Lowestoft Life - 13th-17th October 2026

13^th October

A dragged myself down to Pakefield Beach in the hope of a seawatch but the early gloom had lifted leaving me staring into the sun which was not ideal.  There was very little moving anyway with just five Brents, two Scoter and a Red-throated Diver.  I counted 22 Mipits, two Rockits and two Skylark going south but my usual loop only produced a few Robins and Dunnocks.

A short visit to Gunton Warren in the afternoon was a tad breezy but I did hear a Yellow-browed Warbler down the slope in a Sycamore while offshore a sum plum Red-throated Diver bobbed, two Goldeneye headed south and Med Gulls loafed around.  I may well have had a Cory’s Shearwater in full arc mode at mid-range but I only had my bins.

That evening Antony popped round with a ‘show and tell’ from his most recent traps.  Somehow I managed to acquire six new moths and now that we have both got our PSL eye in on Caddisflies; three new ones of these too. 

Agonopterix propinquella - PSLü

An odd Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Beaded Chestnut

Chestnut

Clifden Nonpareil

Clifden Nonpareil

Clifden Nonpareil - two!

Deep Brown Dart - PSLü

Epinotia nisella

Green Brindled Crescent

Grey Pine Carpet - which of course is not grey

Beaded Chestnut & Large Wainscot

Lunar Underwing

Mallow

Merveille de Jour 

Pink-barred Sallow - PSLü

Sallow

The very scarce Blair's Wainscot - PSLü

Brindled Green - not to be confused with the Green Brindled Crescent above! PSLü

Red-lined Quaker

Yellow-lined Quaker - PSLü

Glyphotaelius pellucidus - PSLü

Limnephilus auricula

Limnephilus lunatus - PSLü

Limnephilus sparsus - PSLü

I trapped that night and managed 19 moths of eight species but they did include a Bloxworth Snout and a sublime Merveille de Jour of my own.

Merveille de Jour

Merveille de Jour

Black Rustic

14^th October

A glorious day and a mission was planned for us to visit Kessingland Beach to try and track down some scarce plants that Chris Lansdell had kindly pointed us towards.

We started off walking down towards the Heathlands holiday park and it very quickly became a bit of mining session before we ever got to the beach itself with 26 species discovered including the newly discovered (but probably very common) Phyllocnictis extrematrix on the shoots of Poplar which also hosted Stigmella trimaculella mines and those of two different flies.  It is amazing what amateurs like us can now identify and an orange fungus on the same leaves was duly noted. 

Aulagromyza populi - the fly mine wiggle PSLü

Aulagromyza populicola - the fly mine blotch PSLü

Gypsonoma oppressana - moth mine of Poplar too

Melampsora laricis-populina fungus PSLü

The leave rolls of Caloptillia stigmatella on Sallow were a new one for me while Stigmella viscerella on Elm was new for Antony with myself having found in on Orsett Fen when I was first starting to look at wiggles in leaves.

Stigmella viscerella on Elm

A Zig-zag Sawfly - Aproceros leucopoda

Dockbug

Phytomyza ilicis

Speckled Wood and Red Admiral flitted around and there were many loafing Harlequin Ladybirds and Pollenia with shiny golden hairs.  Two Tit flocks did not reveal the hoped for Yellow-browed Warbler but there were a few Meadow Pipits moving overhead  and at the cliff top a single Bombus pascuorum was on some Bristly Oxtongue and a Common Darter was sunning itself.

Speckled Wood

Two grasses and a Knotgrass were the botanical targets but as it happened we both amassed a wealth of new plants of which the majority were grassy type things. I think that out of the ones we identified only Marram was on either of our PSL lists.  Long-bracted Sedge (Carex extensa) was one of the key targets (not that we really knew what we were looking for!) but find it we did!  It is actually quite distinctive.

Glaucous Sedge - Carex flacca PSLü

Long-bracted Sedge - Carex extensa PSLü

Long-bracted Sedge - Carex extensa

Pampas-grass - Cortaderia selloana PSLü

Common Saltmarsh Grass - Puccinellia maritima PSLü

Sea Rush - Juncus maritimus PSLü

Slender Rush - Juncus tenuis - another non-native PSLü

Lyme-grass - Leymus arenarius PSLü

We tried for Distant Sedge - Carex distans but it was just too far away all the time

There were some familiar plants with Lesser Sea Spurrey, Milkwort, Rocket, Holly and Pea as well as Blue Fleabane that I had only seen down in Kent on the downs and Jersey Cudweed that likewise had only been on south-east pavements.

