Moths & Butterflies

Lade - 0600hrs - warm, hazy, se 2 - An odd sort of a day with a sea fret rolling in from time to time keeping temperatures down. A reasonable catch in the garden trap with 31 species of moths; Mottled Rustic and Green Pug being new for the year.
Sandwich Terns raucously flew over the cottage throughout the day, to and from fishing trips in the bay where they seemed to be collecting plenty of sand-eels, presumably for the Rye Harbour colony.
An afternoon sortie over the pits yielded a decent return on insects with plenty of Common Blues, Small Heaths, Meadow Browns, Small Tortoiseshells, one or two migrant Red Admirals and Painted Ladies and my first Marbled White of the summer.

                                   Common Footman

                                          Green Pug

                                               Mottled Rustic

                                Tawny Shears (fresh)

NB: News from Dengemarsh today confirmed that the Sand Martin passage is underway with 200 recorded in 90 minutes. Also noted 4 Hobbies, a 1st summer Little Gull and regular sightings of Bittern returning to the nest site, presumably to feed young (MH, BP).