Blashford Lakes Wildlife Reserve

Last Post

2011-11-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

Bird News: Ivy Lake - short-eared owl 1, flushed from beside the path to the Ivy South hide, rather an odd place I thought, but no doubt about the identity.

This will be the last post I will make here, the blog has moved, the new address is:

http://blashfordlakes.wordpress.com/

It might work as a link, but if not a copy and paste should do it. Hopefully regular followers will move across to the new site. I intend to continue regular postings.

Red Crests and German Wasps

2011-11-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - red crested pochard 5 (4 drakes, 1 duck), green sandpiper 1, dunlin 7 (but I only saw 5), pochard c30, yellow-legged gull 3+ (at dusk), Egyptian goose 3, peregrine 1.

Ivy Lake - Cetti's warbler 1 (calling), water rail 1 (calling).

The night was cool and the moth trap contained rather little as a result, but this little did include a December moth.

There was also another well furred species, a sprawler.

As it was the first Sunday of the month, nine volunteers came in today. Unfortunately my plans for the morning were scuppered by reports of an escaped pony, so off we went to try and reunite it with the other seven. For some reason a whole section of fence had been knocked over, I would guess that the animals had been spooked or chased and blundered into the fence in the dark. After a certain amount of discussion we arrived at plan and better still it worked. The fence was then repaired and we returned to the Centre. We now had only half an hour to do something so we sorted the tools in the store so that we could make enough space to stack the maize sweepings we were donated yesterday, it makes ideal winter feed for finches.

We also sorted some rubbish and came across a group of queen wasps gathered for hibernation, they appeared to all be German wasps.

The three dots on the front of the face along with four on the rear of the thorax identify the species. Although this does not seem to have been a really bumper year for wasps at Blashford there do seem to be a very large number of queens about now, perhaps the warm autumn has enabled more than usual to be produced.

The bird highlight of the day was the group of 5 red crested pochard that spent the day near the northern shore of the lake. The very bright, clear light made the drake's ginger heads and red bills shop up well even at the long range.

Streaks in the Rain

2011-11-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

Only briefly at Blashford today, just about long enough to open up the hides and check the moth trap. Despite a wet night the moth trap was quite busy, there were a lot of "November" moths, a groups of species that cannot reliably be separated by sight. There were also 2 streak, only ocassional at Blashford.

Less frequent still was a cypress carpet, these are not rare but as their caterpillars mainly eat ornamental conifers they are usually found in gardens.

A Fit of the Vapours

2011-11-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - goldeneye 2.

Mockbeggar Lake - great white egret 1

Centre - fieldfare 1+, short-eared owl 1

The night had been mild, if very wet, luckily the moth trap at Blashford can be run under the eaves of the building and it had managed to stay dry and had a good haul of moths. These included a male vapourer, not that females would ever come to light as they do not fly. The males seek out the females as they emerge from the cocoon using the feathery antennae to detect the female pheromones.

Other moths included 2 rusty-dotted pearl, a vestal and the common marbled carpet below.

We are definitely edging into late autumn now, the recent rain has coaxed out some more fungi and as I took the picture below I heard my first Blashford fieldfare of the season.

Just to the right of this picture Michelle saw an owl perched in a clearing, she thought it was a tawny owl, and it might have been. However some hours later a short-eared owl was flushed from the same area, so I suspect that is what she saw. This is certainly the first record for the reserve, at least since 2006, unfortunately I missed it.

There was also a "new" goldeneye on Ibsley Water this morning, very obviously a young drake.

The volunteers were in again today and we cleared more of the view from the Ivy North hide and I made a start on a "Bittern channel", I will have to refine the line over the next week or so though. Then we will just have to wait and hope for some bitterns.

Velvet Sack Racers

2011-11-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

I have no bird news, or indeed much else to report today, the day was fine at first and grim at the last. The picture of the drake pochard here was taken in the fine bit.

I spent the day blowing leaves and clearing small trees from under the electricity lines, which largely accounts for the lack of bird sightings.

I realised after yesterday's post that I had forgotten to mention perhaps the best sight of the day. We were sorting out the diaries up to the end of the year and sitting beside the Centre pond as we did so, when a rustling was heard. The Michelle then spotted a mole which dashed out and back from the picket fence. Then as we watched two moles came racing, yes racing, along the fence edge over the stones. We assume one was chasing the other off, the lead mole nipped through the fence and slipped into the pond, swam a short way and disappeared under the boardwalk. Running over the stones they were surprisingly fast although they had the look of a small mammal in a sack race.

Something in the Water

2011-11-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - goldeneye 1, goosander 10.

Mockbeggar Lake - little egret 12, great white egret 1.

Ivy Lake - water rail 2.

The moth trap was quite busy this morning after a mild night, nothing new for the year, but a merveille du jour and a mottled umber were both good to see. The mottled umber is pictured below.

As well as the moths a single hoverfly was also in the trap, an Eristalis pertinax a species that will hibernate and fly again in the spring.

I had to go and look at the fence along the northern shore of Mockbeggar Lake in the morning as we are looking to replace the old fence, which has seen better days. Looking across the lake a group of egrets included the great white egret, I gave digi-binning a try and the result is below.

The sun was out for much of the time and I saw several insects including migrant hawker dragonfly, several red admirals and a late small copper. The copper was very worn, perhaps not surprising at this late date, but it did allow a picture.

Less surprising was a speckled wood, I usually see one or two in November and today was ideal for them. This too was a very worn individual.

Despite these reminders of summer there was no doubt that it is autumn, the light, the dampness in the air and even the smell of the day all spoke of autumn.

When I went to lock up the Tern hide, I had just sat down to have a quick last look, when all the birds from the eastern side of the lake suddenly dashed westwards, in flight or, in the case of the coots by pattering over the surface. At first I though there must have been someone on the bank near the Goosander hide, but looking that way I saw a buzzard perched in a tree, so not a person, but what? Then I noticed the gulls circling over the lake just out of sight to the east of the long shingle spit, there was obviously something in the water they did not like. My guess would be an otter, the reaction of the birds was typical and although it did not come into view I am pretty sure that if I had been int he Goosander hide that is what I would have seen.

Autumn Antics!

2011-10-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

Autumn has definitely arrived. Although the temperature is still eerily warm it is starting to feel more autumnal on the reserve and the trees are starting to turn. Not much to report except a very exciting sighting of a mammal, its head popped up out of the water and it then swam across the far side of Ivy Lake. This was viewed from Ivy South Hide by one of our volunteers visiting the reserve with his family. Suspect = otter!

I took our new camera out for a play today and took this shoot from Ivy South hide:

And this badger eye view of Woodland Hide!

I leave you with some yellow spiky fungus I found growing on a log. It looked a little bit like a bright yellow hedgehog!

Drizzle, Disputation and a Murmuration

2011-10-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - goldeneye 1 (redhead), rock pipit 1, water pipit 1 (reported), yellow-legged gull 6.

Ivy Lake - starling c5000 to roost.

I waited for much of the day for it to get light today, it was murky, grey and drizzling for much of it, when the drizzle stopped it rained, although we did get a little sunshine in the end. This made for a poor day to see much and even worse for getting pictures of very much. I did take the chance to visit all the hides today and in the process finally saw the goldeneye which has been reported for a few days now.

At the Goosander hide there was quite a bit of grebe activity. Close to the hide 2 little grebe were feeding and the clear water allowed me to see them swimming underwater.

There was also quiet a dramatic scrap between two great crested grebe, one chased the other so much that it eventually took refuge on the shore, a very unusual thing for it to do as they are very poor at getting about on dry land. I got a really poor picture, my excuse is distance, low light etc., etc. If you look closely you can see one on the shore to the right-hand side and one in the water, as a bonus there are also 2 green sandpiper in the shot as well, although I would forgive anyone who cannot make them out!

I was also quite pleased to see another species using the perching rails, this time a cormorant, sadly without any rings.

Despite the gloom I did see a migrant hawker dragonfly int he Centre car park, hunting in the drizzle, although it was wet it was also very mild. At lunchtime a rock pipit at the Tern hide was a bonus, I heard later that a water pipit had been reported early in the morning as well, although that would have been on the eastern shore somewhere.

Right at the end of the day when I was locking the Ivy South hide the starling flock was good value over the lake wheeling and twisting, I estimated about 5000. I hope there will be some good opportunities to get pictures of them, with the grey cloud tonight was not ideal but, but you can see that there are a lot of birds out there. They were chattering and squealing, just as a good murmuration of starlings should.

Lastly, we are intending to move this blog over to WordPress very soon, information will be posted here about how to find it in the next few days

Normal service will resume shortly...

2011-10-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

i.e. Bob returns from holiday tomorrow and the high quality images and thoughtful prose that you have all come to expect from this blog will resume!

It has been an exceptionally busy week for Michelle and I this half-term holiday, with groups, holiday activity days and public events every day, occasionally with a couple running consecutively, and we are both hoping for a quieter November to recuperate and catch up with everything else - including Bob!

As such I have little new in the way of wildlife to report as for the most part the only wildlife I have really encountered over the last week has been of the two-legged young human variety! Having said that, all went well and it was nice to venture a bit further afield than we are often able to manage with groups:

Even if that meant getting a "bit" wet on Thursday afternoon!

The great white egret has been reported most days - either on Mockbeggar Lake or Ibsley Water and there are some lovely flocks of siskin reeling around. The Ibsley Water fallow deer are regularly seen on the eastern shore of the lake in the evenings (and mornings on the days when it has been not so misty that you can't see beyond the shingle spit!), including a very handsome stag. In previous years the reserve has played host to the young males who are keen but not up to taking on the older stags on the Forest, but this year we seem to be hosting one of the main players himself.

It has (at last) definitely been autumnal weather this week and one of the obvious autumn signs this morning was the number of grey squirrels scampering about on the woodland floor where they are presumably caching their nut stores in preparation for winter. There is no shortage of acorns this year - the pigs were put out to pannage early on the Forest this year and I guess they will probably not be bought back in until a bit later then normal too (pannage being one of the ancient commoners rights that permits commoners to let their pigs out on the Forest in the autumn, normally for 60 days, in order that they "hoover up" the acorns that are poisonous to the ponies and cattle if consumed in any quantity).

The last of the cBBC "Deadly Scene Investigation" events ran today, with yet more families visiting the reserve, many for the first time, to solve the clues and find out "who done-it". Lovely weather they had to - there was even a southern hawker dragonfly hawking around the car park as I set a family off on their activity shortly after lunch.

Jay Fuller proudly showing off his certificate having successfully completed the DSI activity!

Sand Martin News

2011-10-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

I may just have blogged about autumn, but now for a reminder of summer, to be precise sand martins. All gone now, but they will be back in just over four months.

The reason for posting on sand martins now is news of one of the birds caught at Blashford earlier this year. We knew it was an interesting one as it carried a Spanish ring, but it proved even more surprising now that the details have come back. An edited version of the details are copied below.

Ringing date: 10-Dec-2010
Reg code: --- Place code: --- Site name: Sant Louis, Djoudj Park
Biological Station, Senegal
County code: NU00 Grid ref: Co-ords: 16deg 25min N 16deg
18min W
Hab1: -- Hab2:

Biometrics: Wing: 104 mm. Weight: 10.6 g. Time: 0000hrs

Finding date: 09-Jun-2011
Reg code: --- Place code: BLASH Site name: Blashford, Ringwood,
Hampshire
County code: GBHAM Grid ref: SU1508 Co-ords: 50deg 52min
N 1deg 47min W
Hab1: A3 Hab2: G5

Biometrics: Wing: 110 mm. Weight: 13.2 g. Time: 0400hrs

Duration: 181 days Distance: 4044 km Direction: 19deg
(NNE)
Finder: Mr K Sayer, 4821

It was nesting at Blashford, in our sand martin bank, having been ringed on the wintering grounds almost six months to the day earlier.

Autumn Leaves and a Few Snaps

2011-10-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - goldeneye 1 redhead (reported).

Not really any news as I was not actually at work today, but I did drop in with some bird food. I then took the chance to have a try out with my newly acquired digital camera, the old one having got a bit clunky recently. Even after just a few days off it was very clear that autumn had moved on as witnessed by the splendid colour of the field maple by the entrance.

The play with the camera seemed to go reasonably well, I don't think it is quite as instantly easy as my old one but the results look as though they will be OK for the blog and hopefully pictures for talks. But you can perhaps judge for yourself, a male chaffinch sat up nicely in the sun.

He was looking quite smart in fresh plumage and was having a good look around.

Possibly on the look out for females and there was one which also sat up well for a brief time.

I had a look from the Tern hide before I returned to my days off, I could not find the reported goldeneye, or much else of real note, unless you count 5 Egyptian geese. The visit did allow me to try the camera again, this time on a pair of gadwall which were close to the hide.

DSI: Calling all nature detectives!

2011-10-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the Blashford Blog silence! Bob is on holiday and myself and Jim have been busy solving a wildlife crime scene....with a little bit of help! So far over 40 families have visited the reserve to participate in CBBC's Deadly Scene Investigation which has involved following a trail of clues to find out who stole the eggs from a nest. The trail has been given a big thumbs up and was thoroughly enjoyed by all and introduced new families to the reserve who had not visited before. If you would like to take part we are running our final trail day this coming Saturday 10am-3pm. The trail should take approx. 1 hour. Please phone to book your place: 01425 472760.

On the wildlife side of things the Great White Egret has been regularly seen on Mockbeggar and Ibsley Water. Jim reported the beginnings of a big starling roost gathering over Ibsley water which then went in to roost over Mockbeggar. There is also a starling roost taking place on Ivy Lake.

We have also been hosting wildlife cameraman Graham Hatherley who has been setting a trail camera on the Docken's Water over the last month in the hope of capturing footage of tawny owls fishing for bullheads. Unfortunately so far he has not had much luck, however he has filmed some fantastic footage of a fallow stag drinking which we have uploaded onto Youtube, you can find it by copying and pasting this link (sorry I couldn't manage a hyperlink!):

http://youtu.be/xXdfBe5oAMM

He has very kindly given us all the other snippets of film he has captured which you should be able to find on Youtube with the title of "Wildlife at Blashford Lakes by Graham Hatherley" - these mostly include fallow and roe deer passing across the river and also a pigeon taking a bath! The pigeon was a particularly good result as it shows that the camera would be triggered by a similar sized tawny owl. Enjoy!

A Couple of Days

2011-10-21T03:21:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - great white egret 1 (the usual bird on both Wed and Thurs.), yellow-legged gull up to 6 (mostly adults or near adults), "white-winged" gull 1 (apparently adult reported on Thurs afternoon, but identity uncertain) , dunlin 1, goosander 5+, crossbill 1+ (reported Wed), brambling 1 (reported Wed).

Ivy Lake - water rail 2+, Cetti's warbler 1 (singing).

