Several families enjoyed an amazing camp night at Minsmere on Saturday night into Sunday morning - more details of what they got up to will follow later in the week. This was our contribution to the annual RSPB Big Wild Sleepout. Don't worry if you missed out this time as there are other Big Wild Sleepout events around the country this weekend, including not too far away from us at RSPB Lakenheath Fen [sorry, I've just found at that the Lakenheath event has been cancelled], or you can sleep in your own garden and get closer to nature.
Any Big Wild Sleepout would not be complete without one essential snack: marsh mallows. We couldn't toast ours over an open fire, but toasted or not, they are always a delicious bedtime snack - I think I ate about ten at our Wildlife Explorers camp night the week before.
But did you know that before the artificial, sugar-filled snacks of today came a different sweet snack called marsh mallow. It was made by boiling the root of a plant bearing the same name. What's more, that plant grows in abundance along the path from Wildlife Lookout to the Sluice, and it's also one of our 70 species to spot this year.
Marsh mallow has beautiful pale pink flowers that are popular with bees and butterflies. Its soft, furry leaves add to the sensory enjoyment of the plant and almost beg to be stroked. They certainly make a nice contrast to the prickly sow-thistles, thistles and nettles growing nearby.
Marsh mallow is a perfect flower for the summer holidays, as it flowers in July and August, is large and distinctive, and has such a great story behind it. Similarly. the bee wolfs and various butterflies and dragonflies are at their peak during the holidays. What's more, with the first wasp spiders and parasol mushrooms having been spotted over the weekend there is only the fly agaric still to emerge from our 70 species list - though you're already already too late to add some of the spring species this year so may have to extend your checklist into 2018.
Today saw the start of our exciting programme of summer holiday activities too, with families busy dissecting owl pellets and pulling apart the bones - I think the parents and grandparents enjoy this activity as much as the children. It's pond dipping tomorrow, bee-focused activities on Wednesday and a bird ringing demonstration on Thursday - with all activities repeated each week.
A sample of some of the bones from owl pellets
It was a good weekend for birdwatching too, especially for those who enjoy the identification challenges posed by migrant wading birds. With the breeding season finished, more and more waders are calling on route south, and numbers can change by the minute, so rather giving peak counts, here's some of the highlights of the last few days: wood sandpipers have been showing very well at East Hide and Wildlife Lookout, often alongside green or common sandpipers for comparison; full summer plumage knots, curlew sandpipers and dunlins over the weekend, and a lovely little stint today; the first snipe of the autumn on Saturday; 130+ black-tailed godwits and a similar number of avocets (the latter still with chicks); good numbers of spotted redshanks and ruffs in various different plumages; and the more familiar lapwings, oystercatchers and redshanks.
Wood sandpiper by James Davidson
As well as the waders, there's good numbers of little gulls, a few Mediterranean gulls, lots of common terns and one or two Sandwich and little terns to add a further ID challenge on the Scrape.
The reedbed wildlife is typically difficult to see in mid summer due to luxuriant reed growth combined with the birds starting to moult after breeding, but reed warblers, bitterns, bearded tits and hobbies have all been showing quite well this week, great crested grebes can be seen on Island Mere, and little grebes behind South Hide. Likewise, woodland birds have finished singing and begun moulting, but both marsh tit and treecreeper were seen in the Den Building area this morning.