BUTTERFLIES
 DRAGONFLIES
 HOVERFLIES
 BUMBLEBEES

ADUR LEVELS

Valley and Flood Plain from of the River Adur

River Adur tidal reaches 

Sussex downland on both sides of the River Adur,
including Mill Hill Nature Reserve

Extensive urban area including the coastal towns of Shoreham, Southwick and Lancing, and the inland town of Steyning and countryside villages
Garden Birds 2004

Rich marine, seashore, shingle beach and lagoon habitats

Bumblebees
Hoverflies
Butterflies
Solitary Bees
Adur Bees, Wasps & Sawflies
Flies
Beetles
Ladybirds
Moths
Grasshoppers

31 December 2005
23 different birds were spotted in the back garden of 40 The Drive (near Buckingham Park), (TQ  219 063), during the weekly plus visits in 2005. The numbers of birds are misleading because it is usually the same birds visiting on different days. The most prevalent birds were Jackdaws with 284 recorded on 48 different occasions. Other birds often seen included Greenfinches 157, Blackbirds 76, Blue Tits 75, Starlings 67, Collared Doves 52 and House Sparrows 51. New birds added were  Fieldfares, Blackcaps and a Jay. The absentee this year was the Goldcrest, and both Chaffinches and Song Thrushes were down in numbers. 
Garden Bird Database 2005

18 November 2005
 

Event: NATIONAL TREE WEEK                PRESENTATION Venue: Marlipins Museum               High Street, Shoreham-by-Sea Time: 12.30 pm to 1.30 pm Speaker: Jon Stokes (Tree Council)

  Tree Warden Scheme (Link)

7 - 13 November 2005
A Grey Phalarope, Phalaropus fulicarius, visited Brooklands Boating Lake, east Worthing (on the Lancing border) and this wading bird was showing very well. It was in its white and grey winter plumage.
Images on Birds of Sussex
 

The Grey Phalarope winters at sea over the eastern coastal North Atlantic Ocean.
The Sussex Ornithological Society classifies this bird as a very scarce or rare autumn or winter visitor. It is usually found on the coast after a series of gales. 
Sussex Ornithological Society Records
Adur Weather 2005

2 October 2005
A Water Shrew, Neomys fodiens, (? ID) was seen underneath a large piece of boarding on the path on the southern bank of the Slonk Hill Cutting where it winds its way through vegetation at the western end. I am not familiar with shrews: this one was 50% larger than a House Mouse and it had a white rim that appeared like the edge of a skirt around its dark grey-black furry coat. It moved to and fro about five seconds before disappearing. This is a partially protected species. It is found in area where Slow Worms have been discovered before. This is the first time I have identified this shrew. 
The photograph was very poor but it does seem to indicate a white underside. This fits the description for a Water Shrew. 
(NB: No subsequent (by April 2007) Shrews have not been discovered in this location but the larger Wood Mouse has been and this may have been a misidentification.)
Mammal Society Factsheet on the Water Shrew

A small eusocial species of solitary bee, probably Lasioglossum calceatum, was spotted on the Slonk Hill Cutting.
Adur Solitary Bees

9 August 2005
On Lancing Ring I recorded two butterflies for two personal firsts for the meadows: the Small Blue and the Small Heath. I also discovered a patch of Horseshoe Vetch with 25+ Chalkhill Blue Butterflies.
Butterfly List for the Day
 

The first local hoverfly record of Volucella inanis was discovered in McIntyres Field, near Lancing Ring.  Photograph and Report by Ray Hamblett (Lancing Nature)

Adur Hoverflies
Hoverfly Recording Scheme

3 August 2005
I made a quick 30 minutes visit to Mill Hill and found a surprise was almost immediate sighting of a second brood Dingy Skipper, only the second second brood I have ever recorded.
Adur Skippers

2 August 2005
Chalkhill Blue Butterflies came out with the sun on Mill Hill, mostly on the lower slopes. The count of 268 was disappointing for their peak period. 
 