The last couple of nights have been much colder, resulting in our first grass frosts of the season and the moth catch reduced to zero. The misty mornings have made for some atmospheric views over the lakes though, the shot below is of Ivy Lake on Thursday as I opened up the Ivy South hide.

The same morning I kept running into roe deer. A doe with two youngsters was in the alder carr near the Woodland hide, along with a young buck. The doe and youngsters were running in circles and passed me twice without obviously seeing me. One, or possibly both of the youngsters were making a very odd squeaking sound, unlike anything I have ever heard from roe before. In the poor light I failed to get a picture of these deer, but at the Ivy North hide I came across the young buck again, this time with another doe and her two youngsters. Although the light was poor I managed a "digi-bin" shot of three of the group. Although the buck seems to have seen me they did not move off and I left them there. At the same time a very bushy-tailed fox trotted through the group, moving towards Rockford Lake.

Although the days started misty and cold, this quickly gave way to clear blue skies and a good bit of sunshine, especially on Wednesday.

These conditions favoured a movement of birds overhead, with crossbill, brambling, skylark, meadow pipit and siskin all on the move in small numbers. Siskin look like arriving in large numbers this winter, there are already flocks of fifty plus about the reserve as the alder cones open to reveal their seeds.A close up view of the alder branches shows that the sausage-shaped male catkins are already there and ready to open in the early spring as soon as the conditions are favourable. The cones in this shot are just starting to open.

Thursday was volunteer day and we set about some of the large laurel bushes planted years ago to screen the gravel works. Unfortunately most of the plantings along the western side of Ellingham Lake were of miscellaneous alien species, with just a few natives. Plants such as the laurel swamp and shade out native species and we hope to encourage the growth of some of the hawthorns and others that are hanging on in their shadow. Below is a picture of one such large bush just as we started.

Then what was left at the end of the task. We may have to come back when the branches have dried out and burn some up as there is a lot of material left. This shot also shows that laurel are far from the only alien species planted, a variety of conifer trees and other garden shrubs also got included and it will take many years to remove these and get them replaced with more desirable native species.

On both days the great white egret made quite lengthy appearances on Ibsley Water stood with the grey herons on the small island near the northern shore.

Clear(ed) View

2011-10-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Iblsey Water - great white egret 1.

The bird news was a bit thin as I was working with the volunteers all day. Actually only two were ion but this was an ideal number for the tasks we had to do. Firstly we repaired the gate which had been damaged by whomsoever it was that used the reserve to get into the old block plant on Sunday night. The sooner this site is cleared the better it attracts break-ins with monotonous regularity and attendant damage to the access with broken padlocks, gates etc.

We then got down to clearing the view form the screen overlooking Mockbeggar Lake form the path to the Lapwing hide. Below is the "view" before we started.

Actually it is not really right to call it a view as you cannot see anything, However after we worked on it for a bit it became possible to see the lake again.

There is still scope for more clearance but we will be working on this lake during the winter so things will change quiet a bit in any case.

In the afternoon we relocated one of the web cams, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, it turns up.

At the end of the day I briefly saw the great white egret on Ibsley Water, where there were also rather more lesser black-backed gulls than I would have expected at such an early time. I may have another look at the roost tomorrow evening.

The occasional sunshine did tempt out a southern hawker dragonfly by the Centre pond at lunchtime and there were a few red admiral around again. Otherwise insects were few and the moth trap unremarkable after a rather cool night.

Ducks and Deer and Spots

2011-10-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - redwing 13 over west with 4 blackbirds, yellow-legged gull 1 adult, green sandpiper 1.

Mockbeggar Lake - great white egret 1, little egret 7.

The main task today was to do the wildfowl count for the month. The day started misty, which delayed me a bit, then the sun came out and conditions were excellent, until it started to rain and the wind picked up. Ibsley Water held the greatest number of birds, including 1027 coot, 104 gadwall and 202 wigeon. As well as the greatest numbers Ibsley water also usually has the greatest diversity of species. In the picture there are five, coot, mute swan, wigeon, teal and mallard.

It was not all birds though, on my way to count Mockbeggar Lake I came across a small group of fallow deer, including a very pale fawn young buck and an almost white adult buck, unfortunately I only got a picture of a typically coloured doe, just as it spotted me and dashed off.

I am sure I have noted before that Blashford is of special importance for the large population of gadwall that winter here, approximately 2% of the Western European population last winter. I did not see all that many today but a few of them were showing well in the early sunshine like the pair below doing their daily toilet outside the Tern hide.

The drake above and the duck below both displayed their white speculum, in the duck especially, this readily separates them from the many other similar ducks.

A particular feature of the sycamore trees this autumn has been many blackish spots on the turning leaves. It is something called tar spot fungus and attacks sycamores and maples, specifically it is Rhytisma acerinum.

If the predictions of rapidly deteriorating weather are correct we may not see too many insects this year, so a few red admiral, migrant hawker and common darter dragonflies were good to see. Usually I expect to see all of them into mid-November, but such things are never guaranteed.

Christmas is coming.

2011-10-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - dunlin 1, goosander 3+, great white egret (reported a couple of times), yellow-legged gull 3+ adults, pintail 1, common gull 4.

Ivy Lake - Cetti's warbler 1 singing, water rail 2 calling.

Centre - redwing 1 over with 5 mistle thrush.

Autumn rushes on, I failed to find any swallows or martins today and it was only after lunch that I came across the only chiffchaff of the day. I did see the my first redwing of the season though, a harbinger of winter birds to come. Walking along the Dockens Water path I found the holly trees loaded with berries, I wonder how many will survive until Christmas once the thrushes get here in numbers.

The overnight temperature dipped to 6 degrees so I was pleasantly surprised to find at least a few moths in the trap, they included 2 red-line Quaker and the green-brindled crescent below.

Admittedly other moths were restricted to a couple of large wainscot and this yellow-lined Quaker.

The sunshine was pretty warm at times and brought out a few migrant hawker and common darter dragonflies. There were a few sun bathing hoverflies including this Eristalis tenax, or at least I'm pretty sure it is, although the front feet are in shadow so I cannot see what colour they are. This is one of the species that hibernates as an adult fly.

I have not worked on a Sunday for a while except when I have been working with the volunteers. So once I had got the classroom set up for the course that was running and polished off a bit of paperwork I decided to take the chance to look round the reserve and reached some of the part s I have not been to for several weeks. This included the Lapwing hide where I saw the 2 goosander below. A visitor there at the time was surprised when I said I have not been in the hide since late September, like many I suppose, he had assumed I visited all the hides every day. In truth a site warden does not get much time to look around the site, other than incidentally when doing some task or other. This can be quite a problem at times as it is the time taken to look at how the site works and what wildlife is doing that leads to the biggest improvements in management.

At the Goosander hide it was good to see a heron preening on the perching rails we put up last week. They look a bit odd, but do provide something to focus interest near er to the hide when the sand martins are away.

At Ellingham Pound I came across a fine reedmace stem, with the seed head exploded but still attached.

Further wandering brought me to the path between Rockford and Ivy lakes where I found the only 2 Egyptian geese I saw all day, after being around for mush of the latter part of the summer most of them seem to have absented themselves recently.

One or two other notes from the day included a mole beside the pond at the Education Centre, at times it was coming out on top of the gravel and even allowed some to get pictures of it. On Ibsley Water for the last week or so there has been a very pale adult cormorant, clearly it has a pigment abnormality. There has only been one breeding record of cormorant on the lake and the single juvenile was an abnormally pale one, this could very well be that bird returned.

Lastly I stayed a little longer to look at the gulls this evening, although I did not see the almost 10,000 counted the other morning, there were over 3000 by the time I had to leave. These included at least 3 yellow-legged gull, a few lesser black-backed gull of the Scandinavian intermedius type and one very dark, thin one with long wings. It was yet another that approximates to Baltic gull. They only seem to turn up at this time of year and are small, with rather steep foreheads, small, white heads and very long wings. Instead of being mid-grey their "backs" are almost black and the wings as well as being long, show no white tips to the feathers, this is because they have not yet moulted their primaries, which all the others have by now. Unfortunately, although these birds are quiet distinctive, the "experts" cannot agree on their identity, so they remain anonymous.

A Brambling and the Problem of Trees

2011-10-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - lapwing 111, yellow-legged gull 3, goosander 1.

Ivy Lake - water rail 2.

Centre - brambling 1, lesser redpoll 4+ over.

What with one thing and another I never really got any pictures today. The volunteer team were working on the morning, clearing small trees and brambles from the lichen heath. Although the heath is not part of the designated wildlife site it is the rarest habitat we have and home to many rare and very rare species. The slow encroachment of trees shades out the lichens and in the end would give us fairly ordinary secondary woodland, not really a "good deal". In addition the bare patches that result from digging out the tree roots provide valuable habitat for many insects that use the heath like solitary bees and wasps.

I also felled a few planted Scots pines to open up the canopy for some of the other trees. A particular problem we have at Blashford is the large amount of tree planting that went on as the gravel extraction finished. In places the species mix includes many aliens and everywhere the aftercare has been poor with tree guards being left on and no thinning resulting in severe overcrowding.

The whole issue of tree planting is a very tricky one for conservationists. An ancient woodland of native trees is a wonderful place, with a range of species found nowhere else. Secondary woodlands that have grown up following an earlier clearance can have quite a few specialist species, if it is old enough and close to ancient woodland. Planted woodlands, sadly tend to have few specialist species and are a very pale imitation of their ancient counterparts. High nutrient levels are had to overcome and the incredibly slow colonisation rate of most ancient woodland specialist species make it hard to see that many planted woods will ever reach the hoped for condition.

Curiously, following the last Ice Age Britain was quite quickly covered with woodland including many woodland plants that today seem unable to colonise at a rate of more than a metre or so a year.

Perhaps the lichen heath offers some sort of a model for what things might have been like after the ice retreated. There would have been almost no soil as we would recognise it, nutrients for growth would have been almost totally absent. Over time lichens and mosses would develop and collect nutrients. The first trees would have been species with wind blown seeds and low nutrient needs, like birch, coincidentally the main tree spreading onto the heath at Blashford. Obviously the climate is somewhat different now, but just possibly if we really wanted to try and develop something like an ancient woodland from scratch we should use sites like the lichen heath, next to woods with ancient character and just leave them to develop. The drawback is that we would loose the lichen heath in the process.

As I arrived in the morning a brambling was calling from the top of a birch tree near the Centre, my first of the autumn. It was a bit of a day for finches with several lesser redpoll flying over as well. At the end of the day I had a rare opportunity to look at the start of the arrival of the gulls to the roost on Ibsley Water. These included one especially thickset lesser black-backed gull with a very heavy pale bill. Although this is a very variable species this particular one was not quite like any I remember seeing before. With a record of slaty-backed gull in the UK last winter another potential species to look for has been added to the ever growing list for gull watchers to consider, so who knows maybe this winter Blashford will come up trumps. Lastly, "Pondcam" really performed today, at various times I saw a common toad, two water stick insects sparring and lastly one of them catch a water beetle.

Pale, Watery and Brooding

2011-10-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

Bird News : Ibsley Water - dunlin 1, little stint 1, kestrel 2, greylag c300.

Not many moths in the trap this morning, but there was one of my very favourite species a merveille du jour, a moth perfectly designed to be camouflaged on a lichen covered branch.

Amongst the moths there were lots of caddisflies and several mayflies, including one small one with yellow eyes and bold markings. I had not seen one like to before but it seems to be Beatis fuscatus, the pale watery. The picture I got was only of it on the egg boxes in the moth trap beside a large wainscot.

The Lower Test volunteer team were working at Blashford today, cutting on the shore of Ibsley Water. The low cloud made for a rather brooding scene.

The main task was to cut and clear the island in the north-west corner of the lake, this island is used by the nesting gulls, tufted and other ducks and oystercatcher, important because ground predators like fox cannot get out there. If the vegetation gets too tall or woody most of these specie swill not nest, hence the need to cut it. You can just make out the workers on the island in the picture.

Over the last few years we have been cutting the banks of nettles and creeping thistles that grow on the bunds of topsoil stripped away to expose the gravel to be excavated. We are winning and it is increasingly becoming grass and low herb dominated. This allows grazing by wildfowl and makes it suitable for nesting lapwing. One consequence is that sometimes when we cut in July we set back flowering, which then happens later in the year. Today we came across a group of flowering dark mullein plants, normally they would have flowered a couple of months ago.

Work for Later

2011-10-11T11:22:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - lapwing 100+, goosander 1 redhead, pintail 1 duck,

Ivy Lake - Cetti's warbler 1 calling.

A remarkably unremarkable day, very quiet for birds, as the list above shows and too cloudy for insects, apart from mosquitoes.

Despite what I have said above, it was a very busy and productive day. Four volunteers came in and we worked near the Goosander hide beside, on and in, Ibsley Water. We cleared the banks to improve views and the flight lines for the martins in front of the nesting bank. I also put out some perching rails on a shallow bank out in the lake.

Incidentally I came across a few plants of viper's bugloss, a plant I had not previously found at Blashford. It is a bit late in the season and the plants were a bit tatty, but I got a picture anyway.

Tomorrow we will be clearing the island at the north end of Ibsley Water. Although this does cause some disturbance, there are not that many wildfowl about yet and it does improve the conditions for the birds nesting next spring. Fortunately we don't have to do that many days management work around the lake so the disturbance is limited. Also as the water is so large the birds can always move to other parts of the lake.

Flying in and Flowing Through

2011-10-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - dunlin 3, little stint 1, swallow 50, house martin 5.

Centre Area - lesser redpoll 1+,

The moth trap contained a couple of migrant species this morning, a rusty dotted pearl, which is basically small and in shades of brown and the much more attractive vestal.

In fact it was quite warm today and this made it pretty good for insects, a few red admiral and speckled wood butterflies were about and several southern hawker dragonflies were near the Centre.

I was briefly beside the Dockens Water, the New Forest stream that passes through the reserve on its way to meet the River Avon. It winds through the trees with alternating shallow riffles and deep pools. On the way it passes an old World War II blast shelter, a refuge for maintenance crews in the event of an air raid.

The Dockens Water has not always looked as it does today, the section in the picture is actually a man made course cut in 2005. Initially it was all the same depth and width, but time has allowed it to establish a very natural look, with all the characteristics of a natural stream.

The previous course was straightened and in many places had the banks made up with concrete block walls. This was keep the water on the "straight and narrow" and get it through the site as quickly as possible and keep it well away from the gravel pits being dug at the time. The last thing you would want if you were working five or six metres down in a gravel quarry is a New Forest stream in spate rushing in on you.

Today was the quiet day of the week, the rest of the week there will be volunteers working on the reserve everyday and we also have schools visiting and a guided walk. I also have a couple of meetings to look forward to. Still the weather seems set fair so we should get a good bit done and even the meetings might be productive, with a bit of luck.

