It’s been another action packed week for wildlife sightings here at the reserve – birds seen lately include a bittern at the cut, ravens and house martins flying over the reserve, and ringed plovers, dunlins and spotted redshanks over the flashes. My walks home have been pretty exciting bird-wise too, as I’ve been lucky enough for the past few days to see charming groups of long-tailed tits along the riverbank trail. I also spotted two jays near big hole yesterday, and heard another one this morning!
This warm weekend means we haven’t been disappointed with our insect sightings either. I got a photo of a speckled wood near the Kingfisher screen last night, and a visitor glimpsed a beautiful brimstone yesterday too! These big sulphur-yellow butterflies are a real treat to see on a sunny day.
Speckled Wood Butterfly
This morning as I approached the visitor centre, I saw two large dragonflies zipping through the air – I’m not great with my dragonfly ID, but I managed to stalk one of them long enough to get a photo, and identified it (with the help of a book and Beki) as a migrant hawker.
This dragonfly is widespread and common throughout much of Europe, and often appears in large numbers in the UK in summer and autumn. This one is a female – the males are a pale blue colour – their dull colouration and distinctive yellow ‘nail’ mark below the wings let you know you have a migrant hawker!
Given that they’re everywhere at the minute, I thought I’d try to identify a couple of our more common types of fungi as well – you’ll often see fungi growing on dead wood or in the decaying leaf litter layer along the sides of the paths.
This is birch polypore, which you can see on standing and toppled birch trunks along the riverbank trail. This fungus attacks weakened trees and makes them rot – the fruiting bodies (the parts you can see) appear after the death of the tree.
This is common earthball, which grows on the ground on chalk-free soils. Don’t go picking it though – it’s poisonous!
You really never know what surprises you mught discover on a walk through this reserve, so get exploring!