A long but successful day for me at Pulborough Brooks yesterday. I began with an early start to 'unpack' the moth trap that I'd set up to run overnight.., on the edge of the trap perched a lovely scorched wing moth and a few of the colourful cinnabar moths flashed their red underwings as they fluttered off as the sun warmed up.
Delving further into the traps revealed 3 fabulous hawkmoths - poplar, lime and this incredible privet hawkmoth.
At the base of the trap, I found something that wasn't a moth...
A great silver beetle. This huge diving beetle was at least the length of my thumb, and whilst we do find them out in the ditches on the brooks, we've never spotted one in the visitor centre ponds so perhaps he'd ventured in towards the light from further afield. A very splendid creature and a great start to my day.
By 5 pm I was pond dipping with a group of 25 brownies finding damselfly larvae, water boatman, great diving beetle larvae and bloodworms.
But the highlight of my day was joining several of our lovely volunteers and around 20 visitors on a night-time walk onto the heathland.
The nightjar activity began around 9.30 pm with some brief churring, followed by the sight of two nightjars flying into one of the conifer clumps on the southern edge of the heath. Then a further male churred from behind us - up towards the clump. We continued our walk heading up towards the clump regularly hearing churring from several spots along the southern edge of the heath. There were definitely at least 2 churring males, but whether they were both very mobile or whether there were more of them I couldn't say. Just as we were considering making our way back to the visitor centre the churring resumed from just above our heads and then a shape appeared from a nearby tree and did a wonderful fly-by looping over our group and giving tremendous views.
Our walk back to the centre was illuminated by the twinkling fairy lights of 3 glow worms - the wingless female beetles 'advertising their wares' to any passing males.
If you do fancy finding yourself a nightjar then my recommendation for the best spots would be on the southern side of the clump where you can sit on one of the benches and await the performance, or take a walk through the central area of heath, pausing around the 3-way junction close to the 'top pond'.
If you would like to join us on a guided walk to look for these and other night-time creatures, we have an 'after dark' walk on Saturday 20 June - book your place by contacting the visitor centre on 01798 875851.