Empty Cups and Swallows Go West

2011-10-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - little stint 1, dunlin 1, black-necked grebe 1, swallow 20+ with most moving west, goosander 3 redheads .

Tied up doing tedious stuff for most of the day so hardly got out on the reserve. Near the Centre I was struck by the number of acorns littering the ground, this leaves lots of empty acorn cups on the trees, each like a tiny parabolic reflector.

The sun came out in the afternoon and this tempted a few dragonflies out. I was alerted to the southern hawker below by our regular bird photographers and got a passable shot of it.

The little stint on Ibsley Water today was a bit of a surprise and the first this autumn and probably the last too. Later in the day it was joined by a dunlin. First thing I arrived just in time to see 3 redhead goosander flying off to the north. The black-necked grebe was again on the northern part of the lake all day. Apart form a few meadow pipit flying over the only obvious migrants were a slow but possibly steady passage of swallows,more or less westwards into the wind. I got a count of 87 lapwing on Ibsley Water today, they seem to like the newly lowered and widened bank on the western shore.

Tangled Snakes and the Tiger Path

2011-10-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - black-necked grebe 1, swallow 20, house martin 10, peregrine 1.

Following a rather windy and at times, wet, night I was not too surprised at the small number of moths in the trap, there was one species that I see very rarely at Blashford, a barred sallow.

Thursday today, so it was volunteer day, I was not sure what to do but took a risk on the rain holding off and the wind not getting up too much and we got the tern rafts in for the winter. I had some trouble with the amount of weed in the lake tangling the prop on the boat, but they all got to shore in the end.

Eventually the sun came out in the afternoon and the whole reserve was looking very autumnal. The wind has brought down a good few leaves, a lot of which are now being carried down the Dockens Water.

Despite undoubtedly being autumn, I did find a remembrance of spring, a few flowers of foxglove.

I was looking at the state of some of the trees near the Centre, where there are a lot of alders which have a fungal disease, they develop tell tale black marks on the trunk before dying and sadly I found several that will need felling before they fall down.

I had a speculative look under one of the tin sheets and found a group of grass snakes, I got a quick picture of two of them, the others had shot off before I managed to deploy the camera.

By the time I went to lock up the sun was already low, but it did a great job of highlighting one of the silver birch beside the path to the Ivy South hide.

Later, near the Ivy North hide the same low light produced a tiger pattern on the path, produced by the crossing shadows of the trunks of trees.

Eating Their Way Through the Reserve

2011-10-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - black-necked grebe 1, yellow-legged gull 2, swallow 5, house martin 1.

Despite the settled weather starting to break there was no real sign of any new migrants around, the few hirundines flying over being the nearest thing to movement. About 65 lapwing have taken to using the newly created islands near the western shore of Ibsley Water and in turn they attracted the attentions of a peregrine. A further raptor sighting came when an adult female sparrowhawk flew passed the Goosander hide, it then flushed and chased a young male that I had missed sitting on a fence post just north of the hide.

Beside the path to the Lapwing hide I found a group of shaggy ink cap, living up to their name being both shaggy and inky.

I went to check on the ponies, I think they have more or less done the grazing I had hoped for so I reckon they can go home soon, or more likely back onto the New Forest.

We do not have many ponies to graze the reserve, although they are far from the only grazers, there are lots of rabbits. Rabbits have so modified the countryside that it is hard to imagine what it must have been like before they were introduced and went wild. There would also have been almost no deer in the open countryside then either.

I have seen it claimed that the grazers that consume most vegetation are invertebrates. Many of these are also not natives, recently we have found the alien snail Hygromia cinctella on the reserve, this species apparently came in via the plant trade, first establishing in Devon.

A New Moth and a Big Beetle

2011-10-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

No bird news today as I saw no birds of note and did not hear of any being seen either! The continued settled weather has meant that there has been very little movement of late, but a change promised for tonight might bring in some new migrants.

The moth trap did produce a new record for the reserve though. A southern chestnut, a species only found in Britain in 1990 and in Hampshire in 1996. There has been much speculation as to the reason for this recent discovery, was it just overlooked or has it recently colonised? In either event they are being recorded more frequently, I have even found one in my garden. This one is very fresh and brightly coloured.

Other moths included a mullein wave, a turnip, pinion-streaked snout, beaded chestnut and a few other regulars. A number of sallows included a very pale, unmarked one.

Perhaps most unexpected was a great diving beetle, a male as it has smooth wing-cases. I had to transfer it to the pond with care though as they have a considerable set of jaws and can deliver a sharp bite.

It was pretty busy today, there was ongoing carp removal from Mockbeggar Lake, I had two of the Tramper buggies booked out and there was a volunteer task all day. In addition when we got back to the Centre at lunchtime the power was off, it was not just a trip switch so I had to get the electrician in. Luckily he fixed the problem for now, so we eventually got back to work, doing more clearing beside the Ivy North hide. The view has really opened out now, below are two more or less similar views, the first from 2009.

Then after the end of today's work, we have opened the view out so far that I had to swing the view round to get the edge of the trees in. Not only has this opened up the view it has also increased the area of reeds and these should extend further, providing habitat for a number of specialist species.

A Manx Tale

2011-10-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - great white egret 1 (the usual bird).

For various reasons I neither saw nor heard of anything much else in the way of birds all day. The moth trap included a few notables. A migrant dark swordgrass was especially fine, which probably indicates that it was actually locally hatched rather than a real migrant from overseas.

Autumn is the season for "large" wainscots, these include several heavy-bodied species, including the large wainscot itself. Today there was also a bulrush wainscot, a rather darker species than the large.

The other day there was another one of these wainscots, the rather scarcer Webb's wainscot, as I did not post the picture at the time I do so now.

I managed to get the rest of the front face of the Ivy North hide treated with preservative this morning, possibly just in time as the weather is on the change tonight. In the afternoon I closed the seasonal path, it is open 1st April to 30th September, but I thought it best to leave it open over the weekend. It has been quite popular with locals and visitors alike, there some misuse, but not too much.

At lunchtime a small spider walked down off Michelle's arm and onto the table, it was one of the crab spiders, although I have not establish which one. On the subject of spiders, we could not see either of the raft spiders on the pond today, I hope they are still around as they should reach full size next spring.

Tomorrow I will be out with the volunteers again, doing a but more work near the Ivy North hide, so sorry in advance if you are planning to visit, but the view should be much better after we finish.

Lastly a cormorant's tale. For a couple of weeks or so there has been a cormorant carrying a white ring with an engraved code out on Ibsley Water, always too far away to be readable. Then I got sent the picture below from Martin Bennett and it shows the bird with the ring readable as Z7P. I tracked down the likely origin and sent an email this morning. The result is that it was ringed as a chick on 9th June this year at Stack Mooar, Maughold, Isle of Man. Although this is the first from the Isle of Man at Blashford we have had previous birds from the Bristol channel, confirming that at least some of our birds do come from carbo race colonies from western Britain. So far we have not had any from the tree nesting colonies in the east, which include many of the continental sinesis race.

A Hot Day with Bite

2011-10-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - great white egret 1, green sandpiper 1, pintail 1, black-necked grebe 1, Egyptian goose 13.

Another ridiculously hot day for October, clear blue sky and a light E/SE wind. The night was warm and I had high hopes for the moth trap, would there be any good migrants? Well no, but a moderate range of locals. I know I have posted red-green carpet before recently, but the one below is a very different looking individual, with a much more contrasting pattern.

There was one new species for the year in the form of 2 deep brown dart, one already quiet worn. This is the better of the two.

As it was the first Saturday of the month the volunteers were working on the reserve this morning, six of us spent the morning sprucing up the area around the Centre. In fact it was pretty busy for a time this morning, as well as our work, Michelle was running a family activity with fire-lighting and shelter building and then the digger that has been pulling out tree stumps for us was taken away through the car park. Luckily things then quietened down, apart for a persistent whine, mosquitoes are everywhere just now and I got bitten numerous times.

Later in the afternoon on the way to lock the hides I came across a pair of speckled wood on the path in the low sunlight. The male wing-fluttering beside the female, which seemed not obviously impressed, although she was not flying away, so I guess she might have been more interested than she looked.

I did not see much else, but Michelle reported that her group found a couple of grass snakes, two smooth newts, a toad and, most surprisingly a raft spider in a puddle caught in an old pond-liner we use to cover a small clay pit.

Wandering spiders

2011-10-01T07:25:00.000-07:00

A busy day today! Got in early-ish to get Tern Hide open for a Bird Call identification course that started even earlier and utilised other parts of the reserve before I opened up, got the classroom ready for a Compact Camera Nature Photography course, opened up the rest of the hides and then got myself ready for 3rd Ringwood Scout group who were in for the day and working towards their Naturalist badge - just had time for a quick slurp of coffee as they arrived, so downed that and we got stuck into some pond dipping. Didn't pull out anything out of the ordinary, but was a little surprised to catch a male smooth newt, still exhibiting some fine spots, though his crest had gone, he's relatively late in the pond as most have returned to the woodlands until spring. Also surprising was a very small eft (newt "tadpole"), obviously a result of some late breeders (maybe even the adult newt we caught) as, like the adult newts, most of this years efts have lost their gills and left the pond for the woodland by now.

I had set the telescope up at the start of the day with the view of being able to show them at least one of the raft spiders, and this worked well and certainly attracted lots of interest - so much so it was a bit of a job to get the telescope down and away at the end of the session for everyone wanting "just one more look". It was just as well they did as one of the eagle-eyed scouts then noticed that there were in fact tow spiders, side by side on two neighbouring lilly pads, albeit one partially hidden under a third lifted leaf that obscured all but a couple of legs. So maybe its love and we can look forward to a nursery pond of raft spiderlings in the future? Unless of course the larger spider eats the smaller... time will tell.

Down at the river they caught good numbers of bullheads, a couple of minnows and even a 5 inch long brown trout - not a fish we catch many of being so fast in the water, and when we do (which is seldom) at least half that size, so they did well there! Alongside the stonefly nymphs and caseless caddis-fly larvae they also had several goldenringed dragonfly and beautiful demoiselle nymphs. And we all got bitten by mosquito's - they are particularly bad all through the shadier woodland areas of the nature reserve at the moment and visitors are well advised to wear long sleeves/trousers and plenty of repellent at the moment!

Nothing stood out in the light trap, but they were all duly impressed by the attractive species - black rustics, lunar underwings, frosted oranges, brimstones, the sallows and a number of different caddis-flies.

Some of us glimpsed a kingfisher from Ivy North Hide, everyone enjoyed watching a grey heron and some got in near hysterics at the sight of black-headed gulls washing (not sure why!). There was just time for a quick sweep netting of the meadow - not something I normally expect to do in October, but it resulted in small copper butterfly, several grasshopper and cricket species, a couple of caterpillars and variety of spiders, before it was time for them to head home.

Elsewhere on the reserve there were reports of two black necked grebe, the great white egret and a black tern on Ibsley Water.

Great White, Black-necked, Mottled and Very Warm

2011-09-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - great white egret 1 (the usual bird), black-necked grebe 1, garganey 1, pintail 1.

Ivy Lake - Cetti's warbler 1 (singing), water rail 2 adults.

A fabulous day for late September, it started clear, calm and misty. I am fortunate to have to travel through the New Forest to get to work and it was a very fine morning to do so. The scene was of sunrise over mist shrouded heath with the occasional rush of austerity Britain as I was passed by a range of open-topped prestige motor cars, also enjoying the last blast of summer. Arriving at Blashford I could not see across Ibsley Water for mist, but did get a picture of a flock of greylag geese as they passed over into the valley after roosting on Mockbeggar Lake.

Opening the hides, there were few birds to see but the walk was very pleasant with the dew hanging on the cobwebs and shafts of sunlight through the trees.

The moth trap was again quite busy after another fairly night, the only new moth for the year was a beaded chestnut.

Other moths included a red underwing, black rustic, large yellow underwing, sallow, brimstone, pinion-streaked snout, large wainscot and broad-bordered yellow underwing. There was also a good turn out of caddis flies once again and I managed to get a picture of the largest.

It was Thursday, so the volunteers were in again, eleven of us cleared a few strategic willows to open up the views from the Ivy North hide. We did a surprising amount considering the exhausting hot and humid day.

I then spent lunchtime in the Tern hide. I had a quick look there before the volunteers arrived when I got a few pictures of a coot perched on the floating perch, complete with a fine reflection. It also shows that a coot's feathers are not all black, or more strictly dark grey, the white trailing edge to the secondaries shows well in the picture.

From the same hide at lunchtime I was pleased to see the great white egret, even if distantly, this was as part of the directions to an "odd" duck seen by a visitor, the duck was a garganey, my first this year. Lunch was rounded off with the black-necked grebe, all in all not a bad lunch. Les unusual was a lapwing on the shore near the hide, it looked rather tatty bird as it was still moulting.In the afternoon I went to check what still needs to be done after this morning's task, I think one more day will be enough for this season. I went via the lichen heath where the sunshine had made the last of the common centaury flowers open, they only unfold in sunshine, so today was just what they needed.

There were also several grasshoppers including at least two mottled grasshopper, I had completely failed to find this species earlier in the summer so it was good to see them.

I am an inveterate roller of logs, just to take a look and doing just that I was surprised to find several small flies, I got a quick picture of one and it was rather fine, I have no idea what it is though.

From the Ivy North hide I had a good view of two adult water rail just to the east of the hide. Lastly I got a picture of a red admiral as I went to lock up the Ivy South hide. In fact I probably saw more butterflies today than I have for some weeks. Red admirals were flying south over Ibsley Water all day, a small copper was on the heath, a comma at the Centre and I also saw a single female brimstone.

Wildfowl, Wasps and a few Butterflies

2011-09-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water -green sandpiper 2, black-necked grebe 1, pintail 1 drake, hobby 1.

Rockford Lake - common tern 1 juvenile.

Ibsley North Lake - greenshank 1.

Dockens Water Woodland - crossbill 2+

We did the first waterbird count of the "winter" today, no great surprises, although on Iblsey Water 866 coot were notable as were 58 little grebe, although they are so hard to count that this will have been a fair bit fewer than were actually present.

The weather was fabulous, if a bit too hot and humid. The sun shone from the start, a real reminder of summer, or at least what we might have hoped for in summer but actually got in spring. That it was actually autumn was plain from the fungi sprouting all over the place, I found the ones below on the trunk of a cherry plum, they are vaguely like a hoof fungus, but I don't think that is what they are.

As I went between the lakes I also came across the bird of the day, which was crossbill, or probably crossbills, calling in the top of a tree along the Dockens Water path. I was on the edge of the lichen heath at the time investigating some nesting holes of a Colletes bee, the picture I got was of a wasp though, it seemed to be digging a nest hole. Only when I looked at the picture did I notice the fly beside it, I suspect it is the wasp's prey and there to provision the nesting hole, but that is just a guess.

