The dragons fly

Two days of sunshine over the bank holiday weekend and the true sign of summer: dragonflies are emerging from our ponds.  Yesterday we saw blue-tailed damselfly and broad-bodied chaser on the reserve, and the encouraging news is that these appear to have hatched from the Briar Pond (between the bridge pond and the A55), which we only created two years ago.  Since dragonflies have a two year life cycle, this means that it was adopted by their parents almost immediately and the eggs were laid in summer 2011. Another example of nature making its home in the habitat we create.

There have finally been a few butterflies this week, too: small tortoiseshell, speckled wood, peacock, green-veined white and small white, and I thought I saw a 'blue' this morning, but it fluttered out of sight before I could get a proper look. The caterpillars of common blue butterflies feed on bird's foot trefoil, the tiny yellow flower that is starting to carpet the grasslands on the reserve. It's a really valuable plant as it provides nectar for bees and is the foodplant for many insects.  Another flower that has been abundant this spring is lady's smock (also known as cuckoo flower), which has popped up in lots of places that we don't usually see it.  It's getting close to the time we usually see bee orchids on the reserve; no news yet, but most plants have been several weeks late so we may have to wait until mid June this year. It's so late that there are still cowslips in flower here, and they're usually out in March!

Warbler song is starting to quieten down, indicating that nesting is underway, but there are still several garden warblers and lesser whitethroats noisily holding territory. Most migration has finished, though a couple of late wheatears were here this week, and a pink-footed goose spent the day here yesterday.   A few dunlins, black-tailed godwits, whimbrels  and common sandpipers are stopping to feed, and our little ringed plovers are frequently on the island in front of the Coffee Shop. We've had several sightings of water rails this week and many reports of stoats, the latter usually from the Coffee Shop, so we presume they have a den nearby. When will the young kits emerge, we wonder?

While we've been building The LookOut this week, we've noticed how the grey herons and the little egrets take little notice of us, stalking the lagoon edges just next to where the new building will be. They're quite successful catching fish, and then flying off to feed their young in the heronry across the estuary in Benarth Woods.  We love this photo of the two species feeding side-by-side, taken by Richard Walliker and uploaded to the Flickr page this week.  Don't forget to share your photos from the reserve with other visitors, and thank you all for letting us use them on the blog.