A sunny, breezy morning at Sculcoates. There is an autumnal feeling this week, after yesterday's rain and colder weather. I do the usual round walk. At the North Sculcoates Cemetery, a blackbird is looking quite scruffy, still heavily moulting its head feathers. A Chiffchaff sings weakly. The Guelder Rose's berries (top shot) are looking their best. I meet David L. He's now cut the paths and the meadows on both north and south cemeteries.
Moulting Blackbird.
Eristalis pertinax.
The sunny spells bring out enough butterflies for a butterfly list: Red Admiral, Speckled Wood, Small White and Large White.
Speckled Wood
Large White.
Red Admiral.
And the usual pair of late dragonflies: Migrant Hawker and Common darter, basking near a large ivy in the N cemetery and in a clearing in the south one. Despite searching, I see no Willow Emeralds. By the cycle track, I flush a Grey Wagtail, which is not a common bird in the patch.
Migrant Hawker.
Female Common Darter basking.
Male Common Darter basking.
I'm pleased to find a fern: Wall rue, Asplenium ruta-muraria.
Things are quiet in the river. It is high tide, and rising with the water are large fragments of sea wrack from the estuary. There are few gulls today, and no Lesser Black-backed gulls.
Fucus sp. ascending the river with the tide.
I return via Pearson Park.
A Volucella zonaria basks in the East Lodge garden
A Grey Wagtail, back since last week, it was feeding by the puddle around the rose garden.
and a Red Admiral feeds on a Rudbeckia flower in the new planting by the music stand.
Some not so welcome inhabitants in the park are Brown Rats. I stood still and these two sat for a while by the water in the pond.
Brown Rats.
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