There were also fungi out on the heath including the one below that looks like it belongs on a flower-pot man's head (ask your granny).

The sun brought out a few butterflies, there have been very few about recently, but today I saw red admiral, speckled wood, a very late meadow brown and the small copper below.

The butterflies that are out and about do not have much choice of flowers to nectar from, I found a few heath speedwell flowering.

One or two mid summer species are flowering again, a little anyway, one of these is the ox-eye daisy, I even saw a foxglove with a few flowers the other day.

I have not totalled all the counts yet but here are a few of the totals for all the counted lakes:

Coot 1555, little grebe 77, wigeon 54, tufted duck 186.

The View Opens Out

2011-09-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - wigeon 41, dunlin 1.

Ivy Lake - wigeon 21, Cetti's warbler 1, water rail 1+, kingfisher 2+.

Rockford Lake - black tern 1 juv. (reported).

The moth trap was busy even if the species were unremarkable, still I remain hopeful of good things in the next few days. There were several caddis-flies though, these are tricky to get pictures of as they are so flighty, but I did manage one shot, not sure of the species though.

Most of the day was spent working with four volunteers opening up sight-lines from Ivy North hide and putting some wood preservative on the hide. A bit more work to come on Thursday then we should be done in that area until next year. I will put up some before and after shots when we finish on Thursday, if it were not for the volunteers keeping any decent view from some of the hides would be difficult, plants will insist on growing!

I am pleased to say that both of the raft spiders are still present on the Centre pond, despite the nearest and largest, having been a bit alarmed by pond-dipping children on Sunday. It is not quite so close now but at least it is still there.

Violet and the Beauty

2011-09-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - common tern 1 juvenile (morning only), ringed plover 1 juvenile, ruff 1 juvenile (still), swallow c180, house martin c40, black tern 1 juvenile (later in the day), great white egret 1 (the usual bird seen near the Lapwing hide pm.), wheatear 1.

Centre - lesser redpoll 1+ over calling, siskin 50+.

The moth trap was quite busy, but when I lifted the trap to go through it I noticed a fine violet ground beetle that had been hiding underneath.

Twenty-three species of moths was a good haul and it included the first spruce carpet of the year, a migrant rusty-dotted pearl and this bordered beauty.

Another, that I think is the first this year was L-album wainscot pictured below. This used to be a rare migrant, but it became established in Devon about eighty years ago and has spread along the south coast. The next few days look very promising for migrant moths, with warm conditions arriving from the continent, I have high hopes.

The trap still attracts a range of other insects as well, there are usually several caddis-flies, beetles and a few bugs. Forest bug is the most frequent, closely followed by birch bug, but today there was another Pantilius tunicatus which I do not remember seeing before.

As the season has moved on the sand martins, so much in evidence a week ago are pretty much all gone now. There are still house martins, but now swallows are the most numerous, not long ago I found it hard to pick any out in the swarms of martins. A feature of this autumn has been the number of siskins, for at least two weeks they have been flying over on most days and there are about fifty in the alders now. It seems they are having a bumper year with record numbers recorded on passage at more northern sites already, despite their migration usually peaking several weeks later than this in a typical year. Perhaps it is going to be a mega-finch winter.

Black Tern Bonanza!

2011-09-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

Stuck on car parking duty trying to safely park 400 triathletes "racking" their bikes for the Ellingham Lake starting triathlon event tomorrow morning is not my idea of the best way to spend an afternoon, but considering the number of people coming and going it all went relatively smoothly.

Visitor highlights included the two raft spiders still showing well on the Centre pond, kingfisher and water rail at Ivy North Hide and over Ibsley Water a veritable swarm of black terns! At lunch time there were about 30, but by the end of the day this had gone up to reports of 50 (I had at least 45 birds twice myself). Quite the spectacle - ever so often a lone butterfly could be seen flying west across the water and I didn't see one make it to the other shore, all of them being swept up by a swooping black tern!

Sandpiper Caught on the Hop

2011-09-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ruff 1 juvenile (still present), ringed plover 1 juvenile, common sandpiper 1 juvenile, house martin c800, sand martin c300, swallow c100.

It was foggy when I arrived and so at first I saw almost nothing but a few nearby coot. So I headed off to open the hides and came back to the Tern hide at about 08:30 when the sun was out. It was pretty quiet, or at least I could not find much of interest, a juvenile common sandpiper on the shore near the hide at least meant I had a bird to feature here though, bird pics have been a bit few and far between recently.

The moth trap contained a few new species for the year as more autumn species show up. The new species were "autumnal" moth or at least one of the Epirritia group of species, although it must be recently emerged it was already quite worn. Much fresher was a fine moth that I'm afraid I do not really appreciate fully as a red-green colour-blind person, a red-green carpet.

The last new one was a brown-spot pinion, although this one is trying very hard to look like a beaded chestnut, but I think just failing.

I was not on the reserve for long today, in fact I was away shortly after lunch and the morning was mostly taken up with more tree clearance and catching up with emails, hence the rather thin wildlife recording.

Record Turn-out

2011-09-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ruff 1 juv., knot 1, ringed plover 2 juv., black-tailed godwit 1, black-necked grebe 1, wigeon 13, Egyptian goose 7, house martin c500 (early am.), sand martin c1200 (reported pm)

Ivy Lake - green sandpiper 1, wigeon 11.

It was a very fine day, as is appropriate it being volunteer Thursday. Twenty-two volunteers, I think a record turn-out, continued the clearance of willows from the shore of Ivy Lake. I reckon this area has the potential to become a really good piece of habitat given a few years to develop. Another week and we should be finished and ready to start on the willows beside the Ivy North hide.

The fine weather brought out a good few migrant hawker dragonflies, including one that got into the Centre. The willows seem very popular with ladybirds, several were the ailen harlequins, but most were kidney-spot ladybirds. These are very round and black with two red, kidney-shaped spots and seem to prefer to sit on the tree trunks rather than the leaves.

Mud and Moths

2011-09-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ruff 1 juv., dunlin 1, ringed plover 1 juv., oystercatcher 1, black-necked grebe 1.

Ivy Lake - water rail 2, green sandpiper 1, Cetti's warbler 1.

The moth trap was quite busy following a mild night, highlights were a fine red underwing, below.

The autumn moths are really picking up now, with lots of lunar underwing, sallows and my first black rustic of the autumn.

Although there was not much change in the birds from yesterday, the oystercatcher was the first I have seen on the reserve for some time. The number of martins had dropped somewhat, but there were still over a thousand, mainly house martins.

We continued work on the willow clearance on Ivy Lake, things are getting muddy now that the stumps are coming out, but progress continues apace.

A Tern, a Grebe and a Slug

2011-09-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - black tern the adult still at least in the morning, ruff 1 juv, knot 1, dunlin 2, ringed plover 1 juv, common sandpiper 1, black-necked grebe 1, sand martin c1200, house martin c500, swallow c200, wigeon 9.

Ivy Lake - green sandpiper 2, water rail 1, wigeon 10.

Not much change in the birds of late, although this does mean there is a good range of species. The high numbers of martins have really been a feature of this autumn and they continue to swarm over Ibsley Water, strictly the sand martins and swallows are over the lake and the house martins over the trees beside the lake. When I opened the Ivy North hide I was greeted by one of those scenes you sometimes see of "Birds you can see from here" an assemblage that you never actually seem to see, but today I did. Just below the hide 2 green sandpiper were feeding with a kingfisher perched on a reed mace stem just above them, when a water rail ran out and stopped briefly beside the sandpipers.

Less appealing, at least to most, was the very fine slug I found crossing the path to the Ivy South hide, it was the common slug Arion ater.

We were working beside Ivy Lake again today, clearing yet more of the willows that have invaded the shallows, this will be the last session as tomorrow I am getting the stumps dug out, just in time as the lake level is rising as the water pumped out slowly returns from Blashford Lake. The pictures show before we started this morning.

Followed by the view at the end of the day, it is wonderful what five volunteers and me and my chainsaw can do in a day. In fact we cleared so far that I could not get it all in shot, but you get the idea. Hopefully the reeds will spread back into the cleared area over the next few years to give us a valuable new area of habitat.

Spider-scoping

2011-09-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ruff 1 juvenile, dunlin 3, knot 1, ringed plover 1 juvenile, black tern 1 adult.

I was busy with meetings for the whole morning, but at lunchtime there was reason to get the telescope out. In fact Michelle even took a look, now you might wonder what we were looking at, it is clear Michelle is hardly looking far across Ibsley Water.

In fact the target was not a bird but and this is a first for me, a spider. There are few occasions when using a telescope to look at a spider would seem even slightly sensible, but this assuredly was one of them. I even got a passable digi-scoped picture of it. As it is a raft spider it does have the advantage of being large, but it must be one of very few British spiders that you would even use a telescope to observe.

One interesting thing that the picture shows is the strands of silk, forming an untidy web. Many of the sources I have looked up imply that these spiders only spin a web when they lay eggs and hunt without one. This web looks like a hunting aid though, so perhaps they use silk more often than is thought.

A Trip to the Seaside

2011-09-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

I was not at Blashford today, instead I had a morning at the seaside helping out with the big beach clean, part of the Marine Conservation Society's "Beachwatch Big Weekend". We had a team of volunteers cleaning rubbish from a section at the base of Hurst Spit, roughly 200m long and either side of the shingle ridge. The object was to do more than just collect rubbish, we also recorded every piece, including the small bits, which are actually often the most dangerous to wildlife as they get mistaken for food.

It was fairly windy and rain threatened, but the task became strangely compelling. On the seaward side of the ridge the rubbish was mostly bits of nylon rope and cord, fishing line and various bit of broken plastic.

On the landward side there was a lot more miscellaneous wrappers from chocolate bars and the like, no doubt blown there by the wind and trapped in the vegetation. The overwhelming dominance of plastics of one sort or another would be a feature wherever in the world we had done this event, such is the pervasiveness and persistence of these materials. The clearing crew are pictured below at the end of the event.

It was not all rubbish though, a whinchat on the fence as I parked the car and a wheatear on the shingle ridge were both good to see. A brief look out to sea yielded a flock of about 40 gannet, a dark phase arctic skua and further out another unidentified small skua. I also found a small insect under a clump of beach vegetation, at first sight it looked like an ant, but then I could see it was a tiny wingless wasp. It appears to be a species of the Tiphiidae, small parasites which have only the males winged. Although there seem to be very few British species I cannot find enough information to identify the species.

Acorns - beware

2011-09-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

It was a surprisingly warm and pleasant day in the end today - surprising because I drove to work through an absolutely torrential downpour. It only lasted about 20 minutes, but what a 20 minutes it was!

The heading refers to the heavy acorn crop (and indeed beech mast crop too) that there seems to be across the Forest this year and the fact that as they ripen they are starting to drop out of their "cups". One gave me a right clonk on the head by Ivy South Hide this morning - head wear is definitely to be considered before setting out at the moment!

Sadly the flamingo was not around today, but it raised a few smiles while it was here. There were however reports of the ruff still on Ibsley Water, as well as a black necked grebe and many warblers in the reeds/willows between Lapwing and Goosander Hides. Three black terns were also over Ibsley Water for most of the day.

Kingfishers continue to be seen regularly around the reserve, but particularly from Ivy North and South Hides. One bird was posing "picture perfectly" in front of Ivy North when I opened up; periodically plunging for small fish and invertebrates before returning to the same reedmace perch. With birds like kingfishers around who needs flamingos!

Flamingo!

2011-09-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ringed plover 2 juvs., ruff 1 juv. and a greater flamingo which flew in at about 07:50 from the north-east, it has a blue ring on the right leg.

Ivy Lake - Cetti's warbler 1 singing.

General - a passage of swallows, house martins, sand martins, siskin and meadow pipit flying south or south west in small numbers through much of the morning.

The moth trap was quite busy although contained no surprises, 2 pink-barred sallow looked very fine though.

The volunteers were in again today and the willow clearance is going very well. Below are the before and after shots of the last couple of days work.

Unfortunately the shaddow conceals some of the effect.

The Bird and Bees (and Moths)

2011-09-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - ruff 1 juvenile, dunlin 2, ringed plover 2 juveniles, yellow wagtail 1 or more calling near the Tern hide, wheatear 2 (1 an adult male)

Ivy Lake - green sandpiper 2, Cetti's warbler 1 singing.

The moth trap had rather few moths this morning, but then it was the first really autumnal morning, dawning misty after a calm and very cool night. The few moths that there were included several very fresh and fine specimens including a sallow.

There were several frosted orange, all very fresh.

Other moths included a single migrant rusty-dotted pearl, large and lesser yellow underwing, flounced rustic, square-spot rustic and 2 brindled green, my first of the year.

It was volunteer Thursday and we were cutting willows again on the shore of Ivy Lake, as we will be again tomorrow. Later in the day I was on the south shore of the lake and took a look at the vegetated rafts we set afloat in the spring, some of the me have done pretty well.

I had lunch in the Tern hide where I eventually saw the waders listed above. I also heard a yellow wagtail, the first of the autumn, but typically I could not see it. A very noticeable thing today was the almost complete absence of martins, perhaps fifty each and a few swallows, a big change from the thousands of recent days.

At the end of the day I had a car left in the car park as I locked up, I waited around and was just about to lock up when the owner returned. I did take a look at the sandy bank on the lichen heath as I waited and found loads of small bees going in and out of holes and mating in the evening sun. I think they are Colletes succinctus.

I'm not sure this one is accepting visitors.

Going for Gold

2011-09-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

This morning I lead a walk with the aim of finding fifty species of birds and hopefully having them seen by my fellow walkers. We were out for just over two hours and found just over fifty species, although some were only heard. Anyway the birds were roughly as follows:

From the Tern hide: black-headed gull - several, little grebe - one very close to the hide and others further out, cormorant - 50+ on the islands, mute swan - 50+ on the lake, house martin - 100s high over the trees, swift - 1 seen only by me unfortunately, stock dove - 1 flew down the lake and missed by some, coot - 500+ on the lake, Egyptian goose - 2 on the lake, tufted duck, great crested grebe, jackdaw - a few flying over, dunlin - 2 distantly through the telescope, swallow - 1 over, sand martin - 100s over the lake, chiffchaff a few on the banks of the car park, blackbird and robin in the car park. 18 species so far.

On the walk to the Lapwing hide: goldcrest - a few heard and one or two seen, blue tit- several, treecreeper - one in a sycamore along the Dockens Water path, wren - singing along the path, not seen, nuthatch - 2 chasing each other in the trees, jay - several noisily calling and seen briefly, green woodpecker - calling, also seen later, long-tailed tit - several at the turn to the Goosander hide, great tit - in the same flock as the long-tails, grey heron - 2 flying over as we approached the Lapwing hide, buzzard - 1 flying as we go to the Goosander hide, moorhen - 2 on the pond just behind the Lapwing hide, little egret - 1 on the same pond as the moorhens. 13 more species makes 31 species so far.

