Above. Photo credit: David Gill
We took a picnic to Dunwich Heath today, and down in Docwra's Ditch our eyes alighted on a very small slithery thing, a young adder. It was about 9cm in length and (from a respectable distance) reminded me of a fat earthworm. What a beautiful creature!
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| David at the 'entrance' to the heath |
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| The beach at Dunwich, with a single jogger and a single swimmer in sight |
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| Green Hairstreak butterfly. We saw two of these. |
The sun finally put in an appearance this last Thursday, and we headed off to Minsmere with a picnic lunch. This small selection of photos will perhaps give an indication of the wide variety of species that co-exist on the site, despite the proximity to the new and controversial Sizewell C site.
We noticed our first Large Red Damselfly of 2024 in our garden yesterday. We didn't see any red ones at Minsmere, but we spotted this rather fine Blue-tailed Damselfly in the pond below the visitors' centre.
There were a couple of terns at the water's edge. Is this a Common Tern? I believe this is its breeding plumage; but, as ever, please correct me by leaving a comment.
It is always a joy to see the unmistakable Avocet, the bird on the RSPB logo.
I think this is a Sedge Warbler. The new boardwalk was alive with birdsong.
The photograph above (complete with Spider Crab, presumably the result of somebody's beach-combing activity) shows the seaward extremity of the Minsmere site, with the Dunwich Heath coastguard cottages up on the northern rise in the distance.
Yes, it's definitely breeding season!
We passed signs informing us that the Minsmere adders were waking up. We did not see any snakes on this occasion, but we saw a couple of Common Lizards. Just as we turned to head back to the Visitors' Centre, a Bittern flew over the reedbeds, too quick to catch on camera, but a joy to behold.
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| Today's sighting: Wasp Spiders at Snape, Suffolk |
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| You can see the web and the start of a stabilimentum |
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| Underside - with bound-up grasshopper |
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| The watery reedbed habitat at Snape, looking across to Iken church |
Sadly we have not seen any of these extraordinary spiders in our wild garden this year. I am wondering if they were eaten either by the grass snake or the resident frog.
We seem to be entering 'damselfly season' at long last in my corner of Suffolk, UK. We spotted several Large Red Damselflies and one or two others in the grounds at Helmingham Hall.
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| Helmingham Hall and moat |
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| Not a Large Red ... |
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| ... but very well camouflaged. |
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| Alder fly |
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| Bridge and parkland beyond |
We don't see Wagtails (of any variety) very often in our neck of the woods so it was a particular joy to see these two.
The warm temperatures we experienced from time to time over the weekend made us feel that at last we were entering a late phase of spring. Today the heat has gone out of the sun once again, and although the sky has patches of blue, there is still a chilly northerly wind. It was a joy to see practically our first damsels of the year, but we had to look very hard to count a total of six butterflies at Helmingham, all skittish Orange Tips.
We returned to NT Sutton Hoo this afternoon and looked in the wood to see how the bluebells are coming along. You can see the green shoots behind Spot the Dragon. Some years we have seen these wonderful flowers attracting Orange-tip butterflies, showing off nature's complementary colours in the best of ways; though I cannot help wondering why there should be such contrast when (surely) camouflage, i.e. a flower and butterfly of the same shade, would afford more protection from predators.
And by the way, we have at last seen our first butterfly of 2023; a Small Tortoiseshell on 21 March. This seems very late for back in 2004 when we were still living in Swansea, two butterflies alighted on our rockery on a snowy Valentine's Day. I wrote a Haiku to mark the event:
St Valentine’s Day –
butterflies hug the heather,
snow kisses the lawn
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| Looking across the River Deben to Woodbridge |
David is counting butterflies (with my help) and submitting records to iRecord for Butterfly Conservation. We visited SWT Hollesley Marsh this afternoon, where we counted a total of 207 butterflies in less than two hours, logging ten species ...
As you can see, the views are beautiful, but the dry grass, harvested field (with stack of bales) and ripe blackberries we saw made it feel more like September than July.
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| Visitors are not permitted on the beach to preserve the environment for wildlife |
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| Sunset at Bawdsey ... just because ... |
Knowing that we were likely to be 'confined to barracks' during the heatwave, we took a picnic to Bawdsey at the mouth of the River Deben, opposite Felixstowe Ferry, to enjoy the sunset and some sea air.
Those of you who watch BBC Springwatch will remember the footage of polecats in Bawdsey (see also here).
We decided to explore a section of the sea-wall at Hollesley Marshes, a small section of the Suffolk coast that was new to us. It was a very blustery afternoon, but dry and not very cold. To our surprise we found a good range of lepidoptera, a dragonfly and quite a few blue damselflies (which I have yet to check).
Butterflies seen:
Moth:
Dragonfly:
The area contains an inland RSPB reserve and also the coastal and estuarine reserve of Simpson's Saltings, run by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. The next two photos show a couple of meres in the RSPB part of the site.
The photo below shows a larger wetland area on the landward side of the sea-wall. We saw a range of waterbirds here; Shoveler, Shelduck, Avocet, Mute Swan, Redshank, Lapwing and more.
I was very taken with this secluded bay in the Simpson's Saltings area. The wide estuary beyond is part of the river; the shore is reserved for wildlife so we admired it from the bank.
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| Shoveler on one of the landward meres |
The next photo shows David on the sea-wall. The strong wind was responsible for all those white horses beyond.
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| Green Hairstreak |
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| Red Admiral (and below) |
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| The red arrow shows the saltings on the Alde-Ore estuary site |
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| A very tattered Yellow Shell moth |
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| Large Skipper butterfly |
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| Hairy Dragonfly |
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| You can see the hairy thorax below the eyes |
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| wildflowers; the poppies were stunning |
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| Small Toroiseshell |
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| A drift of Thrift |
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| A wasp, as yet unidentified, probably collecting slivers of wood |
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| Green-veined White |
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| Damselfly season kicking off apace! |
