SS15 wildlife watching: June 2020

Thursday, 25 June 2020

Red Foxes at St. Nicholas Church

This was my first visit to the St. Nicholas Church area to watch the Red Foxes in over a week.

I watched the same area as on my last few visits and this visit was certainly better than the last in terms of sightings but photographic opportunities continue to be challenging and yet again I only managed a single photo of reasonable quality.

As I approached my usual location, I noticed one of the cubs curled up asleep at the edge of the hedgerow but out in the open. However, it quickly heard me and turned to face me before running off in to the hedgerow.

After about 30 minutes, a lot of alarm calling from Magpies and Carrion Crows suggested that they had spotted a Red Fox. I also managed to spot one of the cubs, albeit a bit of the top of the head and the top of an ear!

Shortly afterwards, the vixen came trotting in with a food item in its mouth and disappeared immediately in to the hedge. After a few minutes, she emerged about 15 feet in front of me and quickly ran off when she saw me. What followed was a lot of vocalisation from the cubs from within the hedge and they were obviously squabbling over the food that the vixen had brought in.

My final sighting was of the vixen returning with one of the cubs closely following behind.

💚🦆 🦉 🌼 🌳💚

Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature

Visit to St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas – 25th June 2020

Date: 25th June 2020

Time: from 6:15 a.m.

Weather: dry, sunny, light wind, 18°C to 24°C

As on all recent visits, the morning started with watching the Red Foxes and I have again written a separate dedicated blog post here.

However, before reaching my usual Red Fox watching location, I saw an adult Red Fox at the far eastern end of the cemetery. I have no idea if this was the vixen that I have been watching with the cubs for several weeks now but that particular vixen certainly arrived from this part of the site and headed off in the same direction when I first encountered the cubs close to the church.

Whilst at the Red Fox watching location, I saw a singing male Greenfinch in his usual tree plus I also saw a Jay and heard a calling Green Woodpecker. A male Blackcap and a male Chiffchaff also sang regularly in this area and I saw both birds. In addition, I saw a Grey Squirrel running along the boundary fence to the houses in Pound Lane.

However, the most remarkable sighting whilst waiting for the Red Foxes to appear was 2 fly-over Ring-necked Parakeets. I first heard them calling but it took a few seconds to work out in my mind what species it was. Eventually the distinctive shape and colour of the birds appeared overhead. There are several sites in south and west London where I see this species, most notably Richmond Park and WWT London Wetland Centre but I have rarely seen Ring-necked Parakeet in Essex. Needless to say, it was my first record for the site bringing my site total for bird species to 48.

Photo: Ring-necked Parakeet at WWT London Wetland Centre, Barnes, London

I again saw a Swift this morning between Pound Lane and St. Nicholas Church but just a single bird on 2 separate occasions.

In addition to the Blackcap and Chiffchaff at the Red Fox watching location, I heard another 8 singing male Blackcaps and another Chiffchaff.

After hearing a calling Green Woodpecker at the Red Fox watching location, I saw a pair together at the far eastern end of the cemetery.

As the temperature began to significantly warm up from 8:00 a.m., I assumed that all the Red Foxes had returned to their air-conditioned and sweet-smelling den (not) to lie up during the heat of the day. It was therefore time to start looking out for butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies.

I managed to record 8 butterfly species on this visit: Marbled White (c.10), Ringlet (2), Comma (1), Holly Blue (1), Red Admiral (1), Large Skipper (50+), Meadow Brown (100+) and Large White (10+).

Given that the flight period of the adult Marbled White is from late June and throughout July, I hoped to be able to see this beautiful butterfly on this visit. I had seen it for the first time at the site last year and today I saw at least 10, including a mating pair, in the rough grassland area between St. Nicholas Church and St. Nicholas Lane. It took some time to get any photos due to the almost constant restless flying of this species although I was eventually successful.

In addition to Marbled White, I also managed to record my first Ringlets of the year at the site. The very large numbers of Large Skippers and Meadow Browns across the site but especially in the area frequented by the Marbled Whites was also notable.

I also recorded 2 dragonfly species on this visit: Emperor Dragonfly (c.5) and Ruddy Darter (at least 1 specifically identified but probably at least another 5 of this species or alternatively Common Darter). This was my first record of Emperor Dragonfly for the site bringing my site total for dragonfly and damselfly species to 6. This was also my first record of Ruddy Darter for the year at the site.

Finally, I saw another or maybe the same adult Red Fox in the central area of the cemetery so obviously not everyone had retired for their siesta 😀.

Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):

Swift

Blackcap

Chiffchaff

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Long-tailed Tit

Robin

Wren

Blackbird

Song Thrush

Greenfinch