It’s set for another lovely warm week here at Fairburn Ings and the wildlife is certainly reflecting the weather! We’ve had such a great selection of moths the past week with loads of species such as popular hawkmoths, elephant hawkmoths and pebble hooktips. It still amazes me the range of moth species that we find here on the reserve. The variations in colours and patterns are just incredible so it’s definitely worth having a closer look at the moths fluttering round your light bulb on an evening! On June 2 we had 93 moths with 31 different species caught in the moth trap on just one evening just to give you a flavour of how many moths we have on site. We still have some ‘meet the moths’ sessions with our bug experts Alun and Amanda coming up on the 29th of June and throughout the summer holidays if you’d like a chance for a free close up. One of my favourite moths had to be the elephant hawkmoth. Its amazing pink colour is so striking; it looks far too exotic to be found in Yorkshire! They can be seen right through to July.
Elephant hawkmoth – Beki Williams (Fairburn Visitor Officer)
We have had several sightings of a hobby over at Pickup hide and from the visitor centre over the last few days. Feeding on large insects and small birds the damselflies, dragonflies and sand martins over at Pickup must be a draw for these birds of prey this time of year. A red kite has also just been seen swooping over the reserve this morning. It’s hard to recognise a flying bird of prey from below, especially when they are circling really high overhead! One of the best features to focus on are the patches of white seen on the underneath of the wing, buzzards have white spreading all across the wing whereas red kites have the white patches just on the end of the wings... this helps me when they’re too high up to focus on any more close up detail!
Buzzard – Ben Hall (RSPB-images)
We were excited to have a sighting of some avocet chicks from Village Bay hide last Sunday! Avocet chick survival is largely tied to food supplies and weather, and with avocets usually choosing to nest on shallow scrapes next to the waters edge... the unpredictable British weather has proved a bit of a barrier for wader chick survival. Other wader chicks spotted include Oystercatcher chicks from Main Bay. An interest fact I discovered the other day is that Oystercatchers can live for up to 30 years! We’ve also had more sightings of a great white egret this week on New Flash and plenty of little egrets with close up views from Pickup hide and Lyn Dyke hide.
Oystercatcher – Chris Gomersall (RSPB-images)
Walking up the path to the visitor centre our wildflower patch and ditches are looking full of new wildflowers! Oxeye daisies are still in full flow with purple hedge woundwort now starting to flower on their long nettle-like stalks. I managed to spot meadow-cranes bill along the road-side path up to the visitor centre the other morning, with its radial violet petals. Another small flower you might be able to spot as you walk along the river path is black medick. This small clover-like species has numerous pea-like yellow flowers with black pods giving the flower its name.
Black medick – notesofnature