30 Days Wild – Day 12

June 12, 2016 / nrowberry / 4 Comments

Day 12 of 30 Days Wild and it’s been all about the moths. This weekend has been the annual Moth Night (which slightly confusingly has run for 3 nights) – a celebration of all things mothy. The theme of this year’s Moth Night was Hawkmoths, so I was really hoping I’d get some in the traps.

I had both moth traps out last night and was up at 4am this morning to empty them before the robin beat me to it. The last 2 days I’ve been pretty much eyeball to eyeball with this robin as he has clearly learnt that moth traps provide easy pickings! I only have to turn around for a second and he’s there sitting on the edge of the trap, peering in. If only he could tell me their names, he’d be a big help!

I’d run one trap on Friday night as usual for my weekly Garden Moth Scheme count. So I could use those numbers for Moth Night too – great when the data can be used for 2 schemes at once!

Last night though I put the other trap out as well (I can only use the wooden one for the Garden Moth Scheme) to try and maximise my haul for Moth Night. Fortunately the rain held off last night until about 5:30am, by which time I had collected all the moths ready to photograph at a more civilised hour.

I’ve spent a large part of today identifying the moths I’d photographed this morning and yesterday. I’ve no idea yet how other moth trappers got on, but I was pretty pleased with my total count of 174 moths of 41 species over the 2 days. Interestingly the number of traps didn’t make much difference – I got 27 species the first night with one trap and 29 last night with the 2 traps.

I was really chuffed to get 2 species of Hawkmoth – the Elephant (on the left below) and the Small Elephant (on the right obviously!). We get the bigger one quite often in June and the small one less frequently. It would have been nice to get some of the other big hawkmoths too, but that’s the way it goes.

The dominant species in terms of sheer numbers was the Heart and Dart, which accounted for about a third of the total number of individuals. I love the way many of the moths are named – the Heart & Dart is so called because it has dark markings shaped like a heart and a dart! It does what it says on the tin!

The other numerous moth in the trap was a micro one – the Diamond Back Moth – named for its diamond shaped pattern on its back! This tiny moth is actually an immigrant and they’ve been blown over to the UK in recent weeks in huge numbers – they even got a mention on Springwatch.

The Diamond Back wasn’t the only incomer, I also trapped a Silver Y moth each night – again named for the silvery Y shape on its wing. The Silver Y is one of the more famous immigrants in the moth world and even got recorded as part of the Big Butterfly Count last year.

Moths can generally be split into Macro and Micro moths. I tend to prefer the Macro ones because not only are they bigger, but they are usually easier to identify. This weekend brought some particularly impressive ones. The Scarlet Tiger is so bright and colourful it is often mistaken for a butterfly. They regularly fly in sunshine, but this one came to the trap at the weekend.

The Puss Moth and Pale Tussock are two other large species that turned up for Moth Night. I love the way the Puss sits with its front legs stretched out ahead.

I was really pleased to find this next moth in the trap this morning as I’d only ever seen it in the books before – the Figure of 80 – so named because it looks like someone’s written 80 on each of its wings!

Although the Micro moths are obviously smaller and so generally harder to ID, many of them are really quite stunning when you look at them close up, like this Cherry Bark Moth (top) and Barred Marble (below). They’re both probably less than a centimetre long, but there’s such detail in their colouring.

So that’s Moth Night over for another year. Hopefully they will have had lots of results submitted from all over the country and it will have raised the profile of moths generally. I really enjoy taking part in projects like this; it’s great sharing the photos on social media and seeing what all the other moth-ers around the country are getting in their traps.

For more info have a look at their website: http://www.mothnight.info/www/

Weed no. 12 in my 30 Lazy Weeds from the garden and it’s the Buttercup. One of our most iconic flowers, that even children will recognise. Most kids will have tried the old custom where you hold a buttercup under your chin and if it reflects yellow, it means you like butter. Of course all it really proves is that the buttercup’s petals reflect light very well, but that’s not quite so romantic a thought! Maybe it is that old custom though, as buttercups hold an innocent charm for me that few of the other flowers do.

