It was yet another beautiful summer’s day here in the Dearne Valley with some excellent views of remarkable wildlife.
Here’s a summary of the sightings today…
Keen-eyed readers might notice that, now that the path to the Reedbed Hide is open once more, water rail have made a return to the sightings. The Reedbed Screen is one of the most reliable places at Old Moor to see these elusive birds as they navigate the channel in front of it.
On your way there, be sure to visit the ‘back’ of the Wildlife Ponds for a view of those young kestrels. Two of the four fledglings were seen on the roof of their nest box today.
Almost ready to leave - two of the young kestrel near the Wildlife Ponds
It’s hard to miss the dragonflies around the reserve at present and the Wildlife Ponds are a great place to see: migrant hawker, common and ruddy darter, brown hawker and emperor. There was even a tentative sighting of a lessor emperor yesterday.
Similarly, the meadows of Old Moor are alive with butterflies and day-flying moths at present. Seen today were: large, small and green-veined white; speckled wood, peacock, comma, gatekeeper, meadow brown, ringlet, small copper, holly blue, common blue and small tortoiseshell together with good numbers of burnet moths.
A pair of six-spot burnets from Alan Foster. Thanks Alan!
That’s almost it for this evening but I’ll sign-off with one last image. At the moment there are great views to be had of common tern fishing in front of the Bittern Hide or on Wath Ings. This one however, was taking a breather on the Wader Scrape.
Until next time.