A fly fishing opportunity

A surprisingly cold south wind all day. Some brief sunny spells, heavy showers starting after lunch.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Kevin Singleton "got a buzz" out of locating the Bee Orchids yesterday (his diabolical pun, not mine (MD)). This excellent shot shows they are still worth seeing, the top flower looking splendid but the lower flower is fading.

Bee Orchid - you can see that it still has one package of pollen to attach to a visiting bee

There are still Drinker moth caterpillars roaming around.

Drinker moth caterpillar by Janet - watch how you tread. 

South shore - high water 09:30 (MD)

I didn't have much time today, so I just went down to the saltmarsh to check the high water gull roost.

Two things surprised me. First how cold the south wind felt, I would have put my gloves on if I'd had them with me!

Second, the gulls weren't roosting, they were feeding!

It took me a few minutes to work out what was going on, but as ever, when I did work it out, it was obvious. It was mainly overcast with some short sunny spells, when the sun shone long enough a piece of shore would dry enough for the strong south wind to dislodge a grain of sand, this in turn dislodges others setting off a chain reaction. The significance was that these events occurred in waves and each wave would collect the myriad of Kelp flies that settle on the mud, plus any other small invertebrates. When the waves reach the waterline, the sand sinks leaving the flies on the water surface. In this clip, I managed to film a sand wave reaching the waterline. The end of the clip is the end of the wave, leaving a few minutes before the next wave, giving plenty of time for more flies to settle on the shore.

Mediterranean gulls - no adults seen, 1 x 3rd calendar year resting on the mud. 5 x 2nd calendar year (2 feeding with the Black-Headed gulls on the waterline plus 3 on the saltmarsh)

These are two of the saltmarsh birds. They also appeared to be picking tit bits off the water surface.

A nice comparison shot of three gull species 
2cy Common Gull (left), adult BHG (right), 2cy Mediterranean gull (bottom)