My alarm was set for 3am this morning as the weather forecast had been looking really promising for ringing today, but I woke up to see a lot of wind outside and upon checking the forecast for the morning the wind speed had doubled. Very frustrating! So unfortunately I didn’t get any ringing done this morning and it turned out to be a strong southerly at Obs, and turned into a scorcher of a day reaching 30 degrees!

The Quail was heard again this morning close to the entrance gate on the track. There was a Greenshank over the Broadwater. Whilst watching the sea we had 46 Sandwich Tern passing close in. Whilst watching this we spotted a Red-legged Spider-wasp dragging an Orb spider in the sand! These insects are specialist hunters of orb-web spiders and generally have a coastal distribution.

Red-legged Spider-wasp dragging its prey

The moth traps were again pretty quiet considering the temperatures but I think the windy overnight conditions really reduce the catch as the traps are quite exposed. We caught 1 Shears, 9 Large Yellow Underwing, 3 Uncertain agg, 1 Bactra sp., 1 Sallow Kitten, 13 Garden Grass-moth, 1 Bee Moth, 2 Sand Dart, 1 Dusky Brocade and 1 Rosy Footman.

Shannon