Good morning! Its Friday the thirteenth! In order to celebrate this auspicious day, I thought I would showcase some of the weird and wonderful bugs that are calling the reserve home at the moment. Some rare birds will also feature and if you are looking for bird sightings, I will do a more comprehensive sightings blog on Sunday morning.
I will however start with a very big bird that was seen over the west end of the reserve on Tuesday, as it is definitely part of this story. A large bird of prey was photographed over Botany Bay at 08.30 and the photo of it suggested that it was a white tailed eagle, which would be a very exciting first record for the reserve!
Sadly, it was seen flying west and was not seen again after that. I went down to Joist Fen viewpoint to have a quick look for it and I saw a turtle dove in flight which was very nice indeed. There were also several emperor dragonflies zipping over the pond in front of the viewpoint.
Lee, one of our regulars went down to Botany Bay to look for it and found a massive selection of insects. Highlights included seven hairy dragonflies and a male scarce chaser. Butterflies were also conspicuous with at least six red admirals and two male brimstones. Meanwhile, close to the visitor centre, a male clouded yellow was on the wing on the riverbank, which is an unusual spring record here.
The local photographers were out in force and here are some of the bugs that they found:
A scorpion fly:
A mass of peacock butterfly caterpillars:
Image credits: Raphael Stipic
A banded demoiselle:
Image credit: Matt Walton
Thank you very much to Raphael and Matt for sharing these with us.
If I fast forward to yesterday, a painted lady was seen near the visitor centre and several of these curious looking creatures were seen near East Wood:
Image credit: David White
Its British name is the golden bloomed grey longhorn beetle, and there are lots of them around at the moment.
I had a quick bug hunt around Brandon Fen at lunch time and found several yellow shell moths and a green veined white butterfly. Several black tailed skimmers were on the wing and two smaller butterflies which looked most like small skippers.
Shortly after I got back to the visitor centre, Ali spotted a cracking mullein moth caterpillar chomping away in the plant bed below the office window:
The weather is looking fairly good this weekend so why not come and visit? We hope to see you soon!