Mon 12/08/2019

A family day trip down to Rye Harbour went through Tenterden in Kent, where we stopped for a break. This oak bush cricket was crawling up a shop window for some reason, so I captured it for a photo session. Every oak bush cricket I have found in Kent for ages has been wingless, which is not unknown in the usual variety, but is always the case for the southern variety, which has colonised the southern counties from Europe over the last few years. It is difficult to tell a southern from a wingless common, so I won’t take a guess at this one. I can however, tell from the sickle-shaped ovipositor that it is a female.

When we got down to the seashore, this large gull landed on a marker post some way away, and I zoomed in with the camera. This is the great black-backed gull Larus marinus. Although the great black-back is notably larger than the lesser, they are both large gulls and pretty solitary, so the scale is not easy to judge. However, the great’s back is genuinely black, as opposed to the more washed-out dark grey of the lesser, and the great has pink legs as opposed to the lesser’s yellow legs.