Castlemartin Range today

An organised visit to Castlemartin Range West today was quite productive. At least 2 merlins were hunting over the coastal grassland and heath, plus a couple of kestrels too. At Bluckspool there were at least 12 sanderlings, slightly fewer ringed plovers and about a dozen curlew. An immature male eider resting on the sea close to the Pole was a bit unusual here. A flock of 44/45 choughs flying inland near the Wash was a nice species to end the visit on. They were probably feeding on numerous ants - many flying ants were starting to appear by late afternoon. 

Not birds of course, but numbers of lepidoptera and other invertebrates were amazing. There were thousands of migrant silver-y moths, probably the largest numbers we have ever seen out there in one day; common blue butterflies were abundant as were marsh fritillary larval webs. It was also nice to see small pearl-bordered fritillary and shrill carder bee among the numerous Bumblebees foraging on the coastal flowers. At least a couple of hundred linnets in small flocks were feeding on the numerous herb seeds. There were also smaller numbers of skylark, meadow pipit and migrant wheatears near the coast.