At Greylake we’ve been busy coppicing and pollarding the willows and poplars on the main drove this week. Not too exciting but in clambering up one of the pollards I did come across this hidey hole for Garden Snails. One moment it’s a rotten stump, next…..
Photo-credits: David Miller
Things are beginning to happen on the birdwatching front. Our lapwing (see photo below) and golden plover numbers are building up, there are a lot of snipe out there, doing what they do best, hiding. They’ve also been joined by a few black-tailed godwits this week. More obviously wildfowl numbers are building up, especially in front of the hides, with teal, wigeon, gadwall and shoveler now present in enough numbers to make counting more interesting. Whilst stonechat have become more elusive reed buntings are now being seen again and redpoll was seen on Saturday 4th. Today (Friday) a bittern was seen flying over the reeds and a marsh harrier was hunting on the reserve. The normal cast of little and great white egrets are still about along with kingfisher, water rail, cetti’s warbler and buzzard. Many thanks to Rob and Jo for updating me on all of these. They also saw at least 2 blackcaps in the picnic area.
Photo-credit: David Miller
The recent cold spell and frosts seem to have killed off all or most of the dragonflies, which is a real shame as Red-veined Darter and Green Darner were seen at West Sedgemoor in the last week of October.
At our West Sedgemoor farm HQ moths are also sharply down. I've been looking at the Ivy blossom rather belatedly and found a Rusty-dot Pearl (picture below), which is a fairly common and rather attractive immigrant micro-moth. You never know what else you might find though and I found this beetle which reminded me of a Longhorn beetle. It wasn't and I tentatively identified it as the false blister beetle Oncomera femoralis (photo below). This is nationally scarce but with a concentration around the Severn estuary. However I then read on a beetle web site that it comes to light from April to September and comes to Ivy, so I'm 99% sure now. It is a little late, but then the beetle has been very sluggish and looks distinctly worse for ware. It's a female.
This is my first attempt at a nice picture of the marshes in the early morning.