At Nagshead: Late summer is a relatively peaceful time on the reserve and it is lovely wandering through the trees and hardly seeing another person. The recent bout of drizzle has started to bring the fungi out. There are over 400 species of fungi recorded at Nagshead, and just this week, I have seen Larch bolete, Common earthball and Sickener as well as quite a few that I am not able to identify! The huge beech trees on the long trail are covered with the Artist's fungus - a fungus which is very tough and present throughout the year. It gets its name beacuse people used to use the surface to etch upon.
There seems to be an abundance of Britain's smallest bird, the goldcrest at the moment. If you are lucky you may see a flash of greeny-yellow as they flit through the coniferous trees. The carpark or the heath, as well as lower hide, are all good places to watch out for these tiny birds.
Butterflies are abundant at the moment with two of the most exciting species being the silver-washed and dark green frittilaries. Fritillaries can be quite difficult to distinguish from one another. The way to tell these two species apart is that the underwing of the dark green has conspicuous white spots whereas these are not present on the silver-washed. The upper forewing of the silver-washed also has a stripy pattern which is not present on the dark green.
Dog walkers - now that the bird breeding season has ended, you are very welcome to walk your dogs off leads again. Thank you for co-operating with keeping your dogs on leads this summer. Cycling however is still not permitted on the reserve, however we do have cycle stands where you can lock your bike up if you would like to explore the reserve.
If you are planning a visit to Nagshead, please be aware that the visitor centre closes at the end of the summer season which will be the last bank holiday of the month. However the reserve is open to visit all year round.