BUTTERFLIES
 DRAGONFLIES
 HOVERFLIES
 BUMBLEBEES

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

Rich marine, seashore, shingle beach and lagoon habitats

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

29 May 2005
Butterflies were on show in Mash Barn Lane, Lancing, where the first Brown Argus Butterfly of the year made an appearance with a male Common Blue Butterfly. This raises an identification problem as the female Common Blues are very similar to the Brown Argus. This is the first May record for the Brown Argus on these Adur Nature Notes pages.
 

Brown Argus Butterfly   Photograph by Ray Hamblett ID by Andy Horton Lancing Gallery: Blue Butterflies (by Ray Hamblett)

On the low spring tide, 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 seemed to be pecking at minute food particles, but after a few minutes it caught a ragworm which tangled around its beak. On another occasion, the worm was taken to the water and rinsed before swallowing. 

28 May 2005
The birders were out in search of the distinctive Gull-billed Tern with their scopes into a Force 6 Strong Breeze, later a Force 7 Gale. The tern was still present on the Adur estuary between the Toll Bridge and the Railway Viaduct until late in the morning when it flew off westwards. 
 

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.
Images on "Birds of Sussex"

27 May 2005
The rare Gull-billed Tern, Sterna nilotica, was still present on the Adur estuary opposite the airport to at least 8.10 am giving good views, although it is a bit flighty. 

The afternoon heatwave under a blue sky attained an air temperature of 25.2 ºC, the warmest day of the year so far by nearly 5° C from the beginning of the month. Horseshoe Vetch is showing in the area south of the car park on the upper part of Mill Hill. On the lower slopes of six acres, Horseshoe Vetch is still in superabundance, covering almost the whole area. 

A freshly killed Roe Deer (with antlers) was lying near the central reservation on the A27 as it goes through the Slonk Hill Cutting, about midway on the same longitude as Buckingham Park.
 

The largest single day count of Adonis Blue Butterflies was reached with 74 (66 on Mill Hill) and over 100 butterflies in the day of ten species. I also saw my first male Common Blue Butterfly of the year (I had already seen a female). 
Butterfly & Moth Report

26 May 2005
The rare Gull-billed Tern, Sterna nilotica, is first seen on the Adur estuary.

25 May 2005
Shrimping (push-net in the shallows in the sea off Widewater) continued the poor results with so much weed, after the two days of strong breezes (Force 5+), that shrimping was severely hampered. Not a single Brown Shrimp, Crangon, was caught. A small Brill (a flatfish), Scophthalmus rhombus, was discovered floundering amongst the weed and an small Sole that escaped the net, with a dozen of the South-clawed Hermit Crab, Diogenes pugilator, and one of the swimming crabs, the Vernal Crab, Liocarcinus vernalis.
Lancing Beach
Adur Intertidal 2005
BMLSS Crabs
 

Vernal Crab, Liocarcinus vernalis

23 May 2005
The exceptionally poor rockpooling season continues. The unusual sea anemone Sagartiogeton undatus was seen at mid-tide level on Kingston Beach. Later a small Daisy Anemone, Cereus pedunculatus, was discovered in the home aquarium, and it was probably introduced with a cockle. This is another sea anemone that is unusual and has not been recorded more than once or twice  (if at all) on this estuarine shore. It is southern species that occasionally occurs on Worthing beach.
BMLSS Sea Anemones

On Widewater Lagoon, the Mute Swans at the eastern end are looking after six cygnets. 

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. The female butterfly appeared to be an indeterminate variety without the chocolate brown colour of the females. It is illustrated on the left below. 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
Adur Butterflies: First Dates

The Haymaker Mushroom, Panaeolous sp., appeared on a Shoreham garden lawn. 
Fungi of Shoreham

21 May 2005
A Gull-billed Tern, Sterna nilotica, is reported from Lancing beach over Widewater. This is a rare bird in Britain and Sussex. 

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 over the howling wind (Force 4).

At the Shoreham Society AGM, dismay was expressed by at least six members at the lopping work on the Chestnut Trees in Buckingham Park in autumn 2004. 

18 May 2005
Passage along the Elm avenue on New Monks Farm was interrupted in a head on confrontation with a Roe Deer wanting to proceed in my direction. After attempting to intimidate me (by raising its front legs high up and advancing two or three metres) from a distance of 50 metres or so, it veered of after 20 seconds.  I nearly trod on a Common Partridge before it flew off suddenly. At the Mash Barn Lane end I saw my first blue damselfly of the year. It was probably an Azure Damselfly. The hoverfly Volucella bombylans var. plumata was seen at the same time. 
Adur Hoverflies

The young fledged Blackbirds have been driven to fend for themselves in my back garden in south Lancing (TQ 186 044).

