October 2015: Rye Harbour Nature Reserve Sightings

Chris Bentley
, 02 November 2015
October 2015: Rye Harbour Nature Reserve Sightings
Image: Steve Garvie

October saw the first records of short-eared owl of the autumn at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. In Britain this species breeds on uplands in the north and west, but in our part of the south-east it is mainly an autumn and winter visitor, with birds originating from either northern Britain, particularly Scotland, or Scandinavia. One of the most active British owls during the daytime, short-eared owls rely largely on short-tailed voles for their food, though they will feed on other small rodents(including rats) and even small birds. At Rye Harbour they are most often seen hunting over the Beach Reserve or Harbour Farm, their presence often betrayed by groups of mobbing crows. The scientific name of this species is Asio flammeus, which literally means ‘flame coloured owl’ referring to the species bright plumage.

The bulk of wader numbers were again provided by lapwing (300) and golden plover (2000), while at least 280 curlew were recorded on Harbour Farm on the 23rd. Notable records included three jack snipe on Harbour Farm on 20th, a spotted redshank here on 29th and 22 ruff at Ternery Pool on the 1st, with the highlight being a stone-curlew on Flat Beach on the 10th. Waterfowl numbers began to increase with the advancing year, with some high counts of ducks during the month. On the 18th for instance, peak counts included 333 teal, 140 shoveler, and 847 wigeon, the latter a record count for October here. Notable records included several sightings of great white egret at Castle Water and on Harbour Farm, including three on the 1st, bittern at Castle Water on the 18th and 20th, a Slavonian grebe at Castle Water on the 24th and an immature spoonbill on Harbour Farm and the Beach Reserve from the 1st to the 4th and 26th. Raptors during October included regular marsh harrier and merlin, with a common buzzard at Castle Water on the 22nd and an immature peregrine over the Beach Reserve on the 29th. In addition there were several sightings of short-eared owl over the Beach Reserve and Harbour Farm and the occasional barn owl on Harbour Farm and little owl both here and at Watch Cottage. A good selection of migrant passerines included up to 500 swallow and 50 house martin early in the month, good numbers of redpoll and siskin and still a few wheatear. Best of the bunch were three ring ouzel at Watch Cottage on the 21st, a redstart near the caravan park on the 2nd and a spotted flycatcher at Castle Water Hide on the 10th. In addition, up to 12 bearded tit were present at Castle Water on the 24th and a raven flew over Harbour Farm on the 20th.

A Nathusius bat caught at Castle water on 10th October had been previously ringed 905 miles away in Latvia on 20th August 2015.

Relatively few invertebrate sightings during the month, though still some butterflies, including red admiral and small tortoiseshell, and small numbers of dragonflies, all either common darter or migrant hawker. In addition several Roesel’s bush-cricket were seen at Lime Kiln Cottage early in the month. Plants in flower included apple-of-Peru (below), viper’s bugloss, yarrow and red valerian.

