SE Nature Notes - w/e/ May 24th
27 May 2010
Portsmouth & Portsdown
A seal was seen in the channel between Farlington Marshes and the Eastern Road on Monday. New flowers on Portsdown this week include horseshoe vetch, fairy flax, wild thyme, common gromwell and white and bladder campion. On Wednesday small blue butterflies were showing in Cmpt 7 (By Hospital Hill) and on Sunday Cmpt 3 (above Paulsgrove chalk pit). Common and holly blues are widespread on Portsdown. A hobby flew over Fort Nelson on Wednesday evening and at least 3 yellowhammers were noted by the guided walk that evening. Many of the flowers that would normally be expected on this walk were still not in flower.
Havant, Hayling & Emsworth
A cuckoo was singing noisily in Stansted Forest on 17th. On Monday there were at least 4 pairs of gadwalls on the Budds Farm lagoons. Little terns have settled on the new shingle bank at the oyster beds but oyster catcher and ringed plover nests on that bank have been robbed. There are lots of common terns on the main lagoon islands. A central Havant resident photographed Pyrausta Aurata micro moths (left) in her garden this week. On the RSPB Islands there are at least 27 little terns on nests and others appear to be preparing to nest. Numbers of common terns, Mediterranean and black headed gulls have yet to be determined. A very pale black-headed gull is nesting at the southern end of South Binness Island. Nightingale song has been reported twice this week from Sandy Point Hayling Island. On Sunday (23rd) there were at least 3 nightjars and 2 or 3 woodcocks in Havant Thicket. A loud barking from the middle of a woodland patch was probably a roe deer stag. A broad bodied chaser was at a garden pond in Emsworth on Sunday 23rd.
Waterlooville and South Downs
A Denmead garden had a pair of yellowhammers on 17th May. A hedgehog tucked into grapes meant for blackbirds in a Waterlooville garden on Tuesday. There was a splendid chicken of the woods fungus in the Catherington church yard on Friday evening.
Red Kites
There have been two more sightings of kites in our area this week.