Blue Fleabane - Erigeron acris 

Blue Fleabane - Erigeron acris 

Brookweed - Samolus valerandi

Jersey Cudweed - Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum

Lesser Sea spurrey - Spergularia marina

Sea Milkwort - Lysimachia maritima

Sea Holly - Eryngium maritimum

Sea Pea - Lathyrus japonicus

Sea Rocket - Cakile maritima

Sea Rocket - Cakile maritima

Narrow-leaved Ragwort - Senecio inaequidens

Spear-leaved Orache - Atriplex prostrata

young Suaeda maritima

Both Common and Lesser Centaury were found and after a struggle we suddenly realised that the Ray’s Knotgrass was far tinier that we had imagined and discovered it sprawling at our feet but at less than an inch high and not far from its Common cousin.

Common Knotgrass -Polygonum aviculare

Ray's Knot Grass - Polygonum oxyspermum PSLü

Common Centaury - Centaurium erythraea

Lesser Centaury - Centaurium pulchellum - almost all of the botany are by Antony PSLü

A big feeding flock of about 150 Linnets were moving around along with a couple of Skylarks and a Reed Bunting and an invisible Snow Bunting was heard flying round twice but there was no sign of the Shorelark.

Linnets 

We took the slope back up to the Pakefield coastguards finding both the expected mines on the Hop before a wander back through the Hollies provided some further leaf mining which added another eight or so different species.

Caloptilia fidella and Cosmopterix zeigerella on Hop

Spindle

Wrinkled Snail

Xanthoria parietina

So all in all a very successful outing.

Later on that day I managed a walk around Lowestoft Cemetery for the first time.  It is big and open and populated by tall Horse Chestnuts, Limes and Beeches with little low cover but I was keen to try and add Luffia lapidella to another spot and to see what else it may hold.  I found 18 leaf mines and only one Luffia but there were a few Hoverflies around and I reacquainted myself with Euleia heraclei fly mine on Alexanders and added Large Flowered Pink Sorrel to my PSL list taking me to 14 new species for the day which was quite impressive.

Stigmella geniculella in its green island

Large Flowered Pink Sorrel - Oxalis debilis PSLü

Long-tailed Tit

Cameraria ohridella 

Harlequin Ladybirds were all around and I found a single Field Grasshopper and Common Darter too but it was the 24 Firebugs that I liked the best as they wedged themselves into a headstone.

Common Darter

Harlequin Ladybird

Harlequin Ladybird

Myathropa florea

Firebugs - Pyrrhocoris apterus

A Weeping Angel

Trapping that night gave me 26 moths of seven species with two cryptic Feathered Ranunculus and a smart White Point amongst them.

White Point 

15^th October

Catch up day at home but I managed to see several good flocks of Chaffinch heading steadily inland over the house along with single Skylarks and Redwing while a Great Spotted Woodpecker heading inland over the docks felt like it had just come in off too.

16^th October

Lunchtime was spent thankfully without rain at Bucklesham helping pack up the caravan and I may have found a few leaves to look at as well as a fine patch of Common Liverwort.

Common Liverwort - Marchantia polymorpha

That evening it was Wren Moth Time again as he had had far more luck than I and there were three lovely new ones to take me to a nice round Pan Species List of 3500.  I find it inconceivable that that the chap at the top has seen 10,000 more species in the UK than me and this is why PSL is not a competition and just a means of cataloguing what you yourself have seen over the years.

Beaded Chestnut

Beaded Chestnut

Brick

Dusky Lemon Sallow PSLü

Satellite

Acleris sparsana PSLü

Cypress Carpet

Gold Triangle - my 3500 species on PSLü

Red Green Carpet

17^th October

The early morning rain was torrential before the breeze got up and moved it one its way and once Andrea was set up at her craft fair I popped down to Pakefield Beach for a short while between chilly showers.

Brents were on the move with 83 counted heading north along with 41 Wigeon, two Teal, three Gannets and singles of Red-throated and Black-throated Diver.  The latter appeared to be in sum plum.  The first Common and Great Black-backed Gulls of the autumn were seen and two of the GBBs were trying to relieve a Cormorant of his large flatfish catch.  A couple of Meadow Pipits went south and six Brambling came in off before the next squall sent me scurrying for the car.  Unfortunately there is no real shelter at Pakefield and I was a little underdressed!

Time to pack now - Yorkshire tomorrow for Oriole for the week.  Come on you Nutcrackers!