They still represented 40% of the butterflies of seventeen species seen on the day.
Butterfly List for the Day
 

July 2005 This Shepherd's Crown Conulus sea urchin fossil was discovered in my garden at the  Cokeham Reed Beds, Lancing.   Report by June Bratton on flickr

18 July 2005

Every summer Grass Snakes visit our garden in West Way at the western end of the Hasler Estate in south Lancing. Our garden backs onto the open low-lying scrub land next to the access road from the roundabout by the Royal Coach PH and Shoreham Airport. This scrub is traversed by a freshwater stream with reed beds. In this study the snake was basking on the patio.

16 July 2005
A Bluefire Jellyfish, Cyanea lamarckii, was seen in the shallows off Shoreham Beach. 

This species has not been recorded recently off the Sussex coast although it has been discovered in the shallow seas around the rest of Britain. It is one of the lesser known jellyfish that frequent the seas around the British Isles, although there have been more than the usual number of reports from other shores this year. 
BMLSS Jellyfish
Marine Life Reports for Sussex

15 July 2005

13 July 2005
At least 62 adult Mute Swans were counted on the Adur estuary including two families with a total of seven cygnets.

A female Stag Beetle, Lucanus cervus, was spotted crawling slowly across the pavement outside Lidls store in Worthing next to a busy road. As it was in imminent danger of being squashed, it was transferred to a garden in Lancing. 
Adur Beetles

7 July 2005
Only the second Ringlet Butterfly positively recorded on the Adur Nature Notes pages was discovered on the Slonk Hill Cutting (southern bank) and spotted amongst the long grass and faded Spotted Orchids on a day that was too breezy (Force 5) for butterflies. 
A Soldier Fly Stratiomys potamida was discovered on a Stinging Nettle on the Waterworks Road. 
Previous Record of a Ringlet
Soldier Fly Report and Image
Adur Butterfly Flight Times
 

4 June 2005. 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Adur World Oceans Day
Venue: Coronation Green, New Shoreham
Adur Festival Event
 

Brief Report
Adur World Oceans Day 2005 Picture Portfolio (by Ray Hamblett)

2 June 2005
Looking even more splendidly colourful than even the illustrations in the books, it looks like there the two Bee-eaterswere a pair as they flew around together and obliging settled in a tree near the path at the back of the west side gardens of Ravens Road, central Shoreham, (hereafter to be known as Bee-eater Twitten). They perched on branches high up in the tree and could be seen very clearly through my binoculars. .
Birds of Sussex
 

Bee-eaters in Shoreham Photograph by  © Garry Bagnell Bagnell's Bird List  (Web Site)

1 June 2005
From 11.30 am and certainly still in the area at 4.15 pm were two Bee-eaters, Merops apiaster, in Shoreham in the area of Buckingham Road/Windlesham Road.

The Bee-eater is a rare but annual visitor to Britain, mainly to southern counties. It has even nested. A very difficult bird to see however, due to its habit of not staying long in any one place. Occasionally groups of more than one bird occur.
Birdguides entry

This is the first known record for Shoreham.
Sussex Ornithological Society Bee-eater records.

21 May 2005 - 4 June 2005
On the the low spring tide on the Adur estuary running through Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex, the Gull-billed Tern could be easily overlooked or mistaken for a gull as it waddled along the tideline and occasionally on to the mud. With its black head and black legs it had to be distinguished from a Black-headed Gull within a few metres of the tern. At first, the Gull-billed Tern was in the company of a Little Egret and it seemed to be pecking at minute food particles, but after a few minutes it caught a ragworm which tangled around its beak before swallowing it. On another occasion, the worm was taken to the water and rinsed before being gulped down. It paused its quest for food to preen at least once. 
 

Gull Billed Tern catching a ragworm Photograph by  © Garry Bagnell Bagnell's Bird List (Web Site) Surfbirds

The Gull-billed Tern is an annual vagrant to southern England. Its natural distribution is mostly a bird of southern Europe including coastal wetlands such as the Ebro Delta and Coto Donana (Spain) and a small population in France. 