30 Days Wild – Day 11

June 11, 2016February 26, 2025 / nrowberry / 1 Comment

TWT 30 Days Wild_countdown_11 Day 11 of 30 Days Wild and last night’s drizzle has turned into today’s rain. We had planned on a trip to the Wyre Forest in the hope of seeing the Small Pearl Bordered Fritillaries – they would have been a new species for us. But no point going in the rain, not much likelihood of seeing butterflies on a day like this.

So thought I’d just go with the flow today – if it’s raining, find something to do with animals that like the rain! It may be nice weather for ducks, but our pond is too small for them. I did see a frog this morning when emptying the moth trap, but of course it was long gone by the time I decided on the wet weather plan. So what’s left? Well one thing our garden produces lots of is molluscs. And in the rain this morning it was heaving with snails and slugs.

A quick trawl round produced 5 species of snail (we have others, but they would have required more hunting than I was prepared to do in the rain).

First up our largest species at Too Lazy To Weed – the Common Garden Snail (Cornu aspersum). Plenty of these today hiding amongst stones and a few intrepid individuals heading across the grass.

Next up two very similar species, the Brown Lipped Snail (Cepaea nemoralis) and the White Lipped Snail (Cepaea hortensis). The Brown Lipped has a brown band around the opening of the shell (top image below) and the White Lipped has (not too surprisingly) a white band at the opening (bottom image). Other than that the two species both vary hugely in colour patterns from near white, yellow, brown and all manner of stripes in between.

Fourth snail today was a Girdled Snail (Hygromia cinctella). This species is a relative newcomer to the UK, being first seen in the south in the 1950s – well it’s now reached Malvern. It has a keel or girdle round the middle, defined by a white line. (the photo below was actually taken a few months ago, because for some reason I couldn’t get today’s one to focus!)

And finally we found one of the Glass Snails (Oxychilus sp.) These glossy little snails have a blue/black body and some supposedly smell of garlic.

In addition to the snails, there were at least 2 slug species around. I think the big one is part of the Large Black Slug group (Arion ater agg.) When I moved it, it rolled up into almost a ball and started rocking from side to side – apparently a characteristic of this group. Not sure yet what the smaller slimmer slug is – any suggestions welcome.

Having assembled a selection of molluscs for the photos, I decided to do something I haven’t done since I was a child – have a snail race! My sister and I used to collect and race snails all the time (mainly when we were killing time with our friends on a Sunday afternoon in the pub garden while our parents were all inside!) I did consider inviting my sister down for the race, but figured she has probably sensibly moved on from such things, while clearly I have not!

When we were kids we would of course just race any snails. But since I am now older and if not wiser, at least a bit more knowledgeable about snails, I decided to pit one species against another. Oh yes the fun never ends in our garden! The girdled and glass snails were a bit small and the garden snail was too big, so the obvious choices for this gladiatorial contest was the Brown Lipped versus the White Lipped.

So I set up a track, with a finish line and “raced” 2 Brown Lipped against 2 White Lipped.

The snails of course did exactly what they used to do when we were kids – veered all over the place – they have no concept of sticking to their lanes!

It took a bit of time but eventually 2 snails did approach the other end of the course, although one was not technically between the finishing lines, but I decided not to be picky. In a nail biting finish, the White Lipped Snail won by an eye stalk!

After so much excitement, I thought perhaps it was only fair to let the garden snails have a go. Unfortunately though, they really didn’t seem to get the hang of racing and made the other racers look positively professional!

Don’t think you can draw too many conclusions from this non-scientific competition – pretty sure another time a Brown Lipped may well have raced ahead instead. But for today at least the White Lipped Snails were the fastest molluscs in Malvern and I was back being a kid again!

And finally today’s weed in my 30 Days of Lazy Garden Weeds is Herb Bennet or Wood Avens. I must admit I have a love-hate relationship with this one. I love 5 petals interspersed with the 5 sepals into form a star shape. But I hate the seeds – they form masses of curved or hooked seeds that are designed to stick in the fur of animals that pass by. They do of course stick in clothing (towelling dressing gowns in particular!) just as well, where they seem to burrow in only to emerge later to stick into you like a splinter! I guess no pain no gain though, so I’ll put up with the seeds for the sake of the flowers.

