Wood Sandpipers at Coldharbour lagoon

Sunday 11th August 2013. Warm, dry with a westerly breeze. I had planned to meet Tim Hodge this morning for a walk around Reculver to look for waders, especially having heard of a Wood Sandpiper being seen yesterday at Reculver. Just before leaving the house Chris Hindle kindly text me to say there were 2 Wood Sandpipers in Coldharbour lagoon. I've only ever had fly-over Wood Sands at Reculver, there isn't really a great deal of suitable habitat to attract them to land, and even Tim said he's never seen one actually in the saline lagoon at Coldharbour. Waders don't normally stay long in the lagoon as the public path runs alongside, and the cyclists in brightly coloured attire, and the joggers and dog-walkers usually flush everything away by mid morning, but not today. When we arrived about 9 o'clock there were 2 rather splendid Wood Sandpipers at the eastern end of the lagoon, along with 2 Common Sandpipers and 6 Dunlin, all giving good views.

We saw a couple of smart Willow Warblers, and walking back we started taking note of the insect life along the paths, noting a few Black-tailed Skimmers, Red-eyed Damselflies, Common Blue Damselflies and a Brown Hawker flew past along the hedge a couple of times, a scarce dragonfly at Reculver. We also saw a few butterflies, including a Wall that Tim picked out, which was a bit flighty in the wind, but nice to see.

A walk near Reculver a little later was entertaining, with around 30-40 Clouded Yellow butterflies, and many more Common Blues. There were a couple of Emperor Dragonflies, planty Common Darters, a single Ruddy Darter, Common Blue and Blue-tailed Damselflies, and 10+ Common Emerald Damselflies.