Early June and thoughts turn to the night-life of the Suffolk coastal heaths. But dusk comes late, and that gave plenty of time for a hot potter around some of the sites  on the peninsula ‘around the corner’ from Woodbridge…

Starting at Shingle Street, the clarity of the light was perfect for seeing many of the special native plants, from Sea Kale to Sea Campion, and Yellow Vetch to Bur Medick.

Sea Pea was at its glorious best, and Thrift formed a pink mantle across the saltmarshes.

Shingle structures are always vulnerable to invasion by non-native plants, and here is no exception with Red Valerian in particular.

As elsewhere, the cool early spring has delayed flowering times (although nature is running hard to catch up with itself). Viper’s-bugloss and the stonecrops are only just coming into flower; Yellow Horned-poppies are still a long way off, but a good stand of the orange-red Long-headed Poppy was some compensation.

Crossing the peninsula to its western seaboard, the Deben Estuary, Ramsholt was, as ever, out on a limb and peaceful.

Seeing a signpost to the church, and following there on a whim, proved very rewarding: the churchyard, as well as having an enviably picturesque prospect, seems to have taken ‘No Mow May (and beyond)’ to its heart.

And so to the Sandlings, Sutton Heath and Upper Hollesley Common. By now it was so hot that insects were essentially unphotographable, and in actual fact there were rather few anyway. Butterflies seem to have hit the ‘June Gap’, and Painted Ladies outnumbered greatly the Small Coppers, Small Heaths and whites put together.

But perhaps the most obvious insects are the sand wasps, actively seeking  (and creating) holes in which to nest.

While the earliest heathers are only just starting to flower, Sheep’s Sorrel, Heath Bedstraw, Heath Speedwell and Climbing Corydalis are starting to look good, with more locally Heart’s-ease, Sand Sedge, Spring Beauty, Mossy Stonecrop and Star-of-Bethlehem.

As the temperature dropped in the evening, so the insects started to appear, including Fan-bristled and other robber-flies.

And as the sun set the hues of the landscape intensified, with backlit Bracken and the last embers of the day playing on the pine plantation.

The light faded very slowly, but by a quarter to ten, and after the helicopter had buzzed off, the churring began: at least six churring Nightjars were round the heath in front of us, with an additional three as we walked back to the cars, their song interspersed with more distant wailing Stone Curlews. But even better, a Nightjar song post just happened to be on a bough in full view just ten metres from where we were standing – and the bird came in twice!

The three day walks in May, all in the first half of the month, took place in a variety of weather conditions, everything except warm, calm Spring sunshine! The middle one was the worst, with torrential rain giving way to gale force winds, but all were breezy, and all suffered from a spring delayed by an April fare of cold north-easterlies and night frosts.

While visible bird migration has been a mere trickle, with really only a few hirundines, the odd Yellow Wagtail, small groups of Whimbrels and one splendid Hobby, the results of April’s arrivals have been rather spectacularly numerous. Whitethroats in particular, with 30 or more singing in the spells of better weather, seemed to be in every patch of Brambles, while the later-arriving and less numerous Lesser Whitethroats reached a respectable half-a-dozen.

Cetti’s Warblers usually made their presence known, the latter now typically with 5 or 6 singing males, levels unheard of a short few years ago, and on one walk we managed to get reasonable views. Which of course for a Cetti’s Warbler is any view, however fleeting….! Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps however generally played more fairly, especially in sheltered nooks.

Shorebird numbers dwindled during the two weeks, but as they did more were in summer plumage. Dunlins, Sanderlings, Turnstones and Ringed Plovers made up the bulk (the latter especially in mid month, presumably a high Arctic population).

Oystercatchers and Ringed Plovers were trying gamely to breed in small numbers on the beaches, in the face of unprecedented human and canine footfall while a pair of Lapwings displayed, and were eventually sitting on eggs, on a fallow field.

Offshore, although Little Terns had not yet made it, there was a (actually ‘the’) female Eider, a long-staying bird, perhaps not fully adult and not in condition to head to the Farnes to breed, and a single passing Fulmar, together with regular Grey and Harbour Seals.

A pair of Gadwalls frequented the lagoons, Mediterranean Gulls put in regular yowling flypasts, and, and as if to compete with the white-winged wonder of the gulls, a Barn Owl put on a surprising early afternoon sortie.

