Colours, Or Lack Of

 One day I get a beautiful colourful photo on a lovely sunny day:

Small Tortoiseshell on Chicory

Five Spot Burnet on Knapweed

The next I get a washed out photo on a grey, overcast morning. 

Gulls off KP incl. Lesser Black-backed

 

On reviewing the photos I took on this particular morning I was struck by the total lack of colour apart from the bills of the gulls. I usually get a bit of colour from the water when photographing birds on water, but not on this day. I love it personally. I've taken photos with colour filters in the past that mask all colours apart from the selected colour, but this was straight off the camera, and not just one colour - there is yellow and red on the bills.

The Last Week

 It has been a good week since my last post. Here's a day by day review:

 

19 June 2025

 Insects are getting more interesting now there are more about. Never seen a Bee Bumblefly hoverfly before.

Bee Bumblefly

A new species of moth too - Clouded SIlver.

Clouded Silver moth

Orchids are sprouting with two species - the Common Spotted Orchid and the less common Southern Marsh Orchid.

Common Spotted Orchid

Southern Marsh Orchid

Southern Marsh Orchid

While we are on plants, the poppies in the fields are spectacular -

Field Poppy (also called Flanders Poppy)

Lesley pointed out a species of umbel I hadn't found in Hornsea yet - Fool's Parsley is a small plant and easily overlooked (well, by me anyway!). Thanks Lesley.

 

Fool's Parsley along the Mere south side

20 June 2025

 Six-spot Burnets are all of a sudden everywhere. I've seen loads of them on the cliff tops and a few around the Mere but they are certainly more numerous this year.

 

This photo and two below - Six-spot Burnet moth

Two more insects - a micro moth and a beetle.

Rutpella maculata beetle

Pammene aurana moth

I am very glad I have a reasonably long lens available on my camera that enable me to get images of things that are either too far away or are otherwise inaccessable, due to nettles or barbed wire for example. Here is a case in point - as I approached a gate I could see a squirrel on the other side. Had I got much closer it would probably have scuttled off up a tree, but zooming to 600mm yielded a better image.

Grey squirrel with 31mm focal length

Same distance as above but zoomed to 600mm

 

 The above image still shows the out-of-focus gate as a vignette. This could of course be removed by either cropping the image (which I do quite often) or by image manipulation software (which I don't use as I'm too tight to pay for it 😂😂).

 

At home we have a few young blackbirds in the garden being fed by adults. They are quite entertaining and one of them decided that drinking from one of our bird baths, as the other birds do, was not acceptable. It could see and hear the water bubbling up from our pond and it wanted to drink from there. It took a while but it found a way down to water level eventually! It vaguely resembled a Dipper while it was doing this.

young blackbird looking for a drink

21June 2025

 Following my comment above re. cropping photos, of those in this section only the Spotted Redshank image is cropped, all the others are as they were taken.

 

The longest day dawned and I was walking the south side as usual when a couple of roebucks appeared, running towards me at a good rate of knots. I was a little worried they would trample me underfoot, but deer are very aware of their surroundings and they veered off and stood to watch me for a short while before continuing their roaming. It was a warm morning and they were obviously hot as they were both panting. 

Roebuck - taken as it went past me

This and the others below - Roebuck

The south side of the Mere is a good place for warblers, and Sedge Warblers in particular. I take far too many photos anyway and a large number of them are warblers 😂

Sedge Warbler

Same Sedge Warbler

As it was a sunny morning I was hoping for lots of butterflies. I saw plenty of Meadow Browns and Ringlets, with a few whites and this Red Admiral.
 

Red Admiral

Two Spotted Redshanks were at the Mere this morning (found by Jon of course). The spit of land at the west end of Swan Island has been extended by the dry conditions exposing more shingle. Given the distance of about 600 yards I had to crop the photo to make the bird anything like recognisable.

Spotted Redshank on the extended spit

23 June 2025

A very breezy morning here in Hornsea and loads of Sand Martins and Swifts were quite low down over the Mere, with many of the Sand Martins taking a breather on first field's fence wire.

Sand Martins resting in the lee of the westerly wind

I don't know why but I keep taking photos of Swifts - still hoping for THE image I guess. It wasn't taken this morning that's for sure.

