Flowering plants

Lade - 1000hrs - Once the B&B guests had departed we headed out for a tour of the local patch in sweltering weather conditions, attired in shorts and T shirt. Most of the early morning fog had cleared to leave hazy light and a faint zephyr so we tramped out across the shingle to Mockmill, which was fairly quiet bird wise with just a scattering of Robins, Goldcrests and Blackbirds, plus 2 each of Stonechat and Cetti`s Warbler, a brief flight view of a Short-eared Owl and a couple of Kestrels.
However, what struck me most was the number of plants still in flower hereabouts. The whites of catchfly, bramble and dolly belles, yellows of honeysuckle and ragwort, blues of scabious and bugloss, alongside the reds of ragged robin and valerian. Flowering plants all having a last hurrah of `summer` on the opening day of November.

                                Bramble runners

                                Ragged Robin

                                            Ragwort

                               Robin, the most abundant passerine this morning


It was no surprise that a variety of insects were on the wings, mainly bees and wasps, hawker dragonflies, a silver y, plus red admiral, small tortoiseshell and painted lady butterflies to name but a few.
A quick scan of south lake revealed no change to the thousand plus assemblage of waterfowl.
This afternoon the plan was to check out the beach on a falling tide, but we were thwarted by the weather as a great bank of swirling fog rolled in off the sea putting paid to any further activity, and so with the distant drone of the Dungeness fog horn in our ears we called it a day.