From the Lapwing hide: mallard - a few on the bank, greylag goose - 3 on the grass south of the hide, lesser black-backed gull - 1 on the shore in front of the hide, pochard - 2 diving with coot, wigeon - 9 way off across the lake, herring gull - 3 young ones on the middle of the lake, carrion crow - 1 landed on the shore by the hide. Another 7 species make 38.

We then walked to the Ivy North hide and on the way saw: coal tit - in the small pines near the car park, woodpigeon - over the lichen heath and hobby - 1 low over our heads just by the hide. Making 41 species in all.

From the Ivy North hide: green sandpiper - 3 just below the hide on the mud, shoveler - 3 feeding in the lake, gadwall - a few pairs on the lake, teal - 1 on the gravel bank east of the hide, magpie - 2 on the shore, Cetti's warbler - 1 called right beside the hide, but we could not see it. Up to 47 species now.

Heading back to the Centre we found: song thrush - 1 calling, but not seen, chaffinch - several on the feeders, greenfinch - a few on the feeders and collared dove - 3 on the feeders. Making a grand total of 51 species.

There were several other species about today which we missed on the walk, these included: kingfisher - from Ivy South hide, pied wagtail - all over the place, I don't know how we missed them! ringed plover - 1 juvenile on Ibsley Water first thing, Arctic tern - 1 juvenile before and after the walk but not on it, lapwing - a few on Ibsley Water, kestrel - 1 male over Ibsley, great spotted woodpecker - several, actually we did hear them on the walk, tree pipit - 1 flew over calling, great black-backed gull - 1 adult on Ibsley Water, dunnock - a few around the Centre and Woodland hide, blackcap - 1 near the Ivy North hide.

More Martins

2011-09-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - sand martin 3000+, house martin 500-1000, swift 1, arctic tern 1 juv.

Ivy Lake - green sandpiper 4.

Centre - hobby 1

I did not see much today as I was chasing around for much of it. I have a contractor doing a bit of reprofiling on the shore of Ibsley Water, which so far seems to be going well. We should end up with a couple of extra islands and some more shallow water habitat. Hopefully we will also be able to get some work done over on Ivy Lake as well.

In the afternoon I finally got over to see the ponies on Mockbeggar Lake for the first time in a while, thankfully they were all fine, although I will probably move them again soon. I was on Mockbeggar for a visit by possibly funders for a project on the WWII heritage of the New Forest, if all goes well it will include a restoration of the old control tower. This building has historical interest and houses a bat roost, but it has also had a history of vandalism and general decay so to see it restored would be a great relief to all concerned. I really hope this proposal goes well as there is a great story to be told. Whilst there I heard ravens flying over, my first for a couple of weeks, I was also pretty sure I heard yellow wagtail, but could not be certain.

I should have some more news tomorrow as I am leading a walk in the morning so I should get a look around the reserve.

Knot Makes Swift Return, with Breadmaking

2011-09-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - about 3000 martins, mainly sand martins over the lake and house martins over the trees, 1 swift, 3 dunlin, 1 knot, 1 ringed plover sp (too far to be sure), 1 hobby.

Ivy Lake - great white egret (the usual colour-ringed bird), 1 Cetti's warbler.

We were busy pretty much all day with a group of visitors from National Parks around the country. They were all volunteers from a project called MOSAIC which aims to encourage access to the countryside and especially National Parks by people who do not usually visit. We did a short walk, pond-dipping, looked through the moth trap and finished up with fire lighting and "bread" making. Actually some of the bread was really good, especially the bits flavoured with blackberries.

Hopefully they all saw something in the work we do at Blashford that they could take home, even if Blashford is not quite as challenging as the high Peaks or Northumbrian Fells. As they were cooking I found the robber-fly below resting on the upturned wheel barrow, that is why the background is such a fierce yellow.

Birds today were just at the start and finish of the day for me. The martins were again over Iblsey Water and as I locked up I once again found a single swift. Reported were 3 dunlin and a knot, I assume this is one of the two that were about for several days last week. I also spotted a single juvenile "ringed" plover, it was right up at the north end of the lake seen from the Tern hide, it was moving like a little ringed plover, but I could not say for sure. Also as we locked up the great white egret was on Ivy Lake, this was the first time I had seen it since it first returned in July! A singing Cetti's warbler in the Ivy silt pond completed the day, although this bird was there yesterday, but I forgot to include it in the blog.

Arctic Terns

2011-09-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - c1000 sand martin, 4 dunlin, 1 green sandpiper, 5 arctic tern

Ivy Lake - 2 green sandpiper.

On both of the last two mornings the ringers have been in and caught a lot of birds. Yesterday 110 mixed sand and house martins were caught and this morning more martins and the fourth sparrowhawk of the year, an adult female pictured by Kevin Sayer.

The moth trap was quite well filled although the only new for the year moth was a centre-barred sallow, a real autumn species.

The birds of the day for me were the 5 arctic tern over the south-west corner of Ibsley Water, I don't see them that often and this group, all adults, consisted of birds in a range of plumage from full summer to almost full winter plumage. They are much more elegant in flight than common terns, a result of the different proportions of their wings, which are much longer in the primaries. The 4 dunlin were new and I could find no sign of the knot or ringed plovers, both of which had been around for some time.

Later we were working around the shore of Ivy Lake, opening up the views from the Ivy South hide where two hobbies went over, calling loudly. The other notable wildlife we saw were several water scorpions in the lake, I did try a picture but it was too dark.

Long Overdue Reserve First (for me at least)

2011-09-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - 1 swift, 1 osprey, 1 goshawk, 4+ wigeon, 3000-5000 sand martin, c1000 house martin, 1 wheatear.

Ivy Lake - 3 green sandpiper.

At least in the morning there were many thousands of sand martin over Ibsley Water and hundreds of house martin over the trees to the east. A lot of the sand martin were at times perched on the ground on the long shingle spit to the east of the Tern hide, I got a poor picture, but something of the numbers is clear even if the birds are not.

The moth trap was relatively quiet but the sun came out and there was the first common emerald damselfly of the year at the Centre pond and a fine male southern hawker dragonfly.

It was volunteer day today and we made further good progress clearing the north shore of Ivy Lake, the two shots are "before",

and after the day's work.

I had lunch int he Tern hide and was rewarded with an osprey which drifted down from the north, it was probably an adult, certainly it was not a juvenile. Very soon after I found the swift drifting about high over the lake. Then, perhaps best of all, a juvenile male goshawk flew west over the north of the lake, on the way narrowly missed catching a collared dove, my first goshawk at the reserve and long overdue.

Martins, Martins, Martins

2011-09-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - thousands of sand martin again, 500+ house martin, 1 swift (2 reported), 2 knot, 2 ringed plover, 1 redshank.

A moderate catch of moths last night included a late ruby tiger, a dark swordgrass, otherwise pretty much as expected for the time of year, but including 3 autumnal rustic (pictured below) a sign of the changing season.

There were also a couple each of hedge rustic and the rather beautifully marked feathered gothic.

Although the day was much better than yesterday the number of martins over Ibsley Water may actually have increased, there were certainly thousands, but how many I could not really estimate. There were more house martin, but I failed to see a swallow at all. The swallows have not all gone, in fact this evening I heard that further down the valley there are a pair still incubating their third clutch of eggs! I have seen house martin with young in the nest at the start of October, but never swallows so late.

A visitor to the reserve today found a second raft spider on the Centre pond. This prompted me to look up their life history. I confess I had not appreciated they usually live for three years, so these two should be full grown nest spring, if they survive the winter. Something to look out for next year.

Blow-ins

2011-09-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - knot 2, ringed plover 1 ad, 1 juv, common sandpiper 1 juv, peregrine 1 ad. male, sand martin 2000+, swallow c10, house martin c100, arctic tern 1 juv and little gull 1 juv .

No pictures due to terrible wet, windy weather, but as a result lots of birds. The "count " of sand martin was a guestimate at best, there could have been 5000, but the single swift was good and possibly my last until April next year. The rough weather was also responsible for the arctic tern and little tern both, no doubt, storm-driven.

Let's hope for better weather tomorrow.

Birds and Bug Hunters

2011-09-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - A juvenile wheatear, 1 knot, 1 juvenile ringed plover, 3 adult common tern, c700 sand martin, 1 swift and 8 goosander reported. A mixed flock of small birds reported included a spotted flycatcher. Overhead a hobby and a raven.

Arrived in heavy, fine rain to find the wheatear cowering right under the front of the Tern hide, trying to stay dry. I could not really see much else although there were clearly hundreds of sand martin over Ibsley Water.

It was the first Sunday of the month so it was volunteer day, luckily the rain stopped and we were able to clear some more of the willows at the top of Ivy Lake. Not really a bird friendly activity so wildlife was limited to one very large common frog.

At lunchtime I had a quick look out of the Ivy South hide, just in case. Yesterday the great white egret was reported from there, but this report was nothing compared to, a surely not serious, report in the book of pygmy cormorant!!!! The worry of course is that one day there will be one, so I just had to take a look. Unsurprisingly no luck on either count.

In the afternoon I was doing a public event looking for fifty types of "bugs". With a selection of moths from the trap followed by the raft spider and, alder sawfly larva all at the Centre we were off to a good start even before we went to the meadow. In the meadow we found meadow grasshopper, long-winged conehead and, only days after the first reserve record, a lesser marsh grasshopper. Then out on the lichen heath for field grasshoppers and small copper. Elsewhere we found three species of harvestmen, common blue damselfly, common darter, common carder bee, woodlice, slugs, snails, ants, wasps, bees and various flies. We lost count but agreed we had well exceeded the fifty target.

Thursday in Brief

2011-09-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water a black-tailed godwit was the only new bird that I saw today and apart from an unattributed report of the great white egret the only thing of note.

Other News: good numbers of migrant hawker and brown hawker dragonflies around generally. A brimstone butterfly beside Mockbeggar Lake and 3 hedge rustic in the moth trap.

The volunteers made great headway with clearing the willows from the shore of Ivy Lake now that the water level is down. Normal Thursday morning weather prevailed and it was a good task all round, still lots to do, but we are getting there.

In the afternoon I moved the ponies across to Mockbeggar Lake shore as they have eaten off the grass on Ibsley Water now. Moving them now should give time for a bit of grass growth to give fresh feeding for wintering wildfowl later in the year.

Where has all the water gone?

2011-08-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - 1 dunlin, 1 adult ringed plover, 174 cormorant and at least 630 coot. Ivy Lake - 4 little egret ( 1 a juvenile), 1 water rail.

Since Friday the level of Ivy Lake has fallen by about 0.5m, although it looks like more. This has been done by pumping water across into Blashford Lake and will allow me to cut some of the trees around the lake shore and do various other work on the shore during the autumn. Incidentally it will provide good habitat for waders through the autumn and the herons will like fishing in the shallower water.

I am also planning to cut some trees around the shore of Mockbeggar Lake this winter and I was up there today to take a look at where we will start. There is a good bit of fen type vegetation on parts of the shore and the trees are shading it out. Incidentally I came across the pair of mint leaf-beetles pictured below, they are a fabulous colour.

I also found a male raft spider, this coming just after our first reserve record on the Centre pond only in the last few days, either we have not been looking or they are having a good year. The vegetation is much as other similar areas of the reserve, although I don't remember seeing nodding bur-marigold elsewhere.

The other evening we tried putting out some straw as bedding for the badgers and they have now found it and there is a trail of straw all the way from the Woodland hide back to their sett.

Clouded Magpie, Another First

2011-08-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - swift 2 at least amongst a flock of sand martins, 1 common sandpiper, 1 green sandpiper. Ivy Lake - kingfisher again seen regularly from north and south hides, little egret and hobby reported.

Best record of the day was a clouded magpie moth on the

wall of the Centre beside the moth trap, only the second I have ever seen and a first for the reserve.

Walking back to the Centre after opening the hides this morning we came across a large number of black fungi on the large fallen oak tree along the Dockens Water path. They developed through the very distinct phases and I got a picture of each. First they were rounded with a spiked out surface.

Then they opened out to a flat top.

Finally ending up in a brain-like black ball.

The species is called black bulgar and is apparently common, although I do not remember seeing it before.

Bank Holiday Bioblitz

2011-08-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - Ringed plover 2, redshank 1, goosander 1 juv. Ivy Lake Kingfisher several from both hides, mostly if not all juveniles and a green sandpiper.

I continued with my recording of things today and so far have identified 361 species on the reserve over the last two days. This includes 179 plants ( last night's total was the result of very poor addition!), 71 birds, 8 other vertebrates, 10 butterflies, 6 dragon and damselflies, 31 moths and 56 miscellaneous other invertebrates. I have a number of as yet unidentified things that will add as and if I can identify them. I did not attempt any fungi and several other groups were more or less ignored. Several were new to the reserve including the Conopid fly below, it is a parasite of bumble-bees called Conops ceriaeformis.

In the so far unidentified group comes the miniature velvet ant species below.

More easily identified, but also new for the reserve as far as I know was the predatory shieldbug Picromerus bidens.

Another shieldbug, but this one not a new record was hawthorn shieldbug.

I had a go at some harvestmen and found again the new one I first recorded a few days ago, the relatively recent colonist Dicranopalpus ramosus, this one seems to have captured a springtail, which I have not identified!

I think this harvestman is Paroligolophus meadii, a scarce species of dry heaths, if it is then it would be a new record.

Lastly a real mystery, two larvae, not found by me, they looked like caterpillars, but had too many prolegs, so I guess they are sawfly larvae, but I have never seen anything quite like them, they were covered in white "fluff". They were quite large, at least 2cm long and were eating alder leaves. If anyone knows what they are I would be delighted to hear from you.

Lots of Blashford Wildlife

2011-08-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water- ruff, juvenile male still present, 2 juvenile turnstone, 3 ringed plover, a juvenile little ringed plover, 32 shoveler, c1000 sand martin and 2+ swift.

Ivy Lake - green sandpiper, a shoveler and a teal.

I did a bit of a "Bioblitz" on the reserve today, although the weather did not help and i intend to try and add to the list tomorrow. At the Centre the raft spider was still in residence on the pond, although I got a better picture of a pair of common pond skaters with a fallen common wasp.

By the end of the day I had 293 species listed in my notebook and a few still to identify. There are some groups I did not do at all and the weather limited the numbers of insects, but not bad for an average day. The list included 66 birds, 7 butterflies, 2 snakes, 201 plants and a scatter of other beasties.

Late news from yesterday included an osprey, and the great white egret, the next few days should bring a few migrants and now the level of Ivy Lake has dropped a not it looks good for waders.