30 Days Wild – Day 10

June 10, 2016February 26, 2025 / nrowberry / 1 Comment

Day 10 of 30 Days Wild and it’s our wedding anniversary! Seventeen (in)glorious years! 17 doesn’t seem to be one of those anniversaries where you buy something special – 2 for paper, 25 for silver etc., but my husband has just bought himself (sorry us!) a Pit BBQ, so I guess it’s become the BBQ anniversary.

I had planned to eat outside this evening anyway – I’d ordered American crayfish (the ones you’re supposed to eat to protect out native ones) from our fish supplier at work, but sod’s law being what it is, they couldn’t get any this week. So it’s a burger instead – not quite got the same cache, but what can you do. I’m sitting typing outside while the coals heat up and it’s starting to drizzle – sometimes life just doesn’t quite live up to expectations. But it is at least warm drizzle and it’s Friday night and I’m outside, so not really complaining.

When we got married in Scotland all those moons ago, the dolphins in Aberdeen harbour appeared and put on a display that felt like it was just for us. 17 years later and we haven’t got anything quite so spectacular to help us celebrate, but I’m honestly just as happy watching the wildlife in our garden. There’s something special about knowing that the bees and the birds are all there in part at least because of our lazy attitude to weeding and organic approach to gardening.

We decided to grill some of the asparagus from the garden, but first we had to remove its residents – the asparagus beetles. They are such striking beetles, it’s just a pity they have quite such a taste for our asparagus. Fortunately for them there was a lot of asparagus left that we’d let grow too big – so it was too tough for us to eat, but the beetles didn’t seem to mind.

Even though it was not exactly a sunny evening, the bees and hoverflies were out in force. I particularly liked this Early Bumblebee, such a brightly coloured little guy.

Managed to get a photo of a small Marmalade Hoverfly.

My husband had bought me a large bunch of flowers, which we took outside to decorate the table for the BBQ. They were big, bold, beautiful flowers, but for all the time they were out in the garden, none of the bees or hoverflies came anywhere near them. They clearly preferred our native weeds, as they flew right past the vase even though it was very close to the natural flowers. Again it sort of justifies our decision to have a “wild” garden, as we’d much rather have the subtler British flowers buzzing with insects, than the showier cultivated varieties.

And finally as always the latest weed in my 30 Lazy Weeds from our garden – Yellow Corydalis. This is apparently a garden escapee that originally grew in the Alps, but has now spread round Britain. I probably shouldn’t like it as it is a non-native plant, but it’s hard not to like. I’ve always been attracted to plants with more unusual shaped flowers or leaves and the little yellow trumpets fit into this category. It grows easily in shade and unloved areas of the garden, so brightens up our driveway no end.

30 Days Wild – Day 9

June 9, 2016June 11, 2016 / nrowberry / 1 Comment

Day 9 of 30 Days Wild and I managed to finish work early enough to get out and about. I decided to stop at a little nature reserve on the way home, but first I went strawberry picking. The season is just starting and the local fruit farm hadn’t even got their sign out advertising the strawberries. This meant the strawberry field (well poly-tunnel actually) was deserted apart from me. It was lovely and peaceful and the lack of people meant there were lots of bird and bees about instead.

I took my punnet of strawberries with me to Boynes Coppice and Meadows Nature Reserve which was just round the corner. (No I didn’t scoff all of them, but those I did were very nice eaten in the fresh air!) The reserve consists of a series of meadows managed by Worcester Wildlife Trust. They have a wide variety of flowers and grasses and consequently attract plenty of insect life.

There were lots of hoverflies about – a group of insects I know nothing about, but once again the Facebook community identified a couple for me. The Common and the Large Tiger Hoverfly.

Having chased Common Blue Butterflies round the last couple of sites I’ve been to, I was amazed to find a mating pair of them today. They even stayed put to let me take photos (I guess they had other things on their tiny minds!)

There were bees everywhere and lots of different species – below (I think) are Honey Bee, Buffish Mining Bee, Hawthorn Mining Bee and Ashy Mining Bee. The whole meadow was humming with the sound of bees, although they were drowned out sometimes by the hoverflies!

