A lovely way to start the ‘early rounds’, as arriving at the Learning Centre, I stepped into the middle of a whirling, jaw dropping blizzard of Swallows and House Martins!
Several hundred birds filled the air with their calls, as they carve criss-crossing paths through the air, snapping insects from the surface of the pond and swooping so low they brushed the grass with their bellies. Their colours are little more muted at this time of year, the ‘midnight blue’ and crimson no quite so dazzling as in the spring. Many young Swallows among the flock, lacking the long tail streamers of the adults. Over the coming weeks and months, number will be build to a ‘critical mass’ at which point the first wave will head south, then numbers will build again, with successive mass departures taking us through till December.
More signs of autumn in the meadows, with a glimpse of a Redstart diving into a mass of flowering Honeysuckle, tangle of Bryony leaves and berries and dense screen of Old Man’s Beard, with a Whinchat (along with a pair of Stonechats seen in the Lighthouse Field.
Jangling, colourful flocks of Goldfinches bob along the top of the field before alighting on an Elder to look like a mast of colourful fruit!
Slowly crawling across the limestone rock near the cliff edge was a Fox Moth caterpillar, the brown body about 2” long, with orange stripes and covered in tiny hairs. This just a youngster which will become much hairier and greyer by the time it pupates next spring.
A little later crossing the tarmac was a Devil’s Coach Horse Beetle, its tail raised as it proceeded, fascinating to watch this insect strutting its stuff!
Lots of butterflies around at the moment with a great burst of Adonis Blues, their bright turquoise blue flashing in the sunlight. Small Heath, Meadow Brown also in numbers, plus a Small Copper to be admired basking on the bare earth.
On the purple flowers of the Buddleia a couple of Red Admiral butterflies and a stripy Jersey Tiger Moth.