Wild Walkabout!

2011-08-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

More children's holiday activity days have been taking place at Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve over the last few days. Yesterday we were building dens, fire lighting and cooking bread in the baking sunshine. The best wildlife encounter of the day was when one of the adults lept off her log seat and much to all of our astonishment a large goat moth caterpillar appeared from underneath her! This was closely followed by more goat moth caterpillars appearing in some of the dens. It is at this time of year that they leave the trees they have been living inside of and move to pupate underground.

Today was a rather more soggy adventure. We spent the morning looking for animal droppings and found some belonging to fox, badger, rabbit and roe deer. The children then had a go at making some edible poo!

In the afternoon we went down to the river, sailing boats made from rubbish. We then went river dipping and caught bullhead, lots of stonefly nymph and shrimps and 2 beautiful demoiselle nymphs.

It is the first time I had walked down the river since it was in spate last week and I was amazed by how much gravel and the size of the logs which had been deposited on the banks of the river.

Reports and Captures

2011-08-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

I have not actully been at Blashford today but I thought I would share a few reports that have come my way. The great white egret was on the silt pond behind the Lapwing hide and a black tern was on Ibsley Water.

I have also been sent the pictures below from the ringers who have been in twice this weekend catching something like 140 birds including good numbers of willow warblers, which are passing through in some numbers just now and two sparrowhawks.

A single lesser whitethroat was agood catch as they are not at all common on the reserve.

Two juvenile bullfinches will have been reared locally and prove breeding in the area.

Darters, Coneheads and a Big Spider

2011-08-20T12:44:00.000-07:00

Bird news: Ibsley Water - 3 common sandpiper, 1 turnstone.

Very quiet for birds today, but the sun did bring out some insects, southern hawkers are now regularly around the Centre pond. I also saw more common darters today than I have seen all summer. In the afternoon I came across a female long-winged conehead and managed to get a half decent picture of it as well. The long sword-like ovipositor is very conspicuous in this species.

The sun also brought out a good range of butterflies, a new brood of brown argus must be flying as I saw several fresh ones, also small copper, comma, small tortoiseshell and speckled wood.

The best record of the day came right at the end when I was told there was a raft spider on the Centre pond, it was lurking on, or rather under, the leaves of fringed water-lily and jumping out and grabbing damselflies. I get a very, very poor "digi-bin" picture, others had really good ones, but you can just see what it is. As far as I know it is the first Blashford record.

Friday, the Night

2011-08-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

Friday night was moth night. It was billed as "50 Mighty Moths", it was always going to be a tall order, especially when the evening cleared to a fabulously starry night, just what you don't want, moths like a dense blanket of low cloud to keep in the warmth. Possibly the highlight was a moth I found on the shed wall in the afternoon and potted up to look at later, a magnificent red underwing and yes they do have red underwings, you just can't see them in this picture.
We had six moth light running at various points around the reserve and on trees beside the paths we put out "Moth gloop" the sugar mixture that some species will come to feed at. There was much doubt about the gloop in some quarters, but more of that later. We first emptied Thursday night's catch ands so stared with sixteen species and the red underwing, thirty-three to go. One of the more attractive species to arrive quite early in the evening was the brown china mark, the larvae of which feed on water plants in ponds.

An autumn species that has just started to appear in the trap recently is the flounced rustic
not the most colourful species but quite attractive for all that.

One or two species turned up in some numbers, common carpet certainly lived up to the name and there were good numbers of sharp-angled peacock, pictured below.

Despite the doubts the gloop did produce some slight result, just two moths, but ones that we did not see at the lights, a copper underwing and best of all an old lady moth. Both these species are not attracted to lights very much but do like sugar. The sugar did attract a lot of other creatures though including earwigs, harvestmen, and woodlice. We also saw lots of slugs, snails, millipedes and ground beetles heading up the tree trunks. The lights also brought in a variety of other things as well, including mayflies, caddis flies, midges, parasitic wasps and bugs like the forest bug below.

Two light traps were run all night and produced the following species, in no particular order:

common carpet, green carpet, riband wave, small fan-footed wave, common wave, common white wave, light emerald, canary-shouldered thorn, sharp-angled peacock, small phoenix, straw dot, snout, pinion-streaked snout, mother of pearl, black arches, poplar hawk, square spot rustic, large yellow underwing, vine's rustic, shuttle shaped dart, flame shoulder, dunbar, lesser swallow prominent, pale prominent, spectacle, flounced rustic, dingy footman, rosy footman and nine species of micro moths, making 37 in all. Several species were seen only in the evening and not caught in the traps, including the old lady, copper underwing, iron prominent, lesser treble bar and another three species of micros, making 44. If I add in those that we saw as well let Thursday's catch go we gain setaceous hebrew character, common rustic and white-point, making 47, then we have the red underwing, to make 48. Unless I have forgotten some that would seem to be it, so we came up two short, actually not at all bad on a cool night.

We did also have several bats including pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, Daubenton's bat, possibly a serotine and a tantalising brief detection way up in the 90+hz range.

Friday, the Day

2011-08-20T04:36:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Very quiet generally, although the clear highlight was a Marsh Tit near the Centre, the first in over a year.

After Thursday's rain Friday dawned bright and the Dockens Water was right down to the level of a benign stream again. I decided to go out and clear the path beside Rockford Lake and just to prove it here are the before and after pictures. I also took down the height of the brambles to improve the view of the lake.

There was a green sandpiper and 9 common tern on the shore of Rockford Lake but no sign of the black tern, which must have gone now.

I was over by Ellingham Pound int he afternoon and found this egg-laying emperor dragonfly, the females only get blue like this when they are quite old. Hovering just beside it is a male red-eyed damselfly, I think there must have been a fresh emergence of these as there are lots more about now. I also saw black-tailed skimmer and a single common darter, these have definitely not lived up to their name this year, being decidedly scarce.

Lastly there was a swarm of pond skaters, running to at least several hundred. Both the skaters and the dragonfly were taken by the "digi-bin" technique, not as good as digi-scoping but ok.

Pitter, Patter, Pitter, Pat

2011-08-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water - the red-crested pochard reported, c500 sand martin 200+ swallow and at least 7 swift.

Rockford Lake - a green sandpiper, 2 summer plumage turnstone and 9 common tern.

The real news of the day was nothing to do with wildlife though. It was Thursday so it was volunteer day and did it rain! There was a little light rain early on but it really got going at about 09:45 and by early afternoon we had over 40mm and nearer 45 by the end of the day. Michelle had an evening event planned for today, people phoned to see if it was going ahead, yes we said, the rain was stopping. This was true enough, but the Dockens Water continued to rise and rise. In the late afternoon I went to close the hides and took the pictures below, the first is not the Dockens Water, but the path beside it, just negotiable in wellies.

The path then goes into the alder carr, I had to turn back, no chance of getting through without waders, the logs are all floating.

The Ivy silt pond had filled and was powering into the lake, ruining any chance of getting the work done on the lake shore that I had planned for this autumn. The boardwalk was south of the hide was under water and near the bridge the huge stag-headed oak had fallen, completely blocking the path and presenting a massive clearance job.

I then thought I had better go and see if we could get out of the reserve, the answer was just, so Michelle phoned round the people booked on the evening activity to say it was off, due to flooding and we beat a retreat. The view below is of the Dockens flooding across Ellingham Drove, it may not look much but the water across the road is the river flowing across and off into the main car park which was just a huge lake.

I expect the water level will have continued to rise for an hour or two more so it would have been very unwise to have stayed, we could still be there. It was certainly the biggest flood I have seen on the reserve and it has managed to wreck my work plans for the autumn. When the water drops tomorrow I expect we will find more that needs doing as well, the unpredictability of outdoor working.

Life on the Wall

2011-08-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Ibsley Water- Drake red-crested pochard again, 300+ sand martin and c100 swallow with at least 3 swift by the end of the day. Black swan still and several Egyptian geese.

The moth trap was again quiet, although not quite as empty as yesterday, I just hope it improves by Friday for my moth event. I did spot the harvestman below on the wall of the Centre by the trap. It is a species I had not seen on the reserve before, Dicranopalpus ramosus a Mediterranean species that arrived in Britain along the south coast a few years ago and is steadily spreading northward.

"Bugs" on the buildings were a bit of a theme today, on the door of the store I found three stages of harlequin ladybird, in order below, the larva,

the pupa,

and an adult.

Harlequin ladybirds are also alien species of course, but they come from much further afield, originally south-east Asia, although they are all across North America and Europe now.

Pipits Netted

2011-08-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

Tree pipit picture thanks to Kevin Sayer

Birds: Ibsley Water - at least 4 common sandpiper, the red-crested pochard reported, the black swan and at the end of the day at least 4 swift.

The ringers were in this morning and had a great day, catching over 80 birds including redstarts and 5 tree pipit! The area on the eastern shore of Ibsley Water is proving to be a very productive ringing site.

Opening the Tern hide the young roe deer buck was feeding on the shore close to the hide, surprisingly there was a young one with it, one of this year's still with the shadow of spots on the flanks. There was no sign of a doe, the young will usually stay with their mother much longer than this so I wonder if this youngster has been orphaned or just got lost.

It was a day for house-keeping tasks, I cleared debris off the paths in the morning and rigged up some new leaflet dispensers int he afternoon. We also tried and failed to get the webcam to stream again, so I'm afraid it is still not viewable, still I will keep working on it. Michelle did a good job of cleaning the lens of the camera in the pond, it is remarkable how quickly it gets covered in algae.

Lastly, the mysterious brown-black "buzzard" was still in the tree on the northern shore of Ibsley Water, my skepticism about it even being alive was perhaps well founded.

The Black, the Stinky and the Mysterious Brown

2011-08-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

Bird headlines: Ibsley Water - Red-crested pochard 1 drake still, also a juvenile little ringed plover, a common sandpiper and a report of a wheatear and a turnstone.

Rockford Lake - the juvenile black tern still present also a juvenile little ringed plover.

After nearly two weeks away from the reserve it was good to be back. I did a fairly comprehensive tour around today, very pleasant but it did highlight the backlog of work clearing paths and trimming trees. It was good to see the juvenile black tern still on Rockford Lake and even better to get a picture of it, albeit not the greatest you will ever see.

A juvenile little ringed plover was good to see although it was probably not reared at Blashford, there was also a second on Ibsley Water. There were also at least 8 common tern, apart from one, all adults. I continued on to the Lapwing hide and Mockbeggar Lake where a green sandpiper was the highlight. From the Lapwing hide the eclipse drake red-crested pochard went well with at least 10 Egyptian geese and the black swan. I got a good count of the mute swan and coot with 210 of the first and 536 of the latter. There were also at least 10 pochard, a good number for the time of year. Two wigeon and a fly over hobby completed the scene. Leaving the hide 2 ravens flew over and the bushes had a range of migrants including reed warblers, chiffchaffs, willow warblers and a lesser whitethroat. A redstart was also seen on the path to the Goosander hide, just after we had seen a fine female adder basking beside the path.

Back over near the Centre a found a stink horn fungus, they really do stink too, near the Woodland hide, it had two beetles feeding on it, they were a species of burying beetle that does not bury things, Oiceoptoma thoracicum.

Close by a striking patch of brilliant yellow on a log beside the path was a patch of yet another slime mould, long time readers will know how much I like these weird things, it is a species known as troll butter, even the name is good.

At the end of the day locking up I saw my first group of swifts for some time, about 20 with a flock of house martin high up over Ibsley Water. Mystery of the day was a blackish-brown lump in a tree at the northern end of Ibsley Water. Apparently it was a buzzard sized bird, I was told it did move, although it was in exactly the same place and position for at least five hours, was it a bird, was it even alive? I just don't know!

Stick insect surprise

2011-08-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Poulner Lakes Wildlife Discovery event went well today - not overly busy, as it went a bit dead in the afternoon, but had a good turn out of wildlife explorers in the morning who delighted in the abundance of meadow invertebrates that could be caught in the sweepnets.

There were lots of responsible dog walkers using the site, many of whom enjoyed finding out a little bit more about the wildlife they walk past every day. Hopefully the less responsible dog walkers using the site will have also read our interpretation and learnt how dog mess in the countryside is not just unpleasant for children to play in and people to walk through, but how it also increases the soil nutrients and can affect the diversity of wildflowers. We (okay, mostly Michelle!) picked up bag after bag of the stuff today and disappointingly even had to pick up more part way through the day, despite there being a very obvious nature trail that people were following.

Aside from that rather unpleasant aspect to the day, we all enjoyed it and particularly watching a water stick insect shedding it's skin - in the photograph below you can see the bright yellow newly emerged insect with the discarded skin to the right:

Terned up in the end

2011-08-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

The black tern that is. As predicted yesterday there was a sighting reported of a single bird over Ibsley Water yesterday afternoon. It may or may not be the same bird that has been seen of late, including a sighting on Wednesday evening, report received by e-mail when I checked them at the end of the day yesterday - this time of another bird (juvenile) over Rockford Lake.

Nothing stood out while opening up this morning. We had a good day at Sweatford Water Meadow in Fordingbridge - a lovely green oasis in the heart of the town where we had a wildlife discovery event aimed at highlighting the work of the Trust and drawing local peoples attention to the wealth of wildlife to be enjoyed on their doorstep that is generally overlooked as people walk their dog or cut through on the way to and from the town. Highlights included wasp spiders, Roesel's bush crickets and some rather lovely mint leaf beetles.

Today we will be in Ringwood running a simmilar event, this time at Poulner Lakes, so we'll see what turns up today!

Normal service will resume shortly...

2011-08-11T00:33:00.000-07:00

...yes, Bob's back soon!

Been a bit too busy with children's activities and event planning and preparation to blog of late, so, without pretty pictures, here is a quick catch up of the weeks events so far:

I haven't seen a lot - exploring with 24 5-7 year olds does not lend itself to close encounters with wildlife, but opening up over the last few days highlights have been: a pair of goldfinch feeding on thistle seeds immediately (within touching distance!) outside Ivy South Hide, the roe buck on the foreshore of Ibsley Water and a peregrine cruising along the eastern shore of Ibsley Water. I expected to see black tern today, the weather being inclement, but sadly did not. I would not be in the least bit surprised if there were several seen over the next couple of days though - I keep forgetting to mention it here in the blog, but I did see one last Friday over Ibsley Water, where one was also seen on Monday and there were also reports of a black tern over Rockford Lake at the weekend.

Other reports from visitors include a swimming heron snaffling up tufted ducklings on Ivy Lake, the mallard drake wolfing down sand martins at Goosander Hide and (relatively!) frequent sightings of kingfishers from both Ivy South and Ivy North Hide.

Dragonfly rice?

