It has been very warm today with a slight breeze. I decided to go down to Saltfleetby NNR at Rimac to see if there were any dragonflies about as well as butterflies. Rimac was ablaze with flowers: birds foot trefoil or eggs and bacon, vipers bugloss, swathes of ladies bedstraw and froths of meadow sweet. On the orchid front marsh helleborine was plentiful on the freshwater marsh and pyramid and marsh orchids were abundant.
On walking around the pond I enjoyed watching numerous four spotted chaser dragonflies performing aerial displays over the water as they hunted for prey, although they were far too active to photograph. Just as numerous around the pond and elsewhere on the reserve were ruddy darter dragonflies; a much smaller species and, in the case of the male which is a rich red with striking black legs, much more colourful. Butterflies were also very active in large numbers: ringlets, skippers both large and small, meadow brown, gatekeeper and occasional common blues. Last year and this have been the best years for butterflies for a long while, although common blues remain quite scarce. Our garden has had quite a few new species this year: comma, meadow brown and gatekeeper.
From Rimac I drove on into the Wolds to visit my winter feeding station site. One of my favourite spots where I record observations of the wood and have my bird feeding station in the winter. The front meadow is special here; it has never been treated with herbicide and has not been under the plough since WWII and is one of the few chalk downland meadows remaining in the Wolds.
I first popped into the old victorian walled garden where, last year, I found comma and small copper butterflies, and then went into the front meadow. And what a sight. It is awash with flowers and lush grasses waving in the warm breeze.Birds foot trefoil, ladies bedstraw, clover and bladder campion provided most of the spectacle and one of my favourite plants, knapweed, is just coming into flower; this, too is an attractive plant for butterflies. Butterflies on the wing included both large and green veined whites, numerous meadow browns, ringlet, gatekeeper, large and small skipper, small heath and burnet moth.
As I wandered in the meadow the plaintive mewing of one of the resident buzzards could be heard calling to the young still on the nest. I also heard today that there are young barn owls in one of the barns on the farm so that's very exciting news.
A trip to Bempton today to make sure we got there before some of the birds started leaving. We had a relaxed start as the weather forecast was poor with rain early, but set to clear later in the afternoon. As it turned out the forecast was totally wrong and we had a day of beautiful weather. The only down side was the large numbers of annoying flies.
It had been a couple of years since my last visit to Bempton, so, as we drove into the car park, I was delighted to be back. On arrival we had a coffee and cake sitting outside the visitor centre, where I amused myself photographing the jackdaws that are always looking for pickings. I couldn't wait to get down to the cliffs, though, so quickly set off and went south along the path towards Staple Newk; the best spot for photographing the gannet colony. It was as busy and hectic as normal and the sharp amoniacal tang of guano filled the nostrils. I was interested to see that there were a couple of large groups of gannets on the cliff top; whether they were nesting there I am not sure, but they were most likely groups of non breeding birds. The cliffs and cliff arch of Staple Newk were a mass of gannets nesting in precarious positions and I was delighted to see that many had large white downy bundles of chicks. Kittiwakes were abundant and their onomatopoeic calls filled the air. I was pleasantly surprised at the numbers of puffins on the cliff and flying backwards and forwards. None were returning with sand eels, so perhaps the chicks have already fledged and moved out to spend the winter in the North Sea. I was surprised at the small numbers of fulmars here as Staple Newk is usually a good spot to practice photographing them in flight.
After a while I decide to make my way back towards the north end of the reserve where there are 4 viewing platforms perched above the 300 foot drop. Here again were kittiwakes and larger numbers of razorbills and guillemots as well as plenty of puffins. Again I felt the fulmar numbers were down. Right at the north end of the reserve was another large colony of gannets. On my way back from this end I was surprised to meet a gannet on the path flapping menacingly towards me. I soon realised that it was grounded and unable to take off. A group of people the other side of the bird alerted a warden who radioed for assistance. Meanwhile I sat on a bench to one side of the path and the bird flapped its way passed me. I fervently hoped it wouldn't take an aggressive interest in me in its panic as its hefty spearlike bill can cause significant damage. Eventually a group of wardens arrived and herded the bird to the edge of the cliff so that it could take off. I was surprised by this event as I didn't realise that a grounded gannet couldn't take off; I wonder how they manage to do so from the surface of the sea?
All in all a good day was had and we repaired to the excellent Seabirds bar and restaurant in Flamborough for a fish and seafood tea.