Leave a comment
Time Δ Debug Message - Perch Runway 3.2
1783671211.74480 [906] SELECT p.pagePath, pr.routePattern, pr.routeRegExp, p.pageTemplate, pr.routeOrder, s.settingValue AS siteOffline FROM swt_pages_staging p LEFT JOIN swt_page_routes pr ON p.pageID=pr.pageID LEFT JOIN swt_settings s ON s.settingID='siteOffline' UNION SELECT NULL AS pagePath, pr2.routePattern, pr2.routeRegExp, pr2.templatePath AS pageTemplate, pr2.routeOrder, NULL AS siteOffline FROM swt_page_routes pr2 WHERE templateID!=0 ORDER BY routeOrder ASC, pagePath ASC
1783671211.77180.0269Matched route: news/[slug:s]
1783671211.77190.0002Server address: 216.73.217.88
1783671211.7720.0001Using master page: /templates/pages/blog/post.php
1783671211.7720Page arguments: 
Array
(
    [0] => /news/october-2015-rye-harbour-nature-reserve-sightings
    [s] => october-2015-rye-harbour-nature-reserve-sightings
    [1] => october-2015-rye-harbour-nature-reserve-sightings
)
1783671211.77230.0003 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783671211.77340.0012 [86] SELECT DISTINCT settingID, settingValue FROM swt_settings WHERE userID=0
1783671211.77560.0021 [1] SELECT locationID FROM swt_shop_tax_locations WHERE locationIsHome=1 LIMIT 1
1783671211.77620.0007INSERT INTO swt_shop_cart(memberID,locationID,currencyID,cartPricing,cartProperties) VALUES(NULL,'1',47,'standard','[]')
1783671211.77850.0022 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22854557
1783671211.77910.0007 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22854557
1783671211.77980.0007 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_sales WHERE saleFrom<='2026-07-10 08:13:00' AND saleTo>'2026-07-10 08:13:00' AND saleActive=1 AND saleDeleted IS NULL ORDER BY saleOrder ASC
1783671211.78110.0013 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='october-2015-rye-harbour-nature-reserve-sightings')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-10 08:13:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 10
1783671211.78340.0023 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783671211.78410.0007 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postID=1003 AND postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-10 08:13:00'
1783671211.78510.001 [13] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_sections ORDER BY sectionTitle ASC
1783671211.78590.0008 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blogs ORDER BY blogTitle ASC
1783671211.78670.0008 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=70 LIMIT 1
1783671211.78750.0008 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=36 LIMIT 1
1783671211.78820.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=66 LIMIT 1
1783671211.78880.0007Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783671211.78910.0002 [162] SELECT catID, catPath FROM swt_categories
1783671211.79010.001 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-10 08:13:00' AND postSlug='october-2015-rye-harbour-nature-reserve-sightings'
1783671211.81130.0212Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783671211.81180.0005 [250] SELECT country, countryID FROM swt_shop_countries WHERE countryActive=1 ORDER BY country ASC
1783671211.81360.0017Using template: /templates/pages/attributes/seo.html
1783671211.81380.0003 [1] SELECT regionID, regionTemplate, regionPage, regionRev AS rev FROM swt_content_regions WHERE regionKey='Banner image' AND (regionPage='/news/post' OR regionPage='*')
1783671211.81470.0009 [nil] SELECT * FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, c.regionID, idx.pageID, c.itemJSON, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_content_index idx JOIN swt_content_items c ON idx.itemID=c.itemID AND idx.itemRev=c.itemRev AND idx.regionID=c.regionID JOIN swt_content_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev AND idx2.indexKey='_order' WHERE ((idx.regionID=104 AND idx.itemRev=0)) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev ) as tbl GROUP BY itemID, pageID, itemJSON, sortval, regionID ORDER BY sortval ASC
1783671211.81590.0012 [82] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageDepth >=0 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783671211.81870.0028 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783671211.81950.0008 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783671211.82170.0022Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template.html
1783671211.82170 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783671211.82270.0009 [4] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783671211.82340.0008 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783671211.82620.0028 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783671211.82750.0012 [7] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783671211.82830.0008 [9] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783671211.83090.0027 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' OR pageSortPath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783671211.83190.001 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageHidden=0 AND pageNew=0 AND pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition
1783671211.83410.0022 [1] Using template: /templates/navigation/breadcrumbs.html
1783671211.83460.0005Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783671211.8350.0004 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='9' LIMIT 1
1783671211.83580.0008Using template: /templates/blog/author.html
1783671211.83640.0006 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='october-2015-rye-harbour-nature-reserve-sightings')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-10 08:13:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 1
1783671211.83840.0021 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783671211.8390.0006 [1] Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783671211.84220.0032Using template: /templates/blog/comment_form.html
1783671211.84310.0009 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_comments WHERE 1=1 AND postID=1003 AND commentStatus='LIVE' ORDER BY FIELD(webmentionType, 'like', 'repost', 'comment', NULL) ASC, commentDateTime ASC
1783671211.89390.0507 [0] Using template: /templates/blog/comment.html
1783671211.89410.0002Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783671211.89430.0003 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='9' LIMIT 1
1783671211.89520.0009 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/what-we-do' OR pageSortPath='/what-we-do' LIMIT 1
1783671211.89590.0007 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-002' LIMIT 1
1783671211.89650.0005 [7] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-002%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783671211.89850.002 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783671211.89910.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783671211.90090.0019 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783671211.90170.0008 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783671211.90220.0005 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783671211.90260.0004 [38] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783671211.90490.0023 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783671211.90530.0004 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783671211.90710.0018 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783671211.91020.0031 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/visit' OR pageSortPath='/visit' LIMIT 1
1783671211.9110.0008 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-004' LIMIT 1
1783671211.91150.0005 [30] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-004%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783671211.91380.0023 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783671211.91430.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783671211.91630.002 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783671211.91860.0023 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783671211.91930.0007 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783671211.91980.0005 [11] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783671211.92190.0021 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783671211.92250.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783671211.92440.0019 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783671211.92560.0012Request time: 0.182
1783671211.92560Process time: 0.1818
1783671211.92560Memory: 1.6528