Questions - Starter for Ten...

R.S.P.B. Mersehead Blog    2nd  - 8th July 2022

Well July’s in full bloom and changes are a-foot here at Mersehead,  living and working right in the middle of a nature reserve certainly means you notice all the natural happenings. It also helps that I have the time to explore in the evenings-yesterday found me nestled down in the meadow at dusk waiting for a barn owl fly past! And it did indeed fly past….far too fast for me to get a photo!

More cows have joined us, and the herds that have been here for a while have been moved from field to field in line with the grazing plan for the reserve. I wake up in the morning now, to the sound of mooing rather than the calls of geese or the cawing of the rooks.

Belted Galloways enjoying the sunshine   Photo credit : C.J.E. Farrell

One constant however, (thankfully not at my window) has been a crow – the one that caused such a fuss last month- still knocking at my fellow volunteers’ bedroom windows each morning! A picture of Marge Simpson at the windows worked for a while but no longer cuts the ice….time for the big guns…

Homer on guard        Photo credit : C.J.E.Farrell

Fingers crossed.

After a walk around the site the other day I heard just one lapwing calling, an old friend maybe from the heady days of lapwing breeding when there were 30 or 40 lapwings in each of the predator protected fields. Wonder where they are now… The youngest chick that we were aware of will be  independent by now, an important player in a breeding season that lasted from the last days of March when we first noticed nest building activity.

As a child I thought that everything was neatly packaged - all the birds nesting and breeding in Spring, all the butterflies out in the Summer etc… but being at Mersehead has been brilliant for a bit of personal research and a great many eye-opening moments as I increasingly appreciate the complexities of what happens when. Rearing Small Tortoisehell butterflies from caterpillars has been amazing, in this pic one is just about to turn into a chrysalis like the others.

Small Tortoiseshell chrysalises        Photo credit : C.J.E.Farrell

They’ve all hatched now and they’re flying free in the Sulwath Garden, small tortoiseshells hibernate as adults and preparation for this will begin next month. One thing I did notice is that the chrysalis is often marked with gold, something that happens quite a lot in the moths we find in the trap at the moment. One of my favourites, the Gold Spot (clue’s in the name) has a marking that looks like you’ve used one of those fancy gold pens that are around at Christmas. And the moth pictured, the Plain Golden-Y is also clearly marked with gold. Absolutely beautiful of course, but I’d like to know why (no pun intended) the mark has evolved as necessary and how the colour is produced. The research never ends!

Plain Golden-Y. Photo Credit: C J E Farrell

If you’ve been down to Mersehead recently, you may have been counting the House Martins that are feeding around the Sulwath Centre and farm buildings. At the moment I’ve been seeing around 12 adults and after extensive research (glancing at the nest which is preventing me opening my bathroom window) I can see that the chicks have hatched and the parents are hard at work feeding the young’uns. Apparently, House Martins don’t have many predators, but their main problem (barring the habitat issues) is that House Sparrows have been known to attack them and their young, even destroying the eggs so that they can take over the ready made nests! That’s all the House Martins need after all the trouble they’ve taken to get here from far flung places! Hopefully the sparrows will behave themselves here at Mersehead!

Adult House Martin disappearing into the nest- too fast for me!     Photo Credit : C.J.E.Farrell

It’ll be interesting to see how many House Martins there are once the young are flying. They lay 4 or 5 eggs and can have three broods, so each pair could have 15 young potentially… that’s 15 times 6 if the 12 I saw are 6 pairs so that’ll be 90 birds! Ooh, plus the original 12….that’s 102 House Martins by the end of August! Whatever the outcome – and I may be overly optimistic- it’s hugely interesting and rewarding watching the comings and goings and it’s good to have high hopes. Good luck to our fantastic feathery friends!

The moth trap has been catching some spectacular species recently, and one of my favourites turned up recently, the Drinker moth. This spectacular creature gets its name from the habit of the caterpillars, they often drink the dew drops from vegetation.

Male Drinker moth - proud of his antennae!    Photo credit : C.J.E. Farrell

The male Drinker has large comb-like antenna that are known as ‘pectinate’, they use them to detect  pheromones emitted from un-mated females. In some species they can detect these smells up to 2km away! You’d think they’d use their really big ‘nose’….

Drinker moth            Photo Credit : C.J.E.Farrell

Bertie’s Blog

Bertie strimming   Photo Credit : C.J.E. Farrell

I’m worn out to be honest… the warden asked me to strim the long grass from along the predator fence and it’s taken me ages. I did notice something interesting while I was out and about down near the beach however…there were lots of caterpillars nibbling the leaves from this sea radish plant. Can you recognise which species are feeding up on this flowery brassica? If you need a clue, rearrange these letters and you’ll find the name of the hairy nibbler:  RELAG IEWTH

Mystery caterpillar         Photo Credit : C.J.E. Farrell

Shhhh….don’t tell the warden but I sneaked off down to the swings in the Sulwath Garden for 10 minutes earlier, I can get really good views of the hares from there.

Shhhhh.....             Photo Credit : C.J.E. Farrell

Claire J. Farrell - Residential Volunteer

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