2011-08-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

Dragonfly rice? No, not a new dish available in the centre alongside the vending machine, but rather the size of the dragonfly nymph spotted by one of the children participating in today's "Radical Reptiles and Amazing Amphibians" Playday. "Digi-Micro-scoped" through the microscope you can appreciate it's delicate beauty in detail! I'm even less of an expert on dragonfly nymphs than I am everything else(!), but having said that I'm guessing it is a broad-bodied chaser - but am happy to be corrected if anyone would like to post a more knowledgeable opinion on the matter.

I also managed to get a shot of a rather small free-swimming cased caddisfly larva using the same technique! Different species use different materials to build their shells (grains of silt or sand, small stones, old snail shells, dead leaves, twigs, or, as in this case, pond weed stems).

As always, everyone had fun...

We managed to get smooth newt (adult and eft), toad and frog, but reptiles avoided us (can't have been anything to do with the noise surely?!). I did see a nice sized grass snake in the compost bin before the children arrived though.

Elsewhere on the reserve there were reports of greenshank, green and common sandpiper and the great white egret (on Ibsley Silt Pond first thing and Ibsley Water later on in the day). A hobby was spotted harassing sand martins at Goosander Hide and there is still a reed warbler skulking (sometimes singing) in the vegetation around the centre dipping pond.

Thursday magic no more

2011-08-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

By rights today, or the morning at least, should have been glorious because it is Thursday and volunteering day and Bob has maintained for at least the last 12 months, that it does not rain when the conservation volunteers are in. Sadly the good luck did not hold and it clearly is Bob that is blessed as he is still away and the sun most certainly did not shine!

It was very wet - 24mm over the last 2 hours, which is by no means a record, but more rain than we've had in one go for a little while and in stark contrast to the previous few days. I was soaked by the time I'd opened up - and was not surprised when it did not appear that any volunteers were going to arrive.

Hats off then to Tony and Jackie who did turn up and show willing! Tony gave up after a cup of tea and went back home to do some chores when no one else showed, but Jackie stayed on to clean three of the hides and was rewarded with a nature reserve pretty much all to herself and fantastic views of a kingfisher. The last bit of ragwort on the Ibsley Water peninsula remains.

Today should have been a family river dipping event but the high rainfall scuppered these plans too - numbers dropped from 26 to 5 people and with the river in spate, despite the rain having stopped a couple of hours earlier, we pond dipped instead.

A few more brave souls did venture out this afternoon when the rain had stopped and I had reports of the black necked grebe still on the western shore of Ibsley Water. I saw water rail again from Ivy North Hide today and although I have not seen the chick that Bob saw I think I have seen a water rail at least once every day this week - always around, at one end or the other, of the cleared cutting through the reed bed.

Playdays again tomorrow, so the centre car parking will once more be reserved for disabled visitors, or parents picking up/dropping off their children.

Wildlife Wander...

2011-08-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

...was the name of today's school holiday activity "Playday" and enjoyed by all, despite the heat! With a "minibeast" theme focusing upon woodland and grassland habitats the highlight was undoubtedly the meadow where (nearly!) all enjoyed a quiet and stationary "Still Hunt" searching and listening out for the meadow wildlife around us and during which time Maggie spotted this stunning wasp spider, the first of the year, and, as far as I am aware, actually the first for a couple of years as I think we all "dipped" on this impressive arachnid last summer:
First recorded in the UK in 1922 and once a rare migrant species of spider restricted to the south coast which they "parachuted" into from across the channel, in recent years wasp spiders have established themselves as a breeding species and are slowly but surely establishing themselves further and further north. This is the striking female - the male is a third of her size, pale brown and vulnerable to being eaten by the female when seeking to mate with her! They are a grassland specialist where they spin a web low down in the vegetation to trap their grasshopper and cricket prey as the insects hop among the flower and grass stems.

The other highlight of the day, for the children at least, was getting nice and mucky, digging up and then sculpting some Blashford clay. Robbie modeled a particularly fine duck:

Other wildlife highlights today: the Little Ringed Plover is still guarding its chick and there were plenty of dragonflies about - emperor, southern and brown hawker. I've yet to see it in the flesh, but a couple of visitors both saw and managed to photograph (with cracking results!) the lesser emperor on Ellingham Pound today.

The undoubted highlight was

Tiger, Tiger...

2011-08-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

...moths that is. Lots more ruby tigers, as featured in the previous blog entry and re-pictured here and also a stunning garden tiger moth. Once common - as the name suggests, it appears to have declined in recent years. It's caterpillars are the big hairy brown caterpillars that you may remember as a "woolly bear" as a child. Equally lovely, though not as colourful is the cuddly looking oak eggar pictured below.

Too hot for me today and I've spent most of the day prepping for this summers activities, including tomorrows (visitors tomorrow be warned the first of this summers "Playdays" are on! Centre parking will be reserved for disabled visitors and parents dropping off/picking up children).

There were a few dragonflies on the wing, including brown hawker, southern hawker and banded demoiselle at the centre pond. Also of note; Bob had a report of a lesser emperor over Ellingham Pound yesterday.

Bob's away for a few days so please do not expect the usual standard of Blog entries but I shall do my best in his absence!

Oh, what a night!

2011-07-30T05:10:00.000-07:00

"Never work with children or wildlife" I think the saying goes. Foolishly I do both and on the whole derive a great deal of enjoyment and satisfaction from doing so. Unfortunately last night was one of the rare occasions where things did not quite work out so well...

I'm talking about the "Gloaming Glimpses" evening event - "join us for a twilight walk in search of baths, moths and tawny owls, before settling into the woodland hide to watch out for mammals" the blurb says. Well, we searched!

And searched.

And searched!

Net result? A couple of people glimpsed a bat from the woodland hide, a couple of others a rabbit and there was a possible, distant, roe deer sighting!

While in the hide there seemed to be a lot of moths flying in the clearing and as I said a bat was also glimpsed - were they out during our walk?

No!

We had two dark arches moths on Bobs moth gloop (along with a few harvestman spiders and a solitary ground beetle and earwig) and all we picked up on the bat detector was a bush cricket!

Back at the centre and around the moth light we had a brimstone, mother of pearl and ruby tiger moth. Now you might think that an absence of moths might have been due to a deluge of bats. Sadly this was not the case - even at the centre there was only 1 pipistrelle (maybe 2!) hunting over the trap. Fortunately this managed to save the evening somewhat and everyone enjoyed listening to it via the bat detector and watching it in the moth light.

Looking on the bright side everyones experiences of a night walk can only get better and next time they do go out on a night time excursion they will be thrilled by everything they do see!

Although warm and overcast, it was a very bright night, and I can only assume that this is what caused our low wildlife count.

Certainly when I opened up this morning the badgers had been out last night - peanuts that had been untouched for days were gone, leaving carefully badger-tongue polished plums left behind in the bowl:

Before:

After:

Lots of apples had also been munched (judging by the teeth marks in those left, partly by rabbits and/or squirrels, mice and/or voles and partly by deer). And, of course, when I checked the moth trap there was loads - including what I am convinced is a dark crimson underwing, but might be light crimson, but either way is a great find, both being rare New Forest speciality moths. Hopefully Bob will be able to provide a definitive ID from a photo. Also pictured below this is a ruby tiger moth - a relatively small moth, but quite stunningly scarlet and obviously the moth of the moment as the trap both last night and the night before was full of them:

Following a comment from Bob yesterday about the number of cherry plums in "Plum Wood" this year I went to have a look this afternoon only to find what can only be described as an obscene amount of fruit! It's no wonder we didn't see anything from the Woodland Hide last night - everything from deer to fox to badgers must have been over there eating fruit:

With a rather unfortunate side effect on their tummies:

It's a bit of an in-house joke that Michelle always does better on evening wildlife walks than I do, so hopefully she will have more to report after the same event repeated on Thu 18th August, 8-9.30pm (still some places left, but please book on 01425 472760).

Elsewhere on the reserve today the sun finally did come out this afternoon and with it the butterflies: ringlet, speckled wood, silverwashed fritillary, gatekeeper, brimstone, meadow brown, peacock, red admiral (probably others I missed!) and to top it off a hummingbird hawkmoth was seen feeding briefly on the buddleia at the back of the centre- as far as I am aware the first of the year.

Plum Central

2011-07-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

Bird News

The black-necked grebe is still on Ibsley Water, bout half way up and towards the western shore so looking up the lake and left from the Tern hide. There were also 19 Egyptian geese and a report of 2 greenshank to go with the single common sandpiper that I saw. The little ringed plover chick still survives and was on the shore below the Tern hide.

Moth News

A very packed trap with at least 83 species identified, dentated pug was about the pick though, it was new for the year, there were a lot of moths but nothing unusual.

Other News

Yesterday I collected a bucket of fallen cherry plums and put them out by the Woodland hide to see if the badgers would come and eat them. When I arrived this morning the plums were still there, or at least most were the roe doe and one of her fawns were busily tucking into them. I did get a picture but the very overcast conditions and taking it through the one way glass add to make for a rather poor result.

Water Rail Chick

2011-07-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

Bird News

The black-necked grebe was still on Ibsley Water today as was the black swan and an indeterminate number of Egyptian geese. Right below the hide the single remaining little ringed plover chick was giving good views and at the end of the day a single greenshank was on the spit to the east of there. But bird sighting of the day once again went to a proved breeding for a rarely seen species, this time it was water rail. On opening the Ivy North hide I spotted a rail chick that did not look right for moorhen, then I realised there was an adult bird preening in a patch of reedmace, eventually I could see it was a water rail and the chick's identity was confirmed. The youngster was a week or so old and from the movement I don't think it was the

only one. That is two really high quality confirmed breeding records in consecutive days and both just dipping in to the end of the Breeding Birds Atlas, the four years of fieldwork end in three days.

Insect News

The most interesting moth in the trap was a probably willow ermine, they can be hard to identify with certainty, but I am pretty sure that is what it was. I also finally caught up with silver-washed fritillary today, at least two were in the garden behind the Centre at lunchtime.

Other News

We continued ragworting again today, although only eleven volunteers turned out so perhaps it is getting to them, I know it is getting to me.

Teal Ducklings

2011-07-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Bird News

The black-necked grebe was still on Ibsley Water as was the black swan. The little ringed plover pair now seems to have only one chick, although it is growing fast. The best bird news of the day came from Mockbeggar Lake where John Levell was waiting for the carp catchers to come ashore and had two notable sightings. The first was a flock of crossbill leaving Cherry Orchard and heading off west, July is the best month for crossbill and they pretty much always fl;y west. The second sighting was much more interesting though, a duck teal with a brood, this is one of the hardest species to prove breeding as they are so secretive. It seemed she was moving her ducklings away from the carp catchers and just happened to take them right past John on the bank.

Moth News

A good catch of over 70 species but nothing really exciting, a dark tussock was the first of the year and a particularly fresh one so it made a decent picture. Although not rare they are much less frequent than their close relative the pale tussock.

I was ragwort cutting again this afternoon, it was too hot and humid but I have only a few days before I am off for a bit so every hour counts. The long grass around Ibsley Water was again alive with Roesel's bush cricket and meadow grasshopper. There are good numbers of meadow brown and gatekeeper about now and on the flowers at the Centre peacock, comma, red admiral and so I'm told, as I still have not caught up with one, silver-washed fritillary.

More Moths

2011-07-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

Bird News

The black-necked grebe was again on Ibsley Water today and was about the only notable sighting I made. Reports received from there included 18 Egyptian geese, at least two common sandpiper, with two more on Rockford Lake.

Moth News

A lot of moths, sixty-eight species in fact, although the interesting ones were not showy. A twin-spotted wainscot was the first for the year and a small Pyralid moth Pyrausta nigrata seesm to be the first both for the reserve and the 10km square. It is not especially rare, but usually restricted to the chalk where the caterpillar feeds on wild marjoram. There is marjoram in the garden by the pond so perhaps that is why it was there. It is quite a smart little species, dark, almost black, with whitish cross lines.

A Dotty Day, with Visiting Emperor

2011-07-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

Bird News: On Ibsley Water the black-necked grebe first reported over the weekend was still present, it is in "winter" plumage, but looked like an adult as far as I could see, which seems a little odd. Also there were 2 common sandpiper, a black-tailed godwit, 200 mute swan (a count, not an estimate) and the little ringed plover still had their two chicks.

Moth News: A good selection including some interesting species. There were several small dotty moths, the best being one without a common name, Ethmia dodecae which seems to be the first record for this 10km square.

Even dottier was an orchard ermine and this bird cherry ermine.

A light crimson underwing was good to see, this is a real New Forest speciality being found in very few places away from there. This one would have been very fine if it had not rubbed the hair from the thorax. I did get it to show the crimson underwing though.

Perhaps more interesting than the underwing, although I would agree less spectacular, was a crescent, I think a first for the reserve.

Other Insect News: Despite the notable moths, the "Insect of the Day" title went to a dragonfly, a fine lesser emperor which was putting on a good show around Ellingham Pound. These used to be "megas", a bit less so nowadays, but still only the second reserve record. They are migrants, only surviving year round in North Africa and perhaps the extreme south of Europe.

Other Stuff: I spent the afternoon trying to clear up the really hard to reach Himalayan balsam plants lurking beside the Dockens Water. Some were really hard to get though and a few will need a boat as even the chest waders were not enough. I did see a few other plants along the way including a good few broad-leaved heleborine, although they grow in such deep shade that getting a picture was difficult. The plants look quite dull, but up close they individual flowers have all the exoticism of a tropical orchid

Blashfords got the "ah" factor

2011-07-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

Little ringed plover chicks still going well this morning and enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the odd excursion out from under the cover of mum.

Lots of dragonflies and butterflies on the wing in the warm sunshine, even first thing, when also enjoying the dappled sun at the woodland edge of the lake to the right of Ivy North Hide were a fox cub and two roe deer kids - the fox didn't stick around but the deer were quite content and allowed me this inferior picture!

At the end of the day I disturbed another roe deer (probably Mum) in the bridged over seasonal pond adjacent to the same hide (Ivy North) and upon entering the hide was rewarded with magnificent views of a kingfisher fishing from the reedmace heads immediately in front.

Who Would be a Sand Martin?

2011-07-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Two common sandpiper, one adult and a juvenile were by the Tern hide first thing and an oystercatcher was on the long shingle spit, Just east of the hide the little ringed plover pair still have their two chicks. The chicks are like miniature cartoon versions of the adults. From Ivy South hide an adult hobby got the common terns in a lather. However this was nothing to what it did at the Goosander hide where it reportedly took a sand martin (I believe there may be pictures too).

Reports Received: 19 Egyptian geese were seen on Ibsley Water today and there are two more with their three goslings on Rockford Lake, so it looks like their numbers are picking up.

Other Wildlife: The grass snake was just below the window at the left hand end of the Ivy South hide again, it had a distinct bulge half way along so I suspect we are a common frog down. The moth trap contained a chocolate-tip a species I don't see that often. I also had a report of three or four silver-washed fritillary on the path to the Lapwing hide.

