Tuesday 5 August 2014

White- rumped Sand at Rush Hills Scrape, Hickling

On Saturday Aug 2nd and the second American in 2 days, late morning I drove to Hickling and around midday (having dodged a downpour!) I arrived by the hide at Rushills Scrape and the WR Sand had gone apparently flown left. A scan through the waders revealed Common sandpipers 2, Green Sandpiper and 1 Wood Sandpiper plus an ad Little Gull in the water. Eventually after 30 minutes someone was going directions to a wider creeping around the in the yellow flora yo the left of the scrape, we went over and could clearly see this was the greyish White- rumped Sandpiper with a more attenuated rear end than Dunlin and sporting streaks on the breast and flanks suggestion an immature age rather than adult as previously thought but the date seen tends to rule this out, so adult it must be. I saw John H there and he very kindly showed me show Swallowtail larvae, some 3 individuals on Milk parsley by the side of the path just past the hide. On Sunday 2nd August I went back armed with a couple of cameras one with 1500 400mm lens and my trusty 150mm macro lens. I saw the caterpillars again onMilk Parsley plants just beyond the hide and I was lucky enough to see the original there Swallowtail larvae still on the plant originally shown to me the previous day but also to find a further 3 Swallowtail larvae all seen separately, with 2 of them on the Milk Parsley right by the path edge so I was able to get pictures without any disturbance to them whatsoever. A very striking larvae rivalling the caterpillars of the Hawk moths in my book.

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