Aliens still emerging! And other sightings.

Well, it's the end of another busy week, with lots going on down the reserve again.  The non-avian stars of the moment are still the ever-emerging dragonflies coming out of our pond bed near the visitor centre.  As I type, there are another four people staring intently into the vegetation, with warden Emma pointing out the finer points of the dragonfly life-cycle!  To follow on from Davids photo of a few days ago, here are a few that I took of the emperor dragonfly emerging.

The larvae bursts open as the adult begins to emerge.

An acrobatic back-flip sees the adult free itself from the head of the larval form.   The white stringy bits, I think, are probably the once-sealed thoracic spiracles that the larvae used to breathe underwater.  During the last few days of metamorphosis, these are opened to allow the larvae to breathe air directly.

Just hanging around waiting for its legs to dry and harden...

After an impressive sit up, the new adult expands its wings...

Then expands its abdomen...

Adult emperor dragonfly ready to go.

The whole process took from about 10.30am when it crawled out of the pond and up the stem, until 2.44pm when it was ready to go.  Hopefully it didn't share the same fate as another one we had been watching, which having warmed up its flight muscles, took off towards the poplars (with a few cheers from on-lookers), and was promptly gobbled up by a hungry pied wagtail!!  

Over the last week and a half, over 20 emperor dragonflies have emerged from our wee pond, imagine how many must be emerging from the whole reserve!  With different dragonflies having different emergence dates, we're quite looking forward to seeing what emerges over the next few weeks and months. 

While all that was going on, our volunteers were busy with various tasks.  Gill and Roger H, have done a fantastic job 'weeding' and tidying up the wildlife friendly bed (I know nature doesn't 'do' tidy, but there were quite a few plants  (some may say weeds...) that were not in the right place, and taking over the plants that are meant to be there!  We also decided to plant another bee and butterfly border next to the toilets, which looks great now, and will look even better once the plants have established.  Roger and Tony tidied up around the staff carpark, including removing all the brambles that were starting to invade.  They also put up some wires in lieu of planting honeysuckle and other various wildlife friendly bushes.  Dave M constructed some new A-frame signs for our seasonal interpretation, while Nigel spent a few hours monitoring marsh harriers.

I unfortunately missed one of my favourite birds, an osprey, on Friday as it flew high over the visitor centre on Friday (that'll teach me for having a day off!).  I did not miss the spotted flycatcher in the big willow near the visitor centre yesterday though!  A drake garganey was seen on the washland on Saturday morning.  Up to three bitterns have been seen in flight, while bearded tits have been seen regularly flitting around the tops of reeds.  Hobby numbers have past their peak now, with only about ten around at the moment.  

A late evening visit on Friday unfortunately did not reveal any spotted crakes, but a badger wandering across the track near the visitor centre made my evening! 

That's all for now.  Hope to see you on the reserve soon!

Katherine

Warden