Over the last few days, in this middle of autumn, visitors and our VWs (Voluntary Wardens) have been seeing a wide range of birds, butterflies and dragonflies (just a few autumn species), here in our 'not-far from Tamworth or Fazeley' reserve.
The wetlands had black-headed gull, canada goose, coot, cormorant, curlew (flying over or a quick stop-over), dunlin (did not stay long), gadwall, goldeneye, great crested grebe, grey heron, grey wagtail, greylag goose, hobby, house martin (flocks flying over), kingfisher, lapwing, lesser redpoll, little egret, little grebe, mallard, moorhen, mute swan, peregrine, pochard, redshank, reed bunting, shoveler, snipe, teal, tufted duck, water rail, wigeon.
Over the car-park and along the woodland tracks there were sightings of blackbird, blue tit, bullfinch, buzzard, chaffinch, coal tit, dunnock, goldfinch, great spotted woodpecker, great tit, green woodpecker, greenfinch, kestrel, long-tailed tit, nuthatch, robin, rook, sparrow, sparrowhawk, swallow (flying over), treecreeper, wren.
And during those sunny days we had ....
Dragonflies - common darter, ruddy darter, brown hawker.
Butterflies - comma, large white, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, speckled wood.
(Thanks to Keith Warmington, Warwickshire butterfly recorder, for the butterfly links)
Let's hope the weather keeps fine for the weekend.