It was on the 8th of the month the Naze was at its wildest: atrocious weather, with heavy rain and strong winds all morning, and when rain stopped the wind just grew in strength. At least, being southerly, it was warm(ish). Remarkably on that day, #GlobalBigDay, we did manage to pull together 51 birds species, most in small numbers, of which the most unexpected was a small, unseasonal flock of Siskins which dropped in briefly.

Flowers were rather few and far between, with White Ramping Fumitory, Sheep’s Sorrel, Bur Chervil and Scurvy-grass providing the interest; Blackthorn, which came and went in a flash, and Gorse (much of it badly frost-scorched) giving the shrubby colour; leaving Alexanders the job of feeding the insects, at least when it was warm enough for them to be flying.

Most obvious insect, as ever at this time of year, albeit appearing about a week later than its eponymous date, was St Mark’s Fly, and as the month progressed, several related Bibio species joined it on the umbels.

Otherwise, invertebrate-wise, just two species of butterfly (Peacock and Speckled Wood), the attractive micromoth Esperia sulphurella, and Saltmarsh Wolf-spiders rampaging over the beach at low tide…

But even in the worst weather, there are some things that are reliable. Lichens for one….

…. and of course the geology: the story of the past 50 million years, tales of tropical lagoons, volcanoes, continental collisions and the dawn of the Ice Age. Always there, always impressive, always appreciated, from Red Crag to London Clay, septaria nodules,  faulted volcanic ash bands to pyritised wood and other fossils.

Here’s hoping for Spring soon…!

After three months’ enforced absence, it was all change at the Naze. Clearly, the winter wet and hefty storms had caused a lot of erosion, with cliff-slips and tree-falls evident during the first of four @Naturetrektours day walks in April.

And even in ‘the month with no rain’, the preceding winter’s deluges kept lubricating the landslips into activity right through the month: #The WildSideofEssex at its best!

The slumping cliffs, naturally disturbed, are the aboriginal home of plants that may be more familiar as followers in the wake of humanity. Colt’s-foot was already in flower, replaced at month’s end by its ‘dandelion-clocks’ and unfurling leaves:

And the erosion has other up-sides too. It provides sand for the beaches downdrift, it creates clean faces for Sand Martin nests and to reveal the geological strata, telling the story from Tertiary times…

… and providing new crops of fossils to be searched for on the beach.

Whether 50 million year-old fossils and septaria to modern flotsam, there’s always something to find. From sharks’ teeth to Angel’s-wings, Alpine upheavals to winter landslips, at the Naze ‘then’ meets ‘now’ and rubs shoulders with ‘the future’ in the month that the contribution of renewables to the UK energy supply exceeded 60%.

And while the sea was very quiet for birds on the days we were there, save for a few Cormorants and gulls, and a single female Eider…

…shorebird numbers actually increased during the month, as Dunlins (up to 500), Sanderlings and Turnstones especially gathered before heading to the Arctic for the summer, by the end of the month many of them moulting into summer plumage.

… while on the marshes the number of Shovelers grew to an impressive 50 early in the month.

Landbirds were rather more difficult to come by in the cold to very cold north-easterly winds which persisted all month. The cliff-top scrub proved a reliable site for wheezing Greenfinches and mating Kestrels, the fields around had displaying Lapwings, and ever-increasing it seems, angrily-singing Cetti’s Warblers, six or seven around the headland.

But summer migrants were mostly seriously held back by adverse winds. Sand Martins, Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps had made it through in March, but the martins all but disappeared until the very last day of the month. Other hirundines did little more than trickle through, and Whitethroats arrived in mid-month, with 15 or more singing on territory when the first Lesser Whitethroats dropped in a week later. Otherwise, it was a merest sprinkling of Yellow Wagtails, Sedge Warblers, Wheatears and Sandwich Terns. There is still much to arrive…

Another increasing species seems to be Muntjac. It is now the norm to see several during a walk, and this is in spite of the huge number of dogs walked over the Naze. The last walk of the month also gave us other mammal records, including Stoat, Weasel and a magnificent bull Grey Seal offshore.