There were a few small moths about, a Burnet Companion which I’ve seen before and a Common Yellow Conch which I hadn’t.

The final two additions to today’s insect selection were a grasshopper (possibly a Meadow one) and some kind of huge sawfly. The sawfly really was a whopper, sitting on the gate, guarding the meadow!

I find Boynes Coppice an incredibly relaxing place to visit. It’s off the beaten track, away from traffic noise and quite often I’m the only one there (as I was today). You can sit on the path and watch the insects buzzing all around or just watch the clouds drifting by. I love these little nature reserves that feel like your own little secret retreat!

Latest weed for 30 Lazy Garden Weeds is the Columbine or Aquilegia. I love the fact that Columbine comes from the Latin for dove as the flower is supposed to look like 5 doves with their heads together. We have a huge variety of these in the garden – everything from pretty much white, to deep purple. Some are two toned, some all the same colour. Some have additional layers or ruffles, others like this one are slightly more restrained. All of them though have got here under their own steam and generally seeded themselves around the place. They are great for bees, some of whom go in the conventional way, but others cheat and drill a hole in the top to access the nectar directly. Lots of the flowers in our garden have tiny holes where the bees have cheated!

30 Days Wild – Day 8

June 8, 2016March 12, 2025 / nrowberry / Leave a comment

Day 8 and I’m still ploughing my way through the IDs from the weekend’s bioblitz – maybe shouldn’t have taken quite so many photos! But it’s all good and discovering some new species for the garden list. It being Wednesday though, I dragged myself from the computer and headed over to take my Dad out for our weekly pub lunch – no hardship there!

As it was a lovely hot day we decided to head to one of our favourite pubs The Riverside at Aymestrey in North Herefordshire – the pub is by the river Lugg and you can sit outside right next to it for your lunch. Today they had Herefordshire snails on the menu, so I went for those (with a big pile of chips of course!), while Dad went for some smoked salmon.

It is a fantastic spot and we go there quite often in the summer to watch the dragonflies, butterflies and once a kingfisher that darted down the river under the bridge and away. Sadly today all you get is a photo of the bridge!

The little river has fish and lots of insects, which in turn attract plenty of birds. Today we saw nuthatches and yellow wagtails, plus lots of sparrows chirping non-stop. Today’s real prize was the Beautiful Demoiselles. Having chased them around for ages on Sunday at Knapp & Papermill reserve, here they were landing within feet of me, while I tucked happily into my snails. Not only that but there were mating pairs (the Demoiselles, not my snails!)

Feeling full and happy after lunch, I took Dad home, then decided to stretch my legs to work off those snails! I headed to Bodenham Lakes, which are about a mile from where I grew up, but once again I’m ashamed to say this is somewhere I’d never visited. Funny how you often don’t visit the things that are on your own doorstep! That’s one of the great things I’m finding about 30 Days Wild, that it’s getting me to do some of these things – finally!

Bodenham Lakes are actually old gravel pits that have been flooded and are now managed by Herefordshire Wildlife Trust. They are apparently very good for bird spotting and even have otters – not that I saw any of those today. I did though hear my first cuckoo not only of the year, but probably the first one I’d heard for about 30 years! I then managed to find the bird hide which has splendid views, in this case of the Canada Geese.

The meadows by the lake were full of flowers including these beautiful Common Spotted Orchids and the whole place was buzzing with bees, most notably these Red Tailed Bumblebees.

But the stars for me today of Bodenham Lakes were the damselflies and demoiselles. They were everywhere! It felt like I could hardly take a step without disturbing them – I kept seeing flashes of blue all around me. As at Aymestrey there were even mating pairs. I thought all of these below were Common Blue Damselflies, but I’ve already found out from the very helpful people on iSpot that the bottom ones are Blue-tailed Damselflies instead!

Not only damselflies, but I also saw Banded Demoiselles (thereby completing the set of Demoiselles in one day – I think there are only 2 species – Beautiful and Banded). Didn’t manage to get a brilliant photo – I need a steadier hand for photography, but hopefully it is at least recognisable.