Swift in flight over the Mere

Still waiting for a good one of a flying Swift

25 June 2025

 Up to date now and this morning's procedings were dominated by my attempts to get a good photo of the Manx Shearwater that Jon found at the Mere. I had good views initially from first field through Tim's scope when it was just off KP in front of the cafe. 

 

Manx Shearwater off KP

KP was closed at this point (about 08:30) so I waited a while for it to open before walking round - but I waited too long and by the time I got there, KP was already open and the bird had just flown over towards first field 🤣 I took more photos though.

Manx Shearwater off first field

By the time I had walked back to where I came from it had moved again, and was swimming westwards off Swan Island. I took plenty of pics but the distance was too great. Back home then for breakfast part two 😉

Spring To Summer

 Spring has definitely moved on to summer with the soaring temperatures and continuing dry spell. The weather is good for lots of wildlife but, as with most things, not everything and everyone is happy with it. Still, we carry on as we must, and make the best of what we're given.

 

Butterflies first of all and carrying on from my previous post, I have seen another few species locally and these take my Hornsea list this year to 16 species.

 

Comma on 15 June

Painted Lady on the same day

Ringlet on 16 June

I'm always on the lookout for something different and while I was sitting by a pond searching for dragonflies I noticed a lot of activity near and on the surface of the water. Small, silvery fish were skittering across the water's surface every now and again and as I looked into the water near the edge of the pond, I saw what was probably the cause.  I believe these are Rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus) a common species of fresh water fish. They take about four years to mature so these were young ones.

Rudd

Rudd

The hoped-for dragonflies did appear eventually and they enjoyed the hot sun as they cavorted over the pond. Black-tailed Skimmers (8) and Emporer dragonflies (12) were seen along with Common Blue Damselflies and Blue-tailed Damselflies. 

This and two below - Black-tailed Skimmer dragonfly

Two female Emporer dragonflies

Female Emporer dragonfly egg laying

There were plenty of male Emporers but they never settled for a photo shot and the flight shots I took were not good enough for the blog.

 

We had eight ringed plovers on first field edge last Saturday, two of were Little Ringed Plovers and the other six were Ringed Plovers. I took a distant photo hoping I could get some kind of record of this, but I only got seven of the eight.

Seven ringed plover - too distant to differentiate species

The broods of goslings, cygnets and ducklings are slowly diminishing at the Mere, with just two of the four Shelduck chicks left and two of the Egyptian Geese goslings remaining. Mute Swan broods have similarly reduced and those with six, five or four cygnets still have some left but not as many as they started with. Mallard families have gone the same way and a group of 12 ducklings I saw was down to single figures a couplke of days later. That is why they have large broods, so that predation and natural causes do not wipe out all the youngsters, and the adult's hard work is rewarded with healthy juveniles growing up to full maturity.

 

Mute Swans and cygnets

The set aside field has not been mowed and re-seeded this year, instead it has been left to flower and it is looking splendid. Chicory is the flower of the moment and with its vibrant large blue flowers it really stands out.

Chicory flowering in the set aside field

Chicory with a Marmalade hoverfly

 I look forward to seeing more species of dragonfly and damselfly over the coming weeks and who knows, maybe a new species for the Mere will turn up?

Hornsea Butterflies

 There have not been a lot of butterflies around the places I walk most days, even though I check the best locations I've found over the years, they have been mostly barren over the last few weeks. Spring started off so well for butterflies but numbers have dropped off badly since then.

 

Until today!

 

 This afternoon's visit to my favoured butterfly spot was great: with Brimstone, two Large Skipper, three Large White and an un-id smaller white, two Meadow Brown, a Peacock and best of all - a Common Blue. The Brimstone flew through without dwelling at all so no photos of that one.

This and two above - Meadow Brown

Large Skipper

A very badly damaged Peacock

Large White

 

Common Blue - my first of the year

Common Blue

 

I saw a dragonfly checking out our new pond this afternoon, but it was so unimpressed that it left after a second or two, leaving me with little idea what it was. Either Four-spotted Chaser or Broad Bodied Chaser are my best guesses.