25th June
An excellent day, especially for the insects. The combination of warm sunshine and little wind brought out a good variety of butterflies: small heath and common blue, plus a few small coppers, wall brown, large skipper and large white, the latter around the sea kale. Also saw several cinnabar moths and what I think is a brimstone moth, landed on the underside of a bramble leaf, which made it difficult to photograph. Brian will put me right if I have got that wrong. There were a few 4-spot chaser dragons and plenty of damsels, mainly common blues with a sprinkling of azures, blue-tailed and reds.
Looked along the shingle/dune edge for graylings but without success. Nice to see some new flowers opening along there, including wild thyme, lady’s bedstraw and sea bindweed. The birds-foot trefoil is seeding now, its pods showing how it got its name.
The long pool had plenty of families of mallard, including one with ten ducklings; also swans with 6 cygnets and a moorhen feeding two young. Didn’t see any young little grebes however. On the path alongside, saw a garden tiger moth caterpillar. They are really fast movers!
I am putting a few flower pics on the website.
Jenny.