There weren’t that many butterflies around today, although I did see another Painted Lady, some speckled woods, what can only be described as a “brown one” and some Common Blues. The Common Blues were flighty as ever, but I did pursue one long enough to get this just about identifiable shot.

So all in all a particularly good day today. I shall definitely be heading back to Bodenham Lakes soon and also no doubt back to the pub too!

And finally as always the latest weed in my 30 Lazy Weeds from our garden – Lady’s Mantle. I like the subtlety of this gentle looking plant. I love the soft wavy pleated leaves, especially the way they catch droplets of water like this. They provide lots of ground cover and are quite happy in the shade as well as in sunnier spots, so suit pretty much any garden. Time to give room to less showy plants like Lady’s Mantle!

30 Days Wild – Day 7

June 7, 2016February 26, 2025 / nrowberry / 1 Comment

TWT 30 Days Wild_countdown_07 Day 7 of 30 Days Wild and after what for some reason felt like a long day at work, I thought I’d just chill out in the garden for a bit (much better than sitting in and looking at the housework!) The garden is looking particularly colourful at the moment and I thought it would be nice to celebrate the natural palette of colours you get when you just let whatever wants to, grow in your garden. While still pondering this, our first Painted Lady of the year flew into view, so I thought I’d include some animals in this too.

The childhood rhyme for remembering the colours of the rainbow has always stuck in my head – Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain, for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Not sure this selection of 7 colours really has any foundation in optical science, but it seemed a good enough basis for today’s blog. Of course what would have been really good would have been an actual rainbow appearing at this point – but all I got was drizzle! So:

RED – Well the Red Valerian is pretty much dominating the garden at the moment. The flowers do vary in tone, from deep pink to this slightly redder version I found this afternoon. For a red animal it had to be a ladybird – I spotted (no pun intended) this lovely little 2-spot ladybird last week – first one of the year and nice to get a British one rather than the all conquering Harlequin ones.

ORANGE – We’ve got these really striking orange poppies – I think they may be Californian Poppies. No idea where they came from, but they are a gorgeous deep orange colour. Today’s Painted Lady provides the animal orange – it was a slightly faded specimen – but then given how far it has probably travelled, I can forgive it a bit of wear and tear!

YELLOW. These bright yellow lilies have gradually been spreading round the garden. We make sure they’re nowhere near our cats as lilies are toxic to felines and they may be one plant that I do try and control for that reason. But they are beautiful and very definitely yellow. I would have liked to include a yellow Brimstone butterfly, but although we get them in the garden, they never pause long enough for a decent shot. So instead here’s a wasp – perhaps not as popular with some people as the butterflies, but they are to my mind quite stunning when you see them close up like this.

GREEN. Well obviously there’s no shortage of green plants in the garden, but I’ve gone for one with a green flower – Petty Spurge. It’s easy to overlook this little plant with its nodding green heads of flowers, but I quite like it. It pops up all over the place, often between the cracks in the paving, so must be fairly adaptable. For a green animal, it had to be my favourite – the Swollen Thighed Beetle. Not only a fantastic name (only the males have swollen thighs by the way), but a glorious shiny green colour and there were loads of them flying around today.

BLUE. The blue in the garden seems to be giving way to other colours now, but there are still small patches of my favourite Forget-me-nots cheering up what should be the veg patch. For an animal – well it had to be the Blue Tit (Holly Blue butterflies might have got a look in here if only they’d slow down a bit too).

INDIGO. Now this is the point in the nursery rhyme where I started to struggle a bit. For a start I’ve never been quite sure what colour indigo is. I’m kind of hoping no-one else does either, so I can use a bit of artistic license. I’ve also got the problem that it’s really hard to find an indigo animal! So for the flower, I’ve gone for the Aquilegia’s which we get in a vast array of colours in the garden. I’ve picked one that is as close to indigo as I can imagine – I stand to be corrected though. For the animal, well I’ve just had to cheat and assume that a) indigo is close enough to Purple and b) that a Purple Thorn moth would count even though it’s not really purple!

