We’ve had a jam packed couple of weeks of activities on the reserve! Both Cub Scouts and Brownies have visited and had a wonderful time pond dipping and exploring the reserve learning about wildlife.
Brownies with a newt tadpole
We also hosted 3 Wild Families events which included; pond dipping and searching for animal tracks, minibeasts, dissecting owl pellets, building dens and bug hotels and making potions!
Children handling a common lizard
Owl pellet dissection
Water scorpion caught during pond dipping
These past weeks we have had some fascinating sightings on our reserve! A stone curlew was seen in the Hayfields last week and our volunteer warden, Paul, saw a diamond dove on Saturday (which was also seen again yesterday) which we believe is an escaped one from an aviary as these birds are native to Australia! This is a quick snap he took of it whilst on duty.
Other wildlife highlights this week include a spotted flycatcher on the feeders, lots of waders including greenshank, curlew sandpiper, spotted redshank, wood sandpiper, knot, ruff, snipe and little stint on Burrowes pit as well as kingfishers, cuckoos, whinchats, wheatears and garden warblers.
Image: spotted flycatcher (Andy Hay rspb-images.com)
We have also seen grass snakes, great crested newts, a common toad, medicinal leeches, a water scorpion, a great green bush cricket, common lizard and lots of peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies!
Peacock butterfly on ragwort
Come and visit us on the bank holiday, with this warm weather we are seeing so many invertebrates including huge dragonflies and beautiful butterflies.
Don’t forget to put out a shallow dish of water for the wildlife in your garden! Frogs, birds, hedgehogs and insects will all benefit from a drink and a place to cool off!