Any suggestions welcome

One of the nice surprises from our recent trip to Sri Lanka was the opportunity to see loads of wildlife other than birds. Being in the heart of the rainforest at Sinharaja we were perfectly placed to get up early and see what was about.

The dining area was covered to keep the elements off but the sides were open allowing moths to be attracted to the lights. On our first night, a bat spent most of its time flying round in circles hoovering up many moths. Those that made it onto the walls had to run the gauntlet of a dawn raid by the blue magpies!!

There were a few left for me to photograph although identifying them is proving a little trickier.





Hawkmoth spp

Can't decide if the last two are the different species or just individual variation...



Such cool camouflage



This beauty had a wingspan of over 6 inches!!






Black arches...?











Public enemy #1

You had to be up early to see what moths had been attracted to the lights overnight. If you left it until after dawn, upto 6 Sri Lanka blue magpies would be feasting on the nights catch!!!

It wasn't just birds

I am sure that we could have done some of our recent Sri Lanka trip without the use of a guide but we would have missed out on so much. Not only was our guide excellent at finding and identifying the birds, he was also very experienced in the moths, butterflies, plants and other non-avian groups.

I managed to get quite a few photos and here are a few of them. Moths will follow once I have attempted to ID them!
 

Green garden lizard. This fella was the largest specimen we saw. Most were pretty small but this was about 2' long. I was quite surprised by the lack of snakes although we did walk with 'heavy feet' when off the trails. Single rat and water snakes, brahimny blind snake and a stunning green pit viper were the only ones we saw.

 

Large millipede sp

 

Large land snail

Bush spider on web over a path in the rainforest in Sinharaja. The large one in the female with the tiny male taking a risk getting that close!!

Despite visiting a fair few areas of wetland, we didn't see a massive number of dragonflies. We did record Asian skimmer, black tipped flashwing (very similar to banded demoiselle) and several darter spp. This pied parasol was fairly common and very smart too.

The wet edges to the tracks in Yala NP were excellent areas for butterflies. Yellow, white, black and combinations of all of them were seen on the different species. It was pretty hard to photograph them here but I did manage a few.

There were some great names too; common Mormon, common rose, great eggfly, white orangetip, grass yellow, birds wing and tree pansy to name a few.



Common crow

Baronnet

Chocolate soldier

Blue tiger

A litttle taster

With over 1000 images to go though from our Sri Lanka trip over Christmas, it is going to take a while to go through them all and delete and edit. Here is a very small sample to give you a flavour.



Great looking birds!!



One of the hotels we stayed at. Our room was in the middle overlooking the pool, which was very refreshing in the heat



Painted stork at Yala National Park. Lots seen on the wetlands in the south



One of hundreds of blue tailed bee-eaters seen at Yala National Park. Just as many little bee-eaters giving fantastic views.

Snettisham storm surge

It won't have escaped your notice that a major event occurred along the east coast overnight on December 5th.

I must admit that I am rather sceptical when it comes to the media and the weather, the recent 'Great Storm' being a classic. Although I knew it would be a very high tide, nothing prepared me for the sight of Snettisham on Saturday morning. I had to go to the site and assess the damage caused and make sure that any damage was safe. Despite the reserve being closed, I passed at least 30 people on my way onto the reserve. Maybe we should introduce reading to schools these days as it obviously wasn't taught in years past. The reserve closed signs had been put up for a reason!!




The pits full of water!!



This is the vehicle access. Its is going to be a while before this is open again







Inside Shore Hide. The water came though the hide and the pressure blew the lower front section off the hide. The water came halfway up the windows of the hide. Amazing to find footprints in the hide from people who had been using it!!! Words fail me.



This is the front of the Shore Hide with the hide in the background!!

Sanctuary Hide. This hide has been lifted up by the tide and turned 180 degrees and put back down on the shingle. Amazingly is seems to be undamaged but who knows how we are going to resolve this one!



What remains of the roost bank!

Looking across the pits from the roost bank to the where Roost Hide should be....



All I could find of the Roost Hide was the covered steps. You can just see a bench from the wader watchpoint, several 100m away!



This is where Roost Hide used to be. Looking across the pit towards the roost bank.



The boardwalk is now floating in the pits and we assume most of the Roost Hide has sunk to the bottom. We will only find out once the water levels drop.



This is what the roost bank used to look like, compare to above...!



The infrastructure has taken a real battering. Its is going to take a fair few weeks for us to decide what the next steps are. In the meantime, please don't try to get into the hides and take photos of the destruction. Even though the water will eventually go down and allow people to get closer, the boardwalks and hides will be very unstable.

I certainly won't forget this December!!!!

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Having spent a lot of my time in the office recently re-writing the reserve management plan, it was nice to get out and spend a whole day on the reserve and actually look at some wildlife. Following some monitoring work carried out on the saltmarsh in 2007 looking for bees, the scarce saltmarsh mining bee Colletes halophilus was located. It has a restricted distribution but is common in East Anglia and found sporadically along the southern coast of England. It is only associated with coastal habitats and is unusual in having a late flight season from mid-August to mid-October and sometimes as late as November.

We wanted to check that it was still present so that further work on its distribution on the reserve could be planned into the next 5yr management plan



The bee is found nesting in holes along the sand dunes and in the old clay seawalls. The bees are very hardy and can even survive in the nests if they are covered by high tides!! The areas where we have found the bees have had suitable nesting areas near large stands of sea aster.








We searched two areas last and were pleased to find adults foraging in both areas. The bees are pretty small and fast so catching them proved a little tricky. Once you get your eye in they are pretty straightforward to identify. Although all the Colletes are similar, the habitat and flight period help separate them from the rest of the family. Their long, thick black antenna and long thin eyes are good features to look for. You have to agree that its a cute looking bee!





We were expecting to find them on the saltmarsh so it came as a bit of a surprise when we found one feeding on a sow thistle on the Autumn Trail. We were actually looking at another species when Rosie went ‘there’s one!’ It showed pretty well and didn’t mind being photographed!

We had a look for Colletes in the dunes on the way but no sign. There were some interesting species including loads of spider-eating wasps. It was fascinating watching them hunting through the marram grass and were even seen to catch a spider.



Now all I need to do is find another excuse to get out of the office...