Back to Bounty of butterflies, flowers & songbirds
Bounty of butterflies, flowers & songbirds
23 April 2018
A week of warmer weather has brought out more butterflies, bees and blooms around the wetlands. Breeding Bird survey last Thursday recorded no reed warblers singing. After three days of sunny weather we recorded several reed warblers singing all over site. Lesser white throat was heard by Lapwing hide during the survey but no sighting. Bat boxes all showing use by pippistrelles. Two hours of recording bat calls over Wetlands Discovery recorded common, soprano and Nathusius' pips, Daubenton’s bats, noctule bats, serotine.
Butterflies:
Newly emerging Orange tip – nectar & egg laying plant is lady smock
Lots of female Brimestone – egg laying on buckthorn leafs just barely out
Smaller numbers of: Green veined whites, Comma, Tortoiseshell, Peacock .
Woodland Loop:
beech trees in leaf and in flower (hang down and are wind pollinated)
Goldfinch singing
Tits in nesting boxes
mallard ducklings
Reedbed boardwalk:
Willow warblers singing
Black cap singing
Chaffinch singing
Artificial latrines for survey are showing signs of Water vole activity, feeding platforms with scattered reed snippets ends cut a tell-tale 45 degree angle float on water
Mandarin ducks (tree nesting ducks) have been using the owl barrel in tree along boardwalk at corner of reserve as a nesting spot. They are also using an tawny owl nest box in the Carr woodland area.
buff tailed queen bee in reedbed
leaf beetles evident on new leaf growth of willow
lady smock along boardwalk path
gadwall duck
chiff chaff nest spotted in the reedbed
Long Path:
Long-tailed tit nest more hidden now that the bramble has greened up
Pike seen spawning in the long ditch last week
Gorse is flowering
Water vole signs on long ditch
Mallard duckling family
Mediterranean gulls overhead
Cetti’s warbler singing
Blackbird singing
Wetland Discovery channels:
Snake’s head fritillary flowers going over
male pochard ducks, no females visible here or onsite as must be on nests
Buzzard over hangar
Greylag gosling families
Tranquil Trail Path:
Cowslip flowering
Forget me nots flowering
Black cap singing
Lesser celandine flowering
Coltsfoot has gone to seed, making food for goldfinches
Brimstone butterfly egg laying on buckthorn, not many leaves
Ramsar hide:
Lapwing nesting opposite hide, and two others out on wet grassland
(No chicks yet but they are late so maybe this week or next)
Lapwing hide:
Red mason bees active in Bug Hotel, males (don’t sting) waiting outside reed chambers for females to emerge.
Ruby-tailed wasp species is cuckoo species for the bees, waiting to lay in their egg chambers