Its amazing what can happen in two weeks. The day before I went away, all of the excitement about the discovery of the wasp spider began in earnest. Little did I know how much interest Katherine's discovery would generate. As Ali reported on Wednesday, she has done two radio interviews and a link to the article on the BBC News website can be found here. We are still receiving plenty of calls and e-mails about sightings of these fabulous creatures from the local area. If you have seen one, the British Arachnological Society would love to hear about it. Their website can be found here.
One thing that hasn't changed is that the osprey was still here this morning. It was perched on the bog oak in front of Joist Fen viewpoint at around 7am this morning. There were at least six marsh harriers in front of the viewpoint floating about in the morning sun.
I went for a walk this morning to catch up with what is around and there was a definite autumnal flavour to what I saw. There were at least 100 swallows feeding over the washland and a steady trickle were moving southwards. There were also plenty of meadow pipits moving south, calling as they went. There was a mixed group of gadwalls and wigeons in front of the washland viewpoint and there were plenty of mute swans present. Although I didn't count them this morning, there were 87 in the pool yesterday.
A chiffchaff was singing in the big willow near the visitor centre which is definitely a sign that it was thinking about heading south. A treecreeper was also singing nearby, although this was more likely to be a "local" bird rather than a migrant.
There are still a few insects on the wing and I saw a late silver y moth this morning. Ali saw a speckled wood at the far end of the reserve yesterday and there was also a brimstone on the wing near the first poplar wood. Here is a lovely photo of one that was taken here recently:
Image credit: Tim James
There have been a couple of other interesting sightings over the last couple of days with two large pikes in the visitor centre pond yesterday and a weasel running along the entrance track this morning. The weather is looking mild for the time of year this weekend so we hope to see you soon!