Sunday 11th May

I was out between 6.15 and 9.15 today. Shortly after parking near the Water Walks I saw a Treecreeper - a fairly scarce patch bird. It flew onto a tree fairly near me and then fed on the outer branches. Really pleased with that but couldn't get a decent picture. Across the area today I had 21 Whitethroat, 20 Reed Warbler, 11 Nightingale, 8 Blackcap, 3 Garden Warbler, 5 Willow Warbler, 2 Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Turtle Dove, 2 Cuckoo, 1 Sedge Warbler, only 5 Cettis, and 5 Swift. In addition I also saw 1 Great Spot, 4 Long Tailed Tit, 3 Chiffs, 2 Song Thrush, 1 Mistle Trush, 1 Male Bullfinch, 1 Reed Bunting and a Green Woodpecker.

WATER VOLE

LESSER WHITETHROAT

GREEN-VEINED WHITE

Best sighting of the day was a patch tick in - a Green Hairstreak! Fantastic, I found it feeding on Buttercup at the west end of the scrape. Also a Green Veined White, 1 Holly Blue, 1 Small White and several Orange Tip.

GREEN HAIRSTREAK

1 Water Vole was also noted as well as 2 Grass Snake, 6 Slow Worm and a Common Lizard. Also 1 Hairy Dragonfly, and several Azure and Common Blue Damsels

Later I joined a KRAG walk (Kent Reptile and Amphibian Group) walk at Wrotham Water about 3 miles away. Here we noted 1 Grass Snake, several Slow Worm, 12 species of Butterfly - Small Heath (20+), Common Blue (20+) Dingy Skipper (c10) Grizzled Skipper (c10), Brimstone (2), Peacock (1) Comma (1) Speckled Wood (1) Green Veined White (2) Small White (c10) Holly Blue (3) Orange Tip (c10) Also lots of spikes of Man Orchid, Common Twayblade and one Common Spotted Orchid

GRASS SNAKE - WROTHAM WATER

COMMON BLUE PAIR MATING