Mersehead Recent Sightings 1st - 7th July
After a damp start to the week, our visitor center garden seems busier than ever, a feeding frenzy, with plenty of immature goldfinch, green finch, chaffinch, sparrow all taking their turn on the feeders among the adult birds. Not forgetting our ever popular yellowhammers. Our resident pheasant with her five offspring also comes by most days to feed on the left over’s. We are seeing increasing numbers of starlings around the reserve too, forever the opportunist; they have also discovered that an easy snack is to be had.
Cheeky young chaffinch (photo credit: Jon Foot)
Mrs Pheasant with 3 of her offspring (photo credit: Jon Foot)
Hungry starlings (photo credit: Jon Foot)
As the weather improved, we put the moth trap out on Wednesday evening and spent a good while identifying over 28 different types of Moths on Thursday morning. A fantastic array of colours, shapes & sizes, to name a few we saw elephant hawk moth, poplar hawk moth, garden tiger, gold spangle, light emerald, spectacle, true lovers knot, map winged swift.....the list goes on.
elephant hawk moth (photo credit: Jon Foot
garden tiger (photo credit: Jon Foot)
Butterflies seen around the reserve this week have been green-veined white, meadow brown, peacock, red admiral, ringlet and painted lady.
Evenings are extra special at the moment as our young barn owls can be regularly seen, learning their craft as the silent hunter.
Jon Foot, Residential Volunteer