Flowering, by and large, has been held back by the arctic air and night frosts. Take Blackthorn, normally peaking here in late March, at the start of April much of it was still in tight bud. The peak occurred some three weeks later than is usual, and many bushes were still in fine bloom and feeding bumblebees and Peacocks at the end of the month.

Otherwise the main nectar and pollen resources were Gorse, a coconut-scented blaze of colour in the sun, albeit badly frost-scorched in exposed places, and Alexanders, a non-native perhaps but one that pays its way in terms of ecosystem services.

Other plants starting to show were White Ramping Fumitory and Sheep’s Sorrel on the clifftop, Sea Rocket germinating on the dunes, Hog’s Fennel sprouting and the first flush of salt marsh blooming with the emergence of Common Scurvy-grass.

And a final couple of botanical findings, fascinating fasciations, where the shoot tips of Shrubby Sea-blite and Sycamore have both become flattenened and proliferated.

It was a very difficult month for insect-watching. Late emergences and reduced activity meant that only at the hottest times of the day, when the sun was out, and in sheltered spots out of the wind was there much to see, with basking solitary bees, cuckoo-bees, hoverflies and ladybirds.

The Blackthorns were hosting some impressive larval webs of Brown-tail Moths, and the Gorse as always came up with the goods in the form of Gorse Shield-bugs and Gorse Weevils, most noticeable perhaps by the holes they excise in the petals.

And then at last on the final day, an emergence of St Mark’s Flies, behind schedule by some five days: black, hairy and dangly, fearsome-looking perhaps, but entirely harmless, indeed beneficial as food for Swallows and as pollinators.

So, all-in-all an interesting month. A bit of an endurance test at times in the teeth of the wind, but Spring has advanced a little. And as we head into May, the dam-burst of held-back birds and delayed flowerings is surely only days away….

Spring it may be, but it felt more like February, with a Siberian breeze keening across the heaths, continuing the recent cold snap which seems to holding back summer birds, insect emergences, and flowering – the Blackthorn in places still in tight bud, at least three weeks behind schedule.

So Woodlarks, whose cadences should now be resounding across the Sandlings: reduced to a few half-hearted attempts in the sunny spells. Pairs each of Stonechats and Dartford Warblers added to the heathland flavour, as Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps sang from the Silver Birches. But for summer visitors at least, that was it, save for a possible, never-confirmed snatch of Redstart. Otherwise, bird-wise, the lingering memory is of the noisy groups of Redpolls flying over all the time, with Siskins and Crossbills too, but in much smaller numbers.

Plants likewise have been held back, but there are at least a group of interesting Sandlings plants identifiable by their distinctive leaf colours and growth forms, from the vivid red splashes of Mossy Stonecrop, to the tight, pinnate rosettes of Bird’s-foot and blue-green Buck’s-horn Plantain.

Common Stork’s-bill and Sand Sedge were just coming into flower in the sandier patches, and on the low trackside banks, Spring Beauty, Spring Whitlow-grass and especially Shepherd’s-cress, the mini Shepherd’s-purse so characteristic of Sandlings soils. Other specialities included White Horehound and Climbing Corydalis.

Gorse of course was in flower, although not the autumn-flowering Western Gorse here in an easterly enclave, as were the Birch trees, with upright female and dangly male catkins.

And it was Gorse that was the focus of insect activity, insofar as we could find any. During sunny spells, in the lee of a big clump of Gorse, the temperature was perceptibly higher, the coconut scent started to give promise of warmer days. An a few insects duly revealed themselves: Buff-tailed Bumblebees, a few solitary bees and hoverflies, basking Gorse Shield-bugs, tiny Gorse Weevils, smaller than the holes they were biting in the petals. And most numerously, what seemed to be a very fresh emergence of Lesser St Mark’s Flies.

Elsewhere warmth-lovers were absent. No sign of Adders, just a couple of Cream-spot Tiger caterpillars trundling their way across warm patches of sand, and also a couple of Viviparous Lizards, finding warmth and shelter on an ant-hill and an old, decaying log respectively.

Not perhaps the riot of Spring we had hoped for. But there is always, but always something to find. And after a long, damp, grey winter of Covid confinement, the sense of space and different scenery felt so good. And we still have the real riches of the season to come…!