Common Terns at Camber sands

Summer seems finally here, so we took a Sunday afternoon trip down to Camber sands adjacent to Rye harbour nature reserve. Common Terns were happily feeding around us, as we paddled in the incoming tide - it was just a lovely experience. The Terns were doing more searching than diving though- so I struggled waiting for a more dramatic shot. Unsurprisingly, these birds and the local Sandwich terns from Rye Harbour NR, all carried rings - sadly I never got enough detail to read the letters. The Herring Gull below was too concentrated on fishing to be scared away. A few Mediterranean Gulls, as we first noticed last year, were raiding the rubbish bins by the car park entrance.

Grass snake - first of the year

Grass snakes are probably lurking down in the ponds at the bottom of the garden all the time, but it's taken half the year to go by before my first sighting. Ditto the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker calling over the garden yesterday afternoon. This was a reassuring sign that they may have bred in the area once again.

Take a shine to the Burnished Brass

Here's a common moth that can't fail to impress the Burnished Brass. How can something so beautiful and extraordinary looking be seen by so few? Well that's Moths for you! The Burnished Brass moth has to be my favorite garden moth. For starters, they'll sit on your finger without a care in the world like a cat on your lap. Secondly, they're cute - and they know it! Burnished Brass just like the name says, has a gorgeous brass sheen in large patches on their forewings, a 'cuddly' teddy bear face and 'designer' curves and angles that could have come from a Michelangelo sketch book. Apparently if you don't see them in spring and summer, do not be disappointed, because a second brood is on the wing in September. Long live the Burnished Brass in our `Shadoxhurst garden!

Elephant Hawk Moth on Oak flooring

I found this Elephant Hawk moth resting on some 'tongue and groove' solid oak flooring we were photographing for our our friends at Orlestone Oak. For those interested, this flooring is the 'prime' grade 22mm thickness sawn at the Orlestone Oak sawmill in Kent.
Here's a link to paste into your browser - www.orlestoneoak.co.uk

Lesser Black Backed Gull raiding tern colony

To big to handle - most young Black headed gulls are now this size - safety assured!

Looking back at pictures I took at Rye Harbour at the weekend, I thought this sequence was worth showing. The power of the colony to defend it self is evident here, when this Lesser Black backed Gull attempted a chick /egg raid on the Common Terns and Black headed Gulls. On this attempt the Gull was hurried away possibly because the Black headed Gull chicks are nearing full size and not so easy to catch. I have watched similar scenes where the Gull has taken much smaller fledglings, perhaps 2 or 3 in 1/2 an hour

Rye Harbour - early summer

Sandwich tern and Horse Mackeral (Scad).

Adult Cormorant flying back out to sea from the colony at Rye

Just one chick was being attended to by this adult Oystercatcher at Rye Harbour

Every year at the Ternery Hide there seems to be ringed pover pair building a scrape, laying eggs and then...nothing, As far as I know it always ends in failure.

Sandwich Terns seem to be having no trouble bringing in fish (unlike Tern colonies in Scotland).

Common Tern chasing away LB Gull from the Tern colony.

Wonderful Rye Harbour nature reserve, if only the Little Terns hadn't abandoned for a second year. For the reserve, all is not lost though, indeed far from it - all the Gulls and Terns have thriving chicks and Redshank and Oystercatcher also had family parties feeding around the scrapes.

Pale Prominent

The Pale Prominent moth is another regular visitor to the garden Moth light at the moment, or at least the zany males are (apparently females are not seduced so by the light). This furry boar-faced ragged doll, knows a trick or true - as I kept loosing it, whilst photographing it this evening, so clever is its camouflage against a pile of twigs.