Our weekly series focusing on a star species to look for continues the colour theme of my last blog by looking at one the UK's most popular flowers: the bluebell. This is only the second time in this series that I've picked a species that is not featured in our 70 species to spot challenge, but with the displays that they are putting on at the moment it only seems to right to choose something different this week.
I said in my last blog that I thought the Bank Holiday sunshine would tempt our bluebells into full flower, and it was lovely to see a blue carpet along the entrance road as I came down past Scotts Hall yesterday. There's an even more impressive patch just inside South Belt woods, just a few metres from the visitor centre. Of course, as my son rightly pointed out at the weekend, bluebells are more purple in colour than blue, especially in the dappled light of a woodland glade, but perhaps that's being a little picky. Not only do they look great, but bluebells have a strong fragrance, similar to the closely related hyacinth.
There's something special about walking through a bluebell wood in spring. It's not just the sight and smell either. It's the sound. Whether the sound of feet gently crunching on a stony path or softly treading along a grassy ride, or the accompanying sound of birdsong, it certainly brings with it a real sense of wellbeing.
The birdsong yesterday included all our common breeding warblers - blackcaps, garden warden warblers and chiffchaffs in the woods; whitethroats and lesser whitethroats in scrubby areas; willow warbler at the base of Whin Hill; reed and sedge warblers in the reedbed - as well the more familiar robins, wrens, dunnocks and chaffinches. Better still, the cuckoos have been extremely vocal throughout the reserve today. Incredibly, I didn't hear a cuckoo at Minsmere last spring, so it was very exciting to hear one from the office yesterday.
Cuckoo by John Bridges (rspb-images.com)
Out of the Scrape, the familiar sounds of black-headed and Mediterranean gulls, avocets and common terns can be heard. Among them, four little terns are on South Scrape, but Sandwich tern numbers have declined as birds have moved away to breed elsewhere. A couple of little gulls and at least 20 kittiwakes are visiting the Scrape now too. Waders passing through this week have already included wood sandpiper, spotted redshank, bar-tailed godwits and knots as well as the more regular black-tailed godwits, dunlins, turnstones and ringed plovers.
In the reedbed, the bitterns are still booming throughout the day, but we expect them to become quieter over the next few weeks. At least four hobbies and several marsh harriers can be seen over the reedbeds, and bearded tits have been regular at Island Mere.
The warm weather has also brought many insects out this week. Whilst carrying out a butterfly transect walk this morning, one of our guides identified now fewer than 12 species of butterflies and seven dragonflies. These included hairy dragonflies, broad-bodied and four-spotted chasers, four species of damselflies, green hairstreaks, holly blues, speckled woods and lots of orange tips.
Hairy dragonfly by Paul Green