With the school holidays upon us, our volunteers have been busy today helping families to discover the delights of pond dipping. This is such a simple way for families to connect with nature together, yet many of the parents and grandparents haven't had ago themselves before - or if they have then it was many years ago.
It's such fun dipping a net into the pond, scooping out a bunch of weed then tipping the contents into a white tray and searching carefully to see what you've found. Newts are always highlights - or more accurately efts as most of those that we find will still have gills and are yet to undergo the final metamorphosis into adults. Did you know that the newt equivalent of a tadpole is called an eft?
Bloodworms are always popular with the child - I wonder why - but i always enjoy finding water boatmen, dragonfly larvae and beetle larvae. If we're really lucky we scoop out something more unusual, like a water stick insect or water scorpion. like this one that we caught last summer.
Pond dipping takes place every Monday and Wednesday from now until 29 August. We'll provide all of the nets and identification charts, so all you need to turn up and take part. There is a charge of £3 per child or £2.40 for RSPB Wildlife Explorers, and there's no need to book in advance. Better still, pond dipping is just one of the many activities that count towards your Wild Challenge - a fun, web-based family challenge to help you to discover nature together.
Even with the bustle of happy families dipping their nets, the pond's resident water voles are putting on a regular show. With the thick reed growth they can be tricky to spot, but look for the distinctive platforms of flattened reeds on which they feed, or listen for them chewing reed stems for their dinner.
Water voles are among the UK's most threatened mammals with populations across the country having declined due to wetland drainage and predation by introduced American mink, but here at Minsmere we have a healthy, thriving population, and the pond is probably the easiest place to spot them. Apart from their sheer cuteness, water voles are always popular because of their association with one of the most famous children's stories, The Wind in the Willows, whose lead character, Ratty, is actually a water vole. What's more, it's also one of the 70 species to spot at Minsmere, so is the star of this week's blog.
Very occasionally we discover the remains of water voles in the owl pellets that we dissect as part of another family activity, taking place every Tuesday, but more typically we find the bones of the closely related bank vole, field vole or wood mouse, as well as common and pygmy shrews. Costs are as for the pond dipping.
There are many other Wild Challenges that you can do at Minsmere, including looking for bees, birdwatching, listening to birdsong and doing a beach clean. Several of our Wildlife Explorers families, including my own, completed one of the Wild Challenges by enjoying a wild camp night at Minsmere at the weekend, and more families will be joining Matt for our Big Wild Sleepout this weekend. This event is now fully booked, but you can also enjoy your own wild camp in your garden or as part of a family holiday. During our camp we had fun making wild art on the beach and opening a moth trap on Sunday morning - both Wild Challenges in their own right.
Thomas with his stone turtle (above) and a stunning elephant hawkmoth (below)
Of course, there are also great birdwatching opportunities this week, with flocks of terns, waders, gulls and ducks on the Scrape. Among the large numbers of common and Sandwich terns, there have been sightings of adult and juvenile Arctic terns, an adult roseate tern and a juvenile black tern this week, as well as up to 30 little gulls. Black-headed and Mediterranean gull numbers are dropping off, and a few kittiwakes remain.
The ducks are an ID challenge as they're all moulting at this time of year, but look carefully, or chat to our volunteer guides, and you may find shoveler, gadwall, mallard, teal or even a the odd garganey. Even more exciting has been a female pintail with duckling - a rare breeding bird in England.
The waders are making the most of the shallow muddy water water on the Scrape, with a good variety of migrants passing through. These have included green, common and curlew sandpipers, spotted redshanks, greenshanks, knots, dunlins, ruffs, little ringed plovers and snipe, as well as 100 avocets and black-tailed godwits.
Elsewhere, highlights have included bittern, hobby, marsh harrier and otter sightings at Island Mere, a singing Savi's warbler at Island Mere, a juvenile water rail in pool along the North Wall, green woodpeckers on Whin Hill, singing turtle dove in the North Bushes, and the inhabitants of Digger Alley
This juvenile little grebe was at Wildlife Lookout yesterday