Plight of the Stag Beetle (Link)
Stag Beetle Helpline
Adur Beetles

c.16 May 2005
Seven Mute Swans cygnets are found dead and without injury on Widewater. The speculation is that the cygnets died because of kidney damage through drinking sea water. (This explanation seems unlikely to me AH.)

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.
In the field below (west of) Mill Hill a young Roe Deer calf was suckling from her mother out in meadow.*

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
 
 

11 May 2005
The green orchid-like Common Twayblade, Listera ovata, was growing on the verges just north of Beeding Hill car park beside the path on the way to Golding Barn. This all green plant can be quite difficult to discover.

Two adult Mute Swans are seen guarding their seven cygnets on Widewater Lagoon.

10 May 2005
An adult Slow Worm in Mash Barn Lane measured 24 cm long and it appeared to have a newly grown tail. A pristine Red Admiral Butterfly chasing a settled Orange-tip Butterfly off a Cow Parsley plant was an interaction I had not seen before, in the avenue of Elms in the centre of New Monks Farm.
Adur Butterfly & Large Moth List 2005

8 -13 May 2005
Hundreds of Green-winged Orchids are flowering at Anchor Bottom, near Upper Beeding, on the eastern bank. There were not as many as in previous years. When the orchids are over there is not a trace of them to see, no stalk or leaves.

7 May 2005
Four Linnets were seen on the cyclepath just south of the Toll Bridge.
 

In Mash Barn Lane, Lancing, an interesting bee (or wasp) (above left), the kleptoparasitic (cuckoo) bee Nomada was pointed out to me by Ray Hamblett  with other more familiar flying insects, including seven species of butterfly.
The bee in the first photograph is Nomada fucata, a parasite of the mining bee Andrena flavipes in the photograph on the right which was discovered within a metre of the first bee. Nomada fucata is now widely recorded from southern England. (TQ 188 049)

6 May 2005
Lawrie Keen drew my attention to the call of a Nightingale that appeared to come from the fringe of the incursing woodland on the southern slopes of Mill Hill (NE of the Waterworks House). I did not recognise it amongst the other bird song. 

Eleven species of butterfly were seen during the day, and a small moth 2470 Small Purple-barred Moth Phytometra viridaria was recorded for the first time (it had been overlooked before) on the lower slopes of Mill Hill, although it has been seen recently. The larvae of this species feeds on Milkwort.

The common Alexanders on the southern part of Mill Hill attracted hundreds of flies, including hoverflies. The first picture is the hoverfly Leucozona lucorum. There has been an explosion of this species in Holland and Belgium this year.

5 May 2005

This attractive Angle Shades Moth, Phlogophora meticulosa, was discovered in Lancing Manor allotments.

2 May 2005
At 11.20 am I watched a Hoopoe fly from Henfield Brooks across the river to trees behind the marl pit north of Wyckham Wood. I walked up, flushing a pair of Garganey from the pit, but I couldn't find them again. 

A Solenette, Buglossidium luteum, and a Plaice in the shrimp push-net off Southwick, but there were only ten Brown Shrimps on the low neaps. This is a very poor shrimping return for April or May. However, these two fish have not been knowing caught before whilst shrimping or rockpooling, so this was a successful outing. 

The air temperature reached 20.4 ºC which was the highest so far this year.

1 May 2005
Two Common Partridges* were disturbed on the lower slopes of Mill Hill. I actually got quite close (15 metres) them before they flew off towards the Adur Levels and Spring Dyke. This was the first time I had seen them on Mill Hill. The first Cinnabar Moth of the year was seen on the Shoreham Bank. 
*The identification was made because they flew off immediately when flushed. 

The first confirmed Wall Brown Butterfly of the year was seen on the Pixie Path (approaches to Mill Hill). This was one of eleven species of butterflies seen during the day, nine of them seen on the outskirts of Shoreham town. 
Full Butterfly Report
Adur Butterfly Flight Times
Adur Butterflies: First Dates

On the cyclepath south of the Toll Bridge, the first Hawthorn was beginning to flower. Hoverflies and bumblebees were around as expected in the weak intermittent sunshine, with large dollops of rain very briefly in the slightly hazy conditions. 

Eleven May Day Butterflies
Recorded in order of first appearance:

Holly Blue  2+
Peacock 2+
Green-veined White 2+
Large White  1
Speckled Wood  5+
Small White  5+
Brimstone  1
Orange Tip  4
Wall Brown  1 or 2
Grizzled Skipper  6+
Dingy Skipper  3+

The first Red Admiral Butterfly on these Nature Notes pages for the month of May was seen on Lancing Ring in the woodland in the afternoon, with six Speckled Woods.

Adur Butterfly & Large Moth List 2005