VIOLET. Well this would have been easier if the Viola’s were still in flower, but I couldn’t find any. So I’ve gone for a chive flower as we’ve got lots of those right now and they’re sort of violet coloured. The animal – well I’m really stretching the point now – you do get Violet Ground Beetles, but sadly none have ventured into our garden that I know of. Closest I could find a photo of is an Elephant Hawkmoth, which I’m trying to convince myself is a pale violet colour – I know it’s really pink, but am hoping that the beauty of the moth will outweigh my colour-blindness on this count.

So that’s my slightly contrived rainbow of colours from the garden. It was a very pleasant way of spending an hour or so pottering round the garden admiring the colours and thinking of possible (or impossible) animals to match!

So to finish with the latest weed in my 30 Days of weeds series – the Dandelion. Loathed by many, but loved by bees and other insects. I’ve never quite understood why they are so despised – bright and cheerful and an early nectar source in the garden. There’s been a bit of a campaign this year not to chop them down, which is great – they’re certainly thriving in our garden.

30 Days Wild – Day 6

June 6, 2016June 7, 2016 / nrowberry / 1 Comment

I am very lucky in that not only do I work on a farm, but it is an organic farm in an area of beautiful countryside – Upton-on-Severn to be precise. Despite having worked there nearly 5 years now, I’m ashamed to say I’d never actually gone for a walk to explore it. It took Day 6 of 30 Days Wild to get me up from my desk and out with my camera. With hindsight I maybe shouldn’t have picked the hottest day of the year to venture out – I did look a bit like a boiled lobster by the time I got back (much to the amusement of the other staff), but I had a lovely walk. I didn’t get as far as I intended, mainly due to the excessive heat, but I can explore other bits another day – I really should of course get down to the River Severn itself!

We have lovely views at work across the Severn towards the Malvern Hills, which were looking a bit hazy in the heat today.

As you might expect on an organic farm, the fields and hedgerows are full of wildflowers and insects.

A lot of the flowers I was familiar with like the Cow Parsley and this Red Campion.

But others were new to me like this Hedge Woundwort and Black Medick – the power of Google and the good people of i-Spot were needed to identify these.

It was great to see so many bees making the most of the sunshine too. There were lots of different species about, but I only managed to get photos of 3 (what can I say, the bees were very quick and I was very slow in the heat!) The honey bees were fairly easy to identify straight off (famous last words, someone will probably tell me this is something else!)

The cute little male Early Bumblebee I also managed to ID myself too. I love the second photo of him – I know the bee isn’t in focus, but somehow he’s got attitude as he flies off!

The final bee is a Grey Patched Mining Bee (Andrena nitida), which I needed the ever helpful Bee and Wasp Facebook group to identify for me.

Butterflies were abundant too, although like the bees too fast to get many photos. Pretty sure though I saw Speckled Woods, Brimstones, Painted Lady and some really small Common Blues. I was particularly chuffed with the Common Blues as they’re the first I’ve seen this year. Again apologies for poor photo, I couldn’t get close enough to get a better one.

Although birds were abundant everywhere, the most obvious ones were the large members of the Crow family. Not being very good at bird ID, I snapped some photos with the plan of identifying them when I got home. Turns out I got three for the price of one in this photo. On the right hand side, there appears to be from top to bottom, a Jackdaw, a Carrion Crow and a Rook!

While I was watching the crows/rooks/jackdaws, a Buzzard flew into the field, much to the annoyance of the other birds. I’m not sure which of the 3 species it was, but several of them chased the Buzzard until it flew off. They were really going for it, although they are clearly much smaller than the Buzzard.

Finally as I headed back to the office, the Swallows were flying round the farm buildings and swooping over the field. Fortunately a couple of them landed on the roof long enough to get a snap.

So Swallows in the farmyard and sunburn all over my face – can only mean summer is here! Really enjoyed my walk out and about on the farm and will definitely try and do it again soon. The farm has hares and foxes too, so maybe I’ll get up early and go for a walk before I start work next time, as more chance of seeing them that way – cooler too hopefully!