This bird was first seen over the brackish Widewater Lagoon, Lancing, on 21 May 2005.

22 May 2005
Under an overcast sky, the first female Adonis Blue was recorded on the north bank of the Slonk Hill Cutting with three bright blue iridescent males, one which had lost a wing. Adonis Blue Butterflies with 17 were the commonest butterflies on the wing on a breezy day with ten different species of butterfly and skipper recorded.

The first Common Blue Butterfly of the year was also recorded on the south bank of Slonk Hill Cutting. Surprisingly this was a female of the blue form, illustrated on the right above. 
Adur Butterfly & Large Moth List 2005

20 May 2005
The Peregrine Falcon on the Shoreham Harbour Power Station chimney squawked madly and became agitated as the painters on the chimney got near the nest box. The noise the falcon made could be heard 100 metres away above the rolling waves and a Force 4.

15 May 2005
A Kestrel and Crow simultaneously mobbed a Stoat on the Horseshoe Vetch covered slopes of Mill Hill.*  Later in the afternoon, a Stoat was seen slinking over the short grass and herbs and making a quick bolt down a rabbit burrow just below the ridge. The Stoat was out in the open for about two seconds.

After buffeting by the gales and strong breezes during the last week, the sun came out and the butterflies, skippers and moths were now common (just over 100). On the lower slopes of Mill Hill, the first four male Adonis Blue Butterflies of the year fluttered around the Horseshoe Vetch (which was at about 85% of its maximum luxuriance). 
Thirteen species of butterfly and skipper were seen in an hour and a half.
Butterfly Report
Adur Butterflies: First Dates
Adur Butterfly & Large Moth List 2005

27 April 2005
It was blowing a Force 4 so it was Moderately Breezy on the top of Mill Hill. Immediately, I descended from the steps on to the green herbland, a flutter of orange was two days later confirmed as the first Small Heath Butterfly of the year. Other butterflies were to be found on the lower slopes: Grizzled Skipper 11+, Peacock and a Comma, and in the scrub to the north-west, another Peacock, and in the copse at the summit, a surprise Red Admiral, old but not battered, and a male Green-veined White; six species in total.
Full Report from the Shoreham Bank

15 April 2005
Of the seven species of butterfly seen during the day, three species were first* Adur records this year: a pair of Speckled Woods on the footpath at the top of The Drive, Shoreham, a Green-veined White on the southern part of Mill Hill and a male Orange-tip on the A27 road embankment a the top (north) of the Dovecote Estate, Shoreham. (* An Orange-tip was previously seen by Allen Pollard at Shermanbury four days earlier.)
 

The other species were Holly Blue (Pixie Path near Mill Hill), Grizzled Skipper (lower slopes of Mill Hill), Peacock (2) and Small Tortoiseshell.
Full Report
Adur Butterfly Flight Times
Adur Butterflies: First Dates

12 April 2005
A superbly colourful Redstart landed on the washing line tree in the back garden of 14 Corbyn Crescent (TQ 224 055), Shoreham town, where there is a bird table and flocks of House Sparrows. Redstarts are summer immigrants.

10 April 2005
In the sunshine (about 15° C), the first, and only one, Grizzled Skipper (Butterfly) of the year landed on the lower slopes of Mill Hill for just a few seconds before it flew rapidly over the scrub and out of view. This is the first national record this year. 
Adur Butterfly List 2005

11 April 2005
I spotted my first Orange-tip Butterfly of 2005 in my Shermanbury garden this afternoon.

8 April 2005

With the cold wind chill (about  6 ºC) and an air temperature only reaching a maximum of 9.1 ºC, the Great Spotted Cuckoo could have hardly felt at home. It was hiding in the trees on the island in the middle of Brooklands Boating Lake above with what may have been a Moorhen's nest, and thwarting the attempts of over a dozen weekday birdwatchers to get more than a glimpse of the bird. 
 

