birds.

Over the least three days there has been up to three wood sandpipers, three little ringed  plovers, 35 black-tailed godwits, 33 snipe, three ringed plovers, 15 dunlin, eight redshank and two common sandpipers. It will certainly be worth checking over the next few weeks.

Two spoonbills and a little egret continue to hang around on the Budge fields.

Hare on the Budge fields

Elsewhere on the patch, swallows are fledging from the hides and concrete blockhouses and second brood are underway. Stonechats have fledged second broods of young, they will probably triple-brood this year if the weather holds.

Stonechats - having a good year!

Heavy rain for much of last night and this morning must have kept one of the local barn owls indoors overnight, so it was making up for lost time, hunting the dunes at lunchtime today.

Barn owl hunting at 1.30pm

Offshore, the scoter flock remains at about 700. A pair of velvet scoter was with them on Thursday, but they are frustratingly far-out at the moment to pick anything else out.

Lots of butterflies are on the wing now including small skipper, ringlet, dark green fritillary, meadow browns and small tortoiseshells.

Tatty ringlet

Dark green fritillary

small tortoiseshell

Burnet moths are also abundant in the dunes with about five to each thistle head.

narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths

138 little ringed plover
139 common sandpiper

PWC score 182