The recent north-easterlies have brought a chill to the air in the last few days here at Langford, but it hasn’t deterred the wildlife, or the wardens(!), from making the most of the spring. I was out on site early this morning surveying birds and picked up the reserve’s first garden warbler of the year. I always think they are the most melodic of our warblers, with a lovely series of deep, rich notes somewhat similar to a blackbird – to my ears anyway!
Also today I had a great view of a hobby over Phase 1 in the early morning sunshine, a great spotted woodpecker on a fence post by the corner of the woodland and a greenshank on Phase 2.
And it’s not just the birds that were out this morning….I was surprised to see a large red damselfly on the public footpath by the woodland at 07.00 this morning, in temperatures of only about 4°C!
Keeping on the subject of insects – the weekly butterfly transect yesterday afternoon produced two new species for 2011 – brown argus on the public footpath and small heath on Phase 1. These are early appearances for both species compared with previous years at Langford, perhaps indicating just how dry and warm the spring has been so far?
And finally, a bit of moth news. Whilst the nights have been a bit too cold recently for any overnight trapping, I managed to record two new species of day-flying moth for our 2011 list. The first was the cinnabar. They are black and red coloured, with a fluttery flight low over vegetation. Look out for their caterpillars later on in the year – they are the yellow and black striped ones that feed on ragwort. And the second species, spotted on the butterfly transect by volunteer Dave Sharpe was the mother shipton moth. This species has a dark brown marking on the forewings, edged with a cream coloured line that is said to resemble a witch! The name comes from this marking and refers to Old Mother Shipton, a sixteenth century prophet from North Yorkshire.