A Coot seemed to have built a nest on the water right next to the island. 

6 April 2005
Conspicuously trotting over the short mown golf course green at Brooklands (east Worthing) the Great Spotted Cuckoo, Clamator glandarius, seemed unaware of its audience of birdwatchers.  Under an overcast sky with a Strong Breeze (Force 6) blowing off the sea from the south-east, the cuckoo could be seen clearly out in the open where it seemed to be pecking at the ground (more like a Pied Wagtail than a Starling) for food. 

The Great Spotted Cuckoo spends the winter in Africa and flies north to southern Europe (including Turkey and Spain) to find a bird's (usually a corvid's, especially Magpies') nest to lay a single clandestine egg for the surrogate parent bird to incubate and feed. It is a rare vagrant to southern England with only 39 records in Britain and Ireland up to the end of 1995. One of those was at Shoreham Airport before in 1990.
Birds of Sussex
Great Spotted Cuckoo Photograph

4 April 2005
A first summer Glaucous Gull was seen and identified on the Adur mudflats north of the Railway Viaduct from 1:30 to 2:15 pm and longer. 

3 April 2005
An adult Great Spotted Cuckoo, Clamator glandarius, was observed at the Adur Recreation Ground (just west of the Norfolk Bridge), Shoreham at 6:00 pm.
This exotic alien (breeds in Spain) bird was just by the side of the A259 in a small tree approx 100 metres west of the car park. I managed to pull over, grab my binoculars and get within about six metres of the bird.......and what a beautiful bird it was!
As the last one in 1990 at Shoreham Airport stayed for nearly a month.

Afternoon sunshine on the warmest (17.5 ºC) day of the year brought the flying, buzzing, humming and hovering insects out. 
 

At the turn (where the stile used to be) on the Pixie Path to Mill Hill, the first Common Lizard, Lacerta viviparus, of the year basked in the sun. 

Humming along and feeding like a humming bird, with its proboscis extended and making sudden darts sticking the long nectar-seeking appendage into garden primroses, the Common Bee-Fly, Bombylius major, (illustrated above on the right) is one of the most attractive of the flies (Diptera). 

27 March 2005
A male Blackcap perched and calling on the top of a small tree in the front garden of 42 the Drive, Shoreham-by-Sea, was highly distinctive with its slightly ruffled hairdo and almost a complete surprise. Almost a surprise only because I had thought I had seen a female two weeks before, but thought the idea unlikely because Blackcaps are thought to be summer visitors, although some do spend the winter in England. This bird was a fraction larger than a sparrow, and its presence and behaviour made it seem just a big bigger again. 
Shoreham Town & Gardens

21 March 2005
A Common Dolphin, Delphinus delphis, was stranded on Lancing Beach. The dolphin, which was attended by British Divers Marine Life Rescue, was still alive when washed ashore. I received a report from Trevor Weeks reporting on the outcome.
The dolphin was female about two metres in length and about 80% of its teeth were missing. The dolphin appeared badly emaciated and its breathing rate was 8 to 10 breaths a minute. Following advice from the vet, the decision was made that the dolphin was suffering and that an attempt to return it to the sea was not an option and euthanasia was the best course of action.

16 March 2005
Three species of butterfly on the warmest day of the year (at 14.6 ºC) were two Small Tortoiseshell Butterflies in Shoreham town and outskirts, two Brimstones and a single Red Admiral on Mill Hill. 
Adur Butterfly List 2005

27 February 2005
Snow!  Although it appeared more like horizontal sleet at first from the east, it actually begins to lay first on the pavements and roads and then on the grass. Although, only a thin layer, this is the first proper snow of the winter. The snow did not lay in Steyning and seems to have been confined to the flat urban area by the coast. 
Full Report
 
 

25 February 2005
Two Redwings (a thrush) were spotted in McIntyre's Field (a wildlife meadow) to the east of Lancing Ring. A very early Brimstone Butterfly fluttered in the sunshine. 
Adur Butterflies 2005

19 February 2005
AGrey Wagtail splendid in its yellow livery is a regular visitor to a garden which is mostly a pond in Overmead. Shoreham (north of the Meads). A Goldcrest was also seen flitting around the pond borders.

