I don’t want to bore you by repeating what I’ve said previously but the flowers around the reserve are amazing and worth seeing. They're just getting past their best but the insect life is still certainly enjoying the variety of flowers around.
The butterflies seem to appear in vast numbers every time the sun comes out. I seem to suddenly have an abundance of gatekeepers in the garden at home and they seem to be everywhere on the reserve. I caught this shot of a small copper around the thistles on the Play Meadow.
Small copper by Pam Dalley
Caterpillars are appearing around the reserve; cinnabar moth caterpillars are on the ragwort and I caught this bunch of small tortoiseshell caterpillars on the nettles.
Photo by Pam Dalley
A lot of male bumblebees are now about. If you see a bumblebee with a yellow face it is definitely a male. Females never have yellow faces; however, not all males have yellow faces. Did you know that male bees don’t sting?
We had our “Thank You” BBQ for the volunteers a short while ago and we were very lucky with the weather. Our site manager stepped up to the mark as chef and nobody was ill the following day!!!!
Photo by Adrian Norgrove
I’m sure you realise that we rely very much on our wonderful band of volunteers and the BBQ is our way of showing our appreciation. We use the opportunity to invite them all along, to let them know any future plans on the reserve and to hand out our service awards, including “Volunteer of the Year”.
If anyone knows what this amazing caterpillar is, please let me know. I believe it may be something like a yellow tail moth.
Its to hear and see what living on our reserve, it was brilliant BBQ with other staff and vols, which one of finest teams.