And finally the latest weed in my 30 Lazy Garden Weeds – The Teasel. Undoubtedly the largest weed we get in the garden (easily taller than my paltry 5 foot 1!) The teasel has to be one of the best things in the garden for wildlife – the bees love them in the summer and the birds love the seeds through the winter and I love them all year round. They do take up a lot of room though, so perhaps only for serious weed fiends like us at Too Lazy To Weed!

30 Days Wild – Day 5

June 5, 2016March 12, 2025 / nrowberry / 1 Comment

Day 5 of the 30 Days Wild Challenge and it’s a beautiful sunny Sunday in Malvern – a rare thing indeed! After the slightly frenetic activity of the Bioblitz yesterday (I’m still working my way through all the photos for IDs), today we’ve had a much more relaxed, laid back kind of day.

We started with a walk at The Knapp and Papermill Nature Reserve, which is run by Worcester Wildlife Trust and is very handy for us – just the other side of the Malvern Hills. It’s a gorgeous reserve that’s got pretty much everything you could want – meadows, woodland, orchards, a small river running through a valley.

You know it’s a good place when butterflies start landing next to you as soon as you get out the car – cue Speckled Wood. We’ve been there before and walked around pretty much the entire site, but today we just did a small section of it, alongside the river near the old orchards and meadow.

Our main memory from the previous visit was of the Beautiful Demoiselles. This was the first time we’d ever seen them and were blown away by how beautiful they indeed were. They seemed so exotic flapping all round us by the river, it felt like we’d been transported to some far away tropical location. So they were our main target species for today – and they didn’t disappoint. I know I tend to gush that everything is beautiful and amazing, but these Demoiselles really do live up to their name.

The adult males are a dark iridescent and glorious blue. They are quite flighty so it takes a while and more patience that we can normally muster to get really good shots, but we managed in the end to get these.

As is so often the case in nature, the females are less showy than the males, having a more bronzy brown coloured wing, with white spots near the end.

I honestly could have sat and watched these flying around for hours. But they weren’t the only large insects flying around – damselflies were abundant today too. We saw some bright blue (possibly Azure) ones which refused to land for photography purposes. More obliging were the Large Red Damselflies. So relaxed indeed were the Large Red Damselflies, that they continued unashamedly about their business even with me taking photos like this.

The reserve is generally teeming with insect life. We saw Red Headed Cardinal beetles, hoverflies and May flies to name a few.

Not surprisingly the reserve supports a wide array of birdlife too. The air was full of bird song as we walked around, although few showed their faces. One obvious arrival though was a Buzzard, which was being mobbed by a very brave crow.

On the way back we stopped at the visitor’s centre, which has lots of useful info.

We were supposed to round off our lazy day with an open air screening of the classic film Casablanca. Amazingly the sun was still shining as we settled down with our picnic on the grass. Not sure whether the organisers of 30 Days Wild had expected Humphrey Bogart to join in, but we were looking forward to seeing him on the big screen. It happens to be my Dad’s favourite film, so it ended up a family outing with Dad and my sister too. Unfortunately, and I never thought I’d say this, the weather was too good! The organisers announced they couldn’t start screening the film as the evening was too bright and the black & white film wouldn’t be visible on the screen! We waited and waited (consuming our own body weights in sandwiches and scones while we did) but eventually had to give up as my Dad was getting a bit cold and still no sign of the film starting. The evening wasn’t a total right-off – we all enjoyed our picnic in the park and the crowd waiting for the film were all quite jolly. But we’ll now never get to hear Sam play it again in the open air!

Day 5 of 30 Lazy Weeds from our garden and here’s one that is taking over – Red Valerian. Fortunately it is not only beautiful but very popular with both bees and butterflies. It’s formed a flower bed all of its own at the front of the house – which looks great – one neighbour even asked whether we’d planted all these lovely flowers! These bright pink flowers look as good as anything you’d go out and buy, but are much better for the wildlife and they’re free!

	nrowberry on Island Life – Part 2…
	shazza on Island Life – Part 2…
	shazza on Island Life – Part …
	nrowberry on Hawk Surprises
	shazza on Hawk Surprises

Too Lazy To Weed

The not so ordinary wildlife of an ordinary (but scruffy) garden

Month: June 2016