18 February 2005
Dropping like a moving stone from the sky, the Peregrine Falcon descended from the nest box on Shoreham Harbour Power Station before levelling out and disappearing from sight in less than a second. The distance must have been 25 metres, mostly in direct vertical descent (dive), and my estimate of its speed was between 25 metres to 37.5 metres a second, equivalent to a speed of between 56 and 84 mph. This was the first time I had seen a Peregrine dive. It was sudden more than impressive and again I remark how small the bird seemed to me, scarcely bigger than a Kestrel at distance and about the same size as the prevalent Black-headed Gulls. A minute later a Peregrine was seen emerging from behind the main Power Station building, but this may have been a different falcon as up to three had been seen at one time recently. 

31 January 2005
A Peregrine Falcon was seen flying around Shoreham Harbour Power Station chimney (where the nest box is) at 9:00 am.

29-30 January 2005
Big Garden Birdwatch 2005
RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch

All silent and empty for the first few minutes until a blodge of red of the Robin Redbreast in the Holly Tree at the bottom of the back garden of 40 The Drive (near Buckingham Park), (TQ  219 063) became the first bird to register on the hour long birdwatch. Altogether thirteen different species were recorded including the first appearance of threeChaffinches of the year. 

New Shoreham (Buckingham Ward) Garden Bird Database 2005
Garden Bird List 2004
Garden Bird List 2004 Spreadsheet

23 January 2005
The famous Holly Tree growing in another tree in the twitten to Buckingham Park from Ravensbourne Avenue, Shoreham seems to have been removed. Why do Adur District Council Parks and Gardens decide on such vandalism? 
Original Picture and Report
Shoreham Parks & Gardens 2005

16 January 2005
I was surprised to see what looked like a butterfly fluttering in the breeze. I dismissed it as a leaf dislodged in a gust until I saw it again and recognised it as a good condition Red Admiral Butterfly in the back garden of 40 The Drive (near Buckingham Park), (TQ  219 063), Shoreham-by-Sea. This was my first butterfly of the year and my first record of any butterfly in January. The last Red Admiral was seen on 19 November 2004.
Adur Butterflies 2005
Adur Butterflies
Link: Adur Butterflies Flight Times
Adur First Butterfly Dates 2003-2005

10 January 2005
We keep finding Smooth Newts, Triturus vulgaris, on the paths in the garden on the town side of Mill Hill. I found another six tonight. I tend to pick them up and put them in the small pond some 20 metres away. Smooth Newts are the commonest newt species in England.

Last summer I dug out a lot of old concrete and found nearly a hundred. Some were 50 cm underground.

1 January 2005
The birds seen this year were a flock of of more than a dozen House Sparrows at junction of Corbyn Crescent and Dolphin Road in the town of Shoreham. 
New Shoreham (Buckingham Ward) Garden Bird Database 2005

Sunrise and Sunset Times (London) 2005
Wildlife Photography (Yahoo Group)

28 December 2004
21 different birds were spotted in the back garden of 40 The Drive (near Buckingham Park), (TQ  219 063), during the weekly visits in 2004. The most prevalent birds were Starlings with 143 recorded on 18 different occasions, the most often seen was the Blackbird on 26 occasions with 66 recorded birds. Other birds often seen included Greenfinches 115, Chaffinches 46, Blue Tits 44 and Collared Doves 35. Highlights included a Goldcrest and Goldfinches and the greatest surprise was the single appearance of a Rook.
Garden Bird List 2004
Garden Bird List 2004 Spreadsheet
Adur Nature Notes  December 2004 Reports