We are enjoying a wonderful few days with my brother and sister-in-law, Peter and Linda, staying with us. Yesterday we treated ourselves to a nostalgic bike ride around our old childhood stamping ground and today we went down the coast to introduce Peter and Linda to Saltfleetby/Theddlethorpe Dunes NNR, one of my favourite locations. We were lucky with the weather at 24C and largely sunny, although quite breezy. Unfortunately the wind and warm temperatures made the butterflies very flighty and reluctant to perch, apart from on the plentiful common fleabane, as we were to discover.
After an easy drive we pulled into the car park at Rimac at 11.30 and set out into the dunes. We headed for the pond and freshwater marsh hoping to find marsh helleborine still in flower but we were much too late. There had been a good number though, evidenced by the dead flower spikes. Dragonflies were active over the pond, especially the large and magnificent emperor dragonfly. As normal, though, there was no chance of photography as they were constantly on the wing. We saw several more during our visit. Amazingly the new scrape had completely dried out and was graced by the resident herd of Lincoln Reds.
We headed south through the dunes noting both plenty of butterflies, marsh harrier and kestrel on the way. Eventually we took the track across to the beach/saltmarsh and paid a quick visit to the remains of a Comet WWII era tank out on the beach. This model came into use towards the end of WWII and was used up until 1958. Perhaps it was used at one time for target practice on the boming range.
We returned to the car park via the excellent path on the edge of the dunes and salt marsh. Alongside the path were many patches of common fleabane which was very attractive for insects, especially butterflies. There were large numbers of many species of butterfly, but the highlight for me were the 12 wall browns that we saw. I hadn't seen any Walls in this country for some years until this May when I found a few at Covenham Reservoir. I was delighted with the large number of common blues that we saw; I have also found reasonable numbers this year on my local Gooseman's Field patch. I have found them so scarce recently that I had taken to referring to them as uncommon blues. The results of Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count and the ongoing counts and transects by members will not come out until later this year, but on a positive note from my observations, it would appear to be a good year, perhaps because of the hot weather driven by climate change, although the drought will not be good for them. Altogether we saw 15 butterfly species as well as large numbers of ruddy darter and quite a few emperor dragonflies and migrant hawkers.
Arriving back at the car, we were ready for a sit down, drink and piece of Christmas Cake (I make 2, the second to be used for pack ups during the year!) before heading for the Lincolnshire Wolds Steam Railway and a genteel ride on the marvellous train.
To view large, please click on an image.
No comments:
Post a Comment