Another week has gone by and I am busy as ever with surveying the reserve’s wildlife. A productive morning was spent on Thursday surveying the silt lagoons for reed and sedge warblers and the good news is they seem to be doing well on site once again. Perhaps a testament to how well our reed warbler population is doing on site, is the number of cuckoos we have. Reed warblers are one of the cuckoo’s main ‘target’ species and this year we have at least two singing males on site and during my survey on Thursday morning I was greeted by the welcome sight and sound of a female cuckoo over Phase 2, being hotly pursued by two males!!
The butterfly transect on Friday produced some nice species, including the first meadow browns of the year. But the star butterfly of the week wasn’t spotted on the transect....I was met on Thursday morning by volunteers John Ellis and Graham Gamage. It had been relatively quiet for them bird wise, but they were quick to tell me that a new butterfly species for the site had been recorded! ‘Have a guess, Jenny’, John said and after two or three wrong guesses I finally gave up! So, what is this new species I hear you ask?....a grizzled skipper, seen from the public footpath, by the silt lagoons! This is an excellent record for the site and quite unexpected here at Langford! The species has suffered much population decline in recent years and it’s stronghold is the southern counties of England. The main larval foodplants are wild strawberry and bramble and the adults fly from April –June.
We had a very successful volunteer Sunday this weekend, with a whopping 15 people attending – an excellent turn out. The morning was spent dismantling the old reed growing bays, tidying up the wood stores behind the containers and planting some alder trees around the viewing screen in the gaps either side. The group managed a phenomenal amount of work in the short time we had, so very well done to all involved! The afternoon was a little more relaxing and spent doing a bird and insect race. We split into two teams and spurred on by the promise of biscuit prizes, we set out to record as many bird and insect species as possible in three hours. In the end, the team led by John Ellis won on both the insects, with 58 species and the birds, with 51 species (only beating the other team by 1!) and scooped the team prize, but the prize for ‘best spot’ of the afternoon went to Neil Campbell for his persistence in finding a red-eyed damselfly for his team.
Other recent sightings from last week include immature male marsh harrier on Phase 1 on Tuesday, emperor dragonfly on Phase 3 on Friday, 2 avocets on lagoon 6 and Phase 2 and little egret on Phase 2, on Sunday.