Rye Harbour Nature Reserve Wildlife Sightings – May 2023

What a very dry and windy and cool month, but still much wildlife to see:

• A very bird song filled month with 8 species of warbler singing, a single Cuckoo calling (not long ago we had 8), a couple of Nightingales, a Bittern booming, Water Rails squealing like a piglet and Bearded Tits pinging. Plus the noisy chorus of Marsh Frogs (below).

• the terns started nesting – 130 pairs of Common Tern, 78 Sandwich Tern and 7 Little Tern.

• The passage of waders was good, but no exceptional numbers. It’s always good to see the plain winter plumages turn into more striking breeding colours, especially the Grey Plovers becoming black and white plovers and some Bar-tailed Godwits turning brick red (below).

• Rarer sightings included – Short-eared Owl 4^th, Wood Sandpiper 4^th, 3 Cattle Egrets 7^th, Little Stint 11^th and 21^st and 2 on 23^rd, Curlew Sandpiper 21^st, Little Gull 1 on 13^th, 2 on 20^th and Night Heron 31^st.

The dragonfly season started with Hairy Hawker, Variable and Azure Damselflies and a Downy Emerald Damselfly on 14^th.

The wildlife highlight of the month was finding caterpillars of the Sussex Emerald moth at 2 locations on the reserve, feeding on Common Ragwort and Wild Carrot.

Flowers appearing included, Sea Kale, Sea Pea, Sea Campion, Herb Robert, Rye-leaved Saxifrage, Yellow Horned-poppy, Vipers Bugloss and the very first Bee and Common Spotted Orchids. At Castle Water the Adder’s-tongue Fern (below) and Yellow Vetch were in good number and the Yellow Wallflowers looked good on the castle.

The large deep mauve Salsify and its close relative smaller and yellow Goatsbeard flowered side by side and a few plants of the hybrid Tragopogan x mirabilis (below). Their flowers all close by mid-day, giving rise to Goatsbeard’s country name of “Jack-go-to-bed-by-noon”.