A lovely sunny day at the Observatory, with a NW wind building as the day went on. On a seawatch in the morning there was 1 Fulmar, 3 Gannet, 11 Cormorant, 1 Arctic Skua, 120 Black-headed Gull, 6 Common Gull, 350 Herring Gull, 1 Great Black-backed Gull, 128 Sandwich Tern, 2 Common Tern and 28 Little Tern. There was a decent flock of 450+ Knot on the beach as well as 2 Grey Plover, 35 Oystercatcher, 3 Bar-tailed Godwit and a few Turnstone.

Common Sandpiper are still noisily flying up and down the Broad Water. A Green Woodpecker flew over the Obs this morning. I had 4 Bearded Tit on the East Bank path which actually sat up and perched and gave great views before getting back to their usual habit of skulking about in the reeds.

Decent tally in the moth traps today with 37 species. Much better than doing yesterdays traps in the torrential rain which was no fun for anyone, human or moth! Today we had 1 Buff Tip, 9 Ruby Tiger, 1 Drinker, 12 Rustic/Uncertain agg., 2 Small Umber, 1 Mother of Pearl, 1 Oak Eggar, 6 Dingy Footman, 18 Scarce Footman, 2 Riband Wave, 2 Marbled Minor agg, 1 Lime Speck Pug, 4 Ermine agg, 1 Brown Moss-Moth, 1 Flame Shoulder, 1 Buff Ermine, 1 Garden Grass-Moth, 1 Common Footman, 4 Large Yellow Underwing, 2 B-B Yellow Underwing, 1 Common Masoner, 1 Setaceous Hebrew Character, 2 Turnip, 1 Rosy Footman, 1 Garden Tiger, 1 Poplar Hawk, 3 Shuttle Shaped Dart, 1 Common Rustic agg, 1 Southern Wainscot, 1 Agriphila straminella, 1 Sharp Angled Peacock, 1 Lesser BB Yellow Underwing, 1 Scalloped Oak, 1 Schoenobius gigantella, 1 Large Pale Masoner, 1 Rolled Grass-moth and 2 Pine-blossom Knot-horn. These are nationally scarce and not common in Norfolk.

We often catch beetles and caddisfly in the moth traps too, also attracted to the light, but this morning we had a Migrant Hawker Dragonfly inside one of the traps! A first for me. These have started to build in number on the reserve and can be seen hawking near the Pines.

The Bee Wolfs have been really busy on the reserve this year excavating nest holes all along the path to the Observatory. Bee Wolfs are a solitary wasp which prey on bees, and if you watch them for a few minutes you can often see them carrying their prey back to their holes.

Bee Wolf path!

I spotted this Willughby’s Leafcutter Bee today on the gate in the Obs car park, these are one of the most common leafcutter bees in the UK. They use pieces of leaf to construct their nests.

Leafcutter Bee

Assistant Warden – Shannon Clifford

NORFOLK BIRD NEWS FROM RARE BIRD ALERT

Norfolk 4.Curlew Sands y’day Snettisham RSPB c52.8685,0.4526