Rye Meads

Cup final day usually means its a great day to be on the (quieter than usual) roads-in the past we would have a long day down in Devon, visit several sites and still be back home at a reasonable time. With a well publicised wedding as well today, it should have been great. Unfortunately I didn't have a good day yesterday so had to reluctantly call a halt to any plans, and hope that tomorrow would be ok.
I wasn't feeling too bad today so went to Tye Meads for a couple of hours. Since the Kingfishers have  fledged, it seems like everyone with a camera had the same idea and even by 9.30 the car park was filling up. We've had a couple of rather cold nights, but I was hoping to see some dragonflies and butterflies and maybe a migrant wader or two.
Draper scrape was very busy, Black headed Gulls everywhere, with a few Common Terns on the quieter patches of mud. Lots of Gadwall and Mallards of course, with a few Stock Doves in the barn owl box. There seem to be a few pairs of Lapwing here and elsewhere so hopefully they are nesting. Two Cuckoos were calling around the site.
The trail around the back of the reed bed and beside the Lea is open again, so its nice to have a wander around an area we don't usually get to see. A few Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps here along with some Sedge and Reed Warblers-not as many as usual, which seems to be the case with many summer visitors this year.

I stopped at the Kingfisher hide for all of a minute-too crowded and noisy and carried on to the Meads where I sat in the warbler hide for a while. Took a bit of time but eventually one of the Hobbies put in an appearance though it kept it's distance. Outside I found a few Azure Damselflies and two male and one female Hairy Dragonflies.

The north lagoon has been filled somewhat presumably to aid nesting birds so there isn't much in the way of mud and rock for waders. However I did find a Common Sandpiper, and later two Hobbies appeared and were actively feeding on insects as several out of focus camera shots showed.

There weren't as many butterflies as expected. The commonest were Green Veined Whites-maybe ten, with a few Orange Tips, and singles of Brimstone, Holly Blue Peacock and Speckled Wood. Odontae were also scarce. Azure Damselflies were around in very small numbers, there was one Banded Demoiselle and one Large Red Damselfly. I would have thought that I would have seen a chaser of some kind and maybe a Blue Tail but it was still fairly cool by the time I left.

The other obvious things missing were hirundines-no Swallows, House or Sand Martins and no Swifts. The impression seems to be that large numbers failed to get out of Africa courtesy of bad weather in the Med and sand storms.
One curious sight was Alan Harris, a ringing bag and a rather large ladder. Thinking that maybe he shouldn't put the nets up so high in he reed beds, he explained  that they had been ringing Magpie chicks up a tree.