Recent sightings 26th May - 1st June
We have experienced yet another week of glorious sunshine and high temperatures. The fine weather has been assisting the birds and wildlife as they look for food to feed their broods. Over the week we have seen the arrival of more house martins, watching them dart back and forth, listening to them chattering away, as they get to work collecting mud to construct their nests.
House Martin collecting mud. photo credit: Tom Marshall (rspb-images.com)
On Wednesday a pair of lapwing, being very active and defensive over the track down towards the woodland strip, were reported by several visitors. Upon our investigation we found that four lapwing chicks had got themselves into the ditch running parallel to the track, and were unable to clamber out. With a little helping hand we managed to usher them up the bank side and back to safety.
A female marsh harrier has been observed hunting over the reed beds throughout the week, the best place to see her is from our Meida hide.
Our weekly monitoring of the Natterjack toad tadpoles took place on Thursday, currently their development stage is varied, where we still have tiny tadpoles, some a little bigger with two legs formed and some with four legs. Then we have some which are so advanced they are out the water, scampering across the vegetation. We call these toadlets, and once we realised they were there, we counted up to 200. Whilst we were out amongst the toads breeding pools, we saw common blue and blue tailed damsel fly, and a skylark managing to outwit a sparrowhawk after a dramatic chase.
The warm weather and bright sunshine helps spot a whole host of weird and wonderful little creatures. Some will come to you, catching you unawares by landing somewhere upon you. Others will take a little more finding, by stopping and looking on bushes, tree branches, under stones or logs for example. If you can stay calm (most are harmless to us humans), take a closer look, the shapes, patterns, colours of invertebrates can be fascinating. Maybe take a photo, and when you get home use books or the internet to help identify what you have seen.
Red headed Cardinal beetle. photo credit: Dave Long
Red legged shield bug. photo credit: Jon Foot
With continuing warm night time temperatures, this week’s moth trap produced a huge array of species including 5 poplar hawk moth, 2 cinnabar, 3 white ermine, 1 buff tip, 1 pale prominent, 1 peppered moth, 1 heart and dart, 1 spectacle, 8 Chinese character and many more.
Buff Tip moth. photo credit: Jon Foot
Chinese character moth. Tiny...about the size of an adult little finger nail. photo credit: Jon Foot
Peppered moth. photo credit: Jon Foot
Jon Foot. Residential Volunteer.