July’s weather was a very mixed bag but by the end of the month we were experiencing more days that seemed like proper summer days. The dreary, cool damp days of the spring were behind us, and the nature reserve started to change in response.
Perhaps the most obvious change in vegetation growth. All our plants became taller, lusher, and more vigorous. The trackside verges were swamped with Ribbed melilot (tall, fine yellow spikes of flowers) shortly followed by big clumps of narrow-leaved everlasting pea. Smaller plants, like our orchids and trefoils disappeared beneath the taller plants. Before long, the big plants started to droop over the trails round the reserve especially after rainstorms weighed them down and our paths became noticeably narrower; But never fear, we’ll sort this out in the autumn when the plants have dripped their seeds and we can arrange for the verges to be mown.
Early in the summer my impression was that most flowers only lasted for a short while, perhaps blooming and providing nectar and pollen for less time than usual. With the cold, damp weather and a lack of food, our insects were slow to get going. Both our formal weekly counts and our sightings board records were well below normal (in common with may other parts of the country). We talked about this scarcity of familiar insects with many of our visitors.
As July wore on and the weather improved, we started seeing numbers that were more like normal. Our butterfly counts (we carry out a formal survey once a week from April to September) increased with more individuals and more species each week (for an idea of what we see, look at the list at the end of this blog). We saw many more bees, bumblebees, and hoverflies. Reassuringly, though we’d seen many queen Shrill carder bumblebees early in the year, it took some time to start seeing numbers of workers on the Narrow-leaved everlasting pea and the Ribbed melilot. Other bee species are also appearing in their usual numbers – the recent example being lots of patchwork leaf cutter bees around the information kiosk.
These changes may all be due to a degree of recovery after the poor spring, or they may be due to second broods from species that have two generations in a year. Either way, they deserve careful recording so that scientists can continue to monitor climate-induced changes alongside the longer-term declines (anyone remember having to clear insects from car windscreens after an evening journey?)
Our birds went quiet during July. Most had finished breeding, so there was less singing to attract mates or stake out territories. They were all still there, just busy feeding and moulting (regrowing a full set of feathers takes a lot of food). Bearded reedlings still appeared in the sightings list, just less often. Finding and photographing birds needed more than the usual patience.
We did have plenty of sightings following the excellent news from June that our Bitterns had fledged young successfully as had one pair of Marsh harriers and our Barn owls. Other nice surprises for us were sightings of a young female kingfisher over the scrape outside the café and a Hobby catching dragonflies high above the information kiosk.
We ran a couple events in July that highlighted important species groups. We had a “Shrill carder” day with help from the Bumblebee Conservation trust and Natur am Byth (the species we saw are listed at the end of the blog). Just as important as the list of species was the number of people who were able to learn about bumblebees from some of our leading experts.
Our larger-scale evening event for families started with a round robin (pardon the pun!) of pond dipping and sweep netting, continued with charring marshmallows over an open fire, and the featuring the Usk Astronomical Society’s indoor planetarium. The evening finished after dark with a couple of bat walks where we showed our guests how to use bat detectors and then spent a couple of hours walking round the reserve listening in some of the ideal habitats for feeding bats. The weather was quite cold and damp which can sometimes mean a reduction in the insects in flight so this had a knock on our physical sightings of our bats however with the equipment we were able to listen to the calls of Common and Soprano pipistrelles and of Noctules. We’d hoped for Daubenton’s bats but were simply unlucky.
Written by Jeremy White
Photographs by Jeremy White and Ieuan Evans
Sightings in July 2024
Arachnid Flower crab spider
Bird Barn owl, Bearded reedling, Bittern, Blackbird, Blackcap, Black-headed gull, Black-tailed Godwit, Blue tit, Bullfinch, Buzzard, Canada goose, Carrion crow, Cetti's warbler, Chiffchaff, Collared dove, Common whitethroat, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunnock, Gadwall, Goldcrest, Golden plover, Goldfinch, Great spotted woodpecker, Great tit, Great white egret, Green woodpecker, Greenfinch, Grey heron, Herring gull, Hobby, House martin, House sparrow, Jay, Kestrel, Kingfisher, Lesser black-backed gull, Lesser whitethroat, Linnet, Little egret, Little grebe, Long-tailed tit, Magpie, Mallard, Marsh harrier, Moorhen, Mute swan, Oystercatcher, Peregrine falcon, Pheasant, Raven, Redshank, Reed bunting, Reed Warbler, Robin, Sand martin, Sedge Warbler, Shelduck, Shoveler, Song thrush, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Stonechat, Swallow, Swift, Water rail, Whimbrel, Woodpigeon, Wren
Insect Pond skater, Water boatman
Insect – bee Honey bee
Insect - beetle Paederus littoralis
Insect – bumblebee Brown-banded carder bee, buff/white-tailed bumblebee, Common carder bumblebee, Early bumblebee, Garden bumblebee, Heath bumblebee, Red-tailed bumblebee, Shrill carder bee
Insect - butterfly Brown argus butterfly, Comma butterfly, Common blue butterfly, Essex skipper butterfly, Gatekeeper butterfly, Green-veined white butterfly, Large skipper butterfly, Large white butterfly, meadow brown butterfly, painted lady butterfly, Peacock butterfly, Red admiral butterfly, Ringlet butterfly, Small skipper butterfly, Small tortoiseshell butterfly, Small White butterfly, Speckled Wood butterfly
Insect - dragonfly Black-tailed skimmer dragonfly, Blue tailed damselfly, Common blue damselfly, Common darter dragonfly, emperor dragonfly, Four spot chaser, Southern hawker dragonfly
Insect - macro moth 6-spot burnet moth, Cinnabar moth, Poplar hawk moth
Mammal Bank vole, Common shrew, Fox, Grey squirrel, Otter, Rabbit, Shrew, Stoat, Weasel, Wood mouse
Plant Amphibious bistort, Bristly oxtongue, Comfrey, Common Bistort, Dittander, Great willowherb, Hedge bindweed, Hemp agrimony, Narrow-leaved everlasting pea, Ragwort, Red clover, Ribbed melilot, Rosebay willowherb, Teasel, White clover
Plant - grass Great reed
Plant - orchid Marsh helleborine
Reptile Grass snake