Other Stuff: The Lower Test volunteer team were in again and cleared the rest of the bank on the western shore of Ibsley Water. I got out in the boat to take some soundings off the long spit on the western shore with a view to reducing the height and increasing the width to make it more use to wildlife. We should be able to get some more shallows and improve the view.

The Bizarre: A couple of days ago a visitor popped in to say he had seen a mallard eating a sand martin that had fallen into the water at the Goosander hide, in fact it had eaten two. It was not clear if the martin was already dead or had been drowned by the duck. It is not uncommon for young martins to fall into the water when making early flights, especially if startled by a predator. However I have never heard of them being eaten by a duck. Today a sketch of the incident arrived along with a mobile phone picture of the event, sadly not very clear.

The Return of the Ragwortistas

2011-07-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

Bird News: Very quite today, or perhaps it was just that I was not where the birds were. 2 shoveler near Ivy North hide were the first I have seen this "autumn", there was a teal there the other day, although I have not seen it since. At the Goosander hide the sand martins are giving great value, with loads of juveniles and at times a hundred or more clinging to the wall.

Other Wildlife: At the gate this morning a grey squirrel was in the hazel bushes, wasting the crop before it is ripe, or at least chewing the green nuts and dropping lots to the ground. We may, or may not, have dormice on site, but it we did they would do a lot better if the nuts were allowed to ripen.
On the path near the Ivy north hide a small common toad was surveying the world, I moved it to one side in case someone trod on it.

Volunteers: The "Ragwortistas" were at work again today and what work they did. They got all the way up the eastern shore of Ibsley Water from just south of the Lapwing hide right round to the north-east corner. There is still the grassy spit to go, we could not get there earlier due to nesting lapwing, but they have finished now.

Above you can see the cleared foreground contrasting with the yellow background, it all looked the same when they started! Of course there is always the final plant to pull up.

Other Stuff: In the afternoon we checked some of the dormouse tubes put out in early spring, we found nine out of twelve, which was more than I expected, sadly there were no signs of dormice in any of them.

Kingfishers Galore

2011-07-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

Bird News:

Ibsley Water - A juvenile common sandpiper near the Tern hide all day and a dunlin on one of the islands at the end of the day. There were at least 10 Egyptian geese and large numbers of greylag, mute swan and the single black swan. The little ringed plover pair still have their two chicks. A redstart was in low willows beside the southern end of the lake in the afternoon.

Ivy Lake - At the Ivy North hide reed warblers are frantically feeding young and as I locked up I had really good views of kingfisher perched and fishing from the reedmace stems. I also saw a kingfisher on the falled trees outside the Ivy South hide.

Other Wildlife:

Moths were few, but there was a good moth related find, Sam, who is doing work experience with us, found a goat moth pupal case in the same area as larvae were found last year.

Other Stuff:

The Lower Test volunteers were cutting the tall vegetation along the western shore of Ibsley Water and did really well, clearing about half the length, despite the persistent rain. The carp removal from Mockbeggar Lake continued with numbers depressed by the weather, something over 200lbs of fish were caught though, once again all between 8 and 14ibs in weight. I realigned the "Badgercam" today so it should give a better view, I will certainly give it a look tonight

Breaking Eggs and Boiling Up

2011-07-19T05:02:00.000-07:00

Bird News: The little ringed plovers have hatched! They have two chicks, first seen yesterday afternoon to the right of the Tern hide. Yesterday morning in the drizzle about 1200 sand martin were feeding over Ibsley Water. From the Ivy South hide the last common tern chick was in the water and looking unhappy yesterday morning and today it seems to have gone, a sad end to a generally good nesting season for the terns. Better news was of a Cetti's warbler just north of Ivy South hide this morning, presumably a dispersing young male, as he was having a few practice warbles.

Other Stuff:
Things were cooking at Blashford yesterday afternoon as I boiled up some "Moth gloop", this is a sugar mixture that attracts moths to feed. My recipe is about half a tin of black treacle, half a can of beer and a box of mollasses sugar, a drop of rum is added before use.
I heat the sugar and treacle and then thin with the beer, ending up with a kind of runny toffee that when brushed onto tree trunks, just slowly rolls down.

Care needs to had when adding the beer,or you can get a boil-over. You also need to check the flow from time to time by putting a little on a cold plate, if too runny add more sugar, if too stiff more beer.

Then put in a jar with a lid and leave to cool. It is great for attracting moths that rarely come to a light trap like copper underwing, red underwing and old lady. It will get a run out at the first of the "Gloaming Glimpses" events later this month.

Correction Frustration

2011-07-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

It should say "strayed" not stayed in the first paragraph below, I would have edited the post, but that function, like the paragraph and several others, now seems unavailable in "Blogger". Functions seem to be "Slipping away like wet cake". Pretty soon I expect not to be able to post at all!

To Hop or to Fly, That is the Question

2011-07-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

I was determined to get a few pictures today, if only to break up the text since "Blogger" does not seem to allow paragraphs anymore. After concern about the willows going brown expressed last month and possibly now explained, this morning I saw two more problems for these trees. I took a look at some of the coppice we did last winter, usually we get a few stools bitten down, but this year they are all browsed to almost nothing. The culprits are roe deer and they have really hit them hard, I suspect we will need to fence off new coppice areas from now on. There are probably more deer in England now than at anytime in a thousand or even more years. Deer were kept in parks and if they stayed they were likely to come to a rapid end, these were often hungry times. It is hard to over-estimate the impact of deer on the structure and species composition of our woods and the likely effect that today's deer numbers will have on the look of the woods we will bequeath to coming generations.

The second willow under attack was just along the path from the coppice, this one had leaves yellowing from the ends inward, I have no idea what the cause of this is, but clearly the green photosynthetic material is being lost, which cannot be good for growth.

In the sunnier sections along the path sides and in various clearings there is now a good show of marsh thistle. These have rather small flowers born on very tall stems, sometime two or three metres high. It is a very popular nectar plant and a particular favourite of silver-washed fritillary, unfortunately I could not find one of the those, although there have been some about on the reserve in the last few days, all I got was a common carder-bee.

Although there were no migrant moths in the trap this morning there were still migrant insects about, red admirals have got much more common in the last few days as have marmalade hoverflies, although both breed here, neither over-winter in large numbers so each year the populations are boosted by immigration. This is one of the most recognisable of all hoverflies, being the only one to have more than one band on each abdominal segment, usually like this one with one broad and one marrow band on each.

After opening up and checking the moth trap it was out a ragwortin' that I went. It was too warm for comfort and when I stopped to refuel I took a breather and the sound of Roesel's bush-crickets again filled the air. I failed to get a picture again, this time the one I found was a male of the macropterous form, that is to say long-winged and when it went off it flew a goodly distance. A feature of the range expansion was apparently a rise in the proportion of these long-winged forms and it was clear why these types would spread more rapidly than those limited to the more conventional jump as a means of getting around. I did get one picture of a hope though, a meadow grasshopper male.

Not many birds to report from today, I saw a common sandpiper on Ibsley Water and there were 4 pochard with a mixed flock of birds on the same lake, the main component of which was about 325 coot.

Cricket Highs

2011-07-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

A sunny, warm day saw the volunteers working out on the eastern shore of Ibsley Water, inevitably "ragworting". The grass was alive with grasshoppers, all meadow grasshopper as far as I could see. There were also lots of Roesel's bush-cricket, although this depended upon who you asked. A couple were seen, including one that would have made a good picture, if I had got the camera with me. So, there were two seen, but there were lots calling, but only some of us could hear them. To the youngest present the calls were really loud, but some of the older could not hear them at all. Interestingly those in the middle and most of the women present could hear them alright, although not all as very loud. The calls are in the range at the top of our frequency range for hearing, but more than this they seem to cover a range so that the young can hear a large amount of the call and the amount audible reduces as hearing deteriorates, until it is all outside our range altogether.

I am pleased to say I can still hear them, although nothing like as well as I used to be able to. I remember hearing them as I was driving around the M25 some twenty years ago and the calls were loud even above the traffic noise. At this time they were just breaking out from their stronghold around the Thames estuary. They seemed to use the motorway embankments, the long grass is ideal for them, as dispersal routes and now they are all over southern England. Curiously the Thames population spread, the small localised population that had long been around the Beaulieu estuary seems to have remained that way, although now they are joined up to the rest.

I saw or heard of few birds of note today, a common sandpiper was on Ibsley Water and

a bar-tailed godwit was reported, although I suspect it may have been one of the very red male Icelandic black-tailed godwit that have been present for some days. The ringers were in again this morning and caught sedge warbler and whitethroat, both will be migrants as neither breed on the reserve.

First Whimbrel

2011-07-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

I was pleased to see an unfledged common tern chick still on one of the rafts when I opened the Ivy South hide, the last pair had two the other day, but I had thought they had both been lost. Rather closer to the hide was a grass snake on the tree trunk in the water below the hide, although they have been regular there, it seems less so than last year when up to four could be seen.

The moth trap was busy, but unremarkable, a silver Y and a diamond-backed moth showed that there are still migrants about and a very fresh privet hawk was a good one for the school group, there was also a Stigmella sp., probably spinosa. The significance of these is that privet hawk is the largest resident moth in Britain and the Stigmella are just about the smallest, their larvae feed by mining the mid-layer out of a leaf, privet hawk larvae will eat the whole bush!

I was ragworting again for much of the day, or so it felt, despite this I did see a juvenile cuckoo near the Tern hide and on one of the islands in Ibsley Water a whimbrel, the first of the autumn and 2 black-tailed godwit. I also got the mute swan count up a bit on yesterday, with 215 today along with the single black swan. Reports includes 2 juvenile redstart near the Goosander hide, always a favourite spot and a couple of Mediterranean gull.

Shore Planning

2011-07-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

Another good moth night with 68 species identified so far and a couple of micros still to go. Some of the micros are very fine, the picture is of Caloptilia stigmatella, or at least I think it is, there are several similar species.

I spent the activity working part of the day "Ragworting" again, not the most inspiring of tasks. I did notice that there seems to have been an increase in the number of red admirals about, possibly locally hatched or maybe more likely migrants. This opinion was supported by the large number of the migrant hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus in my garden when I got home.

In the middle of the day I went out to look at the proposed work on Ibsley Water, we are looking to break up the longest spit into a chain of islands and lower the top height to produce more shallows. It will be into the autumn before it happens but it pays to plan ahead. I will need to go out int he boat to take some soundings as well, but we should be working in the area next week so that should give me the chance to push the boat out.

Up close it is clear the spit is not smooth in cross-section, the south side is steep and the northern gently sloping, the water depth is also very different being deep on the south and shallow to the north.

All this working around the shore gave me an opportunity to count the mute swans, I got to at least 205, much my highest count of the year so far. I have also counted 264 greylag, but I feel sure there are quiet a few more. There were also 11 Egyptian geese and a black swan. A couple of common sandpiper were reported today and there were two fox cubs strolling the shore near the Tern hide as I locked up, causing the still sitting little ringed plovers a good bit of alarm.

Arches and Underwings

2011-07-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update tonight as it is already late. This morning on Ibsley Water a green sandpiper and two fine summer plumage black-tailed godwit were on the shore just outside the Tern hide and more unusually a whitethroat was singing from the brambles on the car park ban. For some reason I do not fully understand whitethroat are very rare on the reserve apart from a scattering of youngsters on passage int he late summer and autumn, this was only my second singing bird in five summers!

The moth trap was quite busy, nothing unusual, but black arches are always nice to see, I don't think any two are quite the same, this one is a male with big, feathery antennae.

There were also a couple of broad bordered yellow underwing, even without the brilliantly coloured underwing showing they are very smart moths indeed.

Apart from that I have little to reports from today, we did a guided walk in the morning and I was off site in the afternoon. I suspect this is going to be a rather frustrating week, I have a lot of on-site work to do but am tied up elsewhere, or with other tasks that I cannot avoid for far too much of the time. I expect a lot of this week's work is going to have to get done next week.

An abundance of elephants

2011-07-09T03:44:00.000-07:00

Elephant hawkmoths that is! When I got in this morning and moved the moth trap back into the shade there were several elephant and poplar hawkmoths sitting prominently at the top of the egg carton pile. When I checked through later on there were actually 7 elephants and 3 poplars - more than I have seen for a while. There wasn't a lot else, but a handful of old favourites like burnished brass, bufftips, scalloped oaks, double square spots and dark arches stood out along side a couple of "bird dropping mimic" type micromoths one of which was an attractive bird-cherry ermine.Unfortunately none of the photo's are great as our waterproof/shockproof digital camera turned out not to be Jim proof the other day and I was having to photograph without seeing what I was photographing - I managed to damage the LCD screen when the camera fell out of my pocket and was then promptly cycled over while I was supervising the traithletes car parking the other weekend!

Other than that there is not a great deal to report - it's been a nice day and the reserve relatively busy for the time of the year. I was teaching this afternoon - sweepnetting in the meadow again; always my favourite activity at this time of year and it was noticeable how the improved weather has increased the number of dragonflies flying, with a lot more damselflies in the vegetation and emperors and scarce chasers hawking around the reserve or over the pond.

There were also several butterflies on the wing today - not many individuals, but a number of different species including meadow brown, red admiral, large white, peacock, small skipper and, more notably, a silver-washed fritillary (as far as I know the first of the year, but certainly my first of the year!).

The better weather is also bringing the first of the fruit on in sunny sheltered spots:

They were delicious!

The Starry Eyed and the Very Small

2011-07-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

It was raining hard when I arrived at Blashford this morning so other than noting the little ringed plover was still sitting I saw very little from the Tern hide.

I was not expecting much from the moth trap, it had, after all been windy and quite wet overnight, but I was pleasantly surprised. The larger moths included a double lobed and several slender brindle, but it was the micro moths that were the stars. Usually a windy night is poor for the smaller species, but not last night. There were a couple of nice Tortrix moths, the first picture is of Eudemis profundana, an attractively marked species with wonderful starry eyes.

The second Tortrix was also a fine one and this also seems to be the first record in the Blashford 10km square. A bit of a surprise as it is the willow tortrix and the caterpillars feed on willows, not trees in short supply hereabouts.

The Tortrix moths are 7 or 8mm long, but moths go much smaller than that and there were a couple of these minis, the first a common species, the apple fruit moth, although in an unusual form as it normally has large white patches on the wings, this one was more or less uni-coloured, but very fine glinting in the sunshine.

The last was even smaller, a real mini-moth called Phyllonorycter geniculella, like a good few really small species it has a very fine pattern, too small to see properly at life size.

Birds were rather few today, although the great white egret was reported again, this time on the pond behind the Lapwing hide, an old favourite haunt. The young common tern are all over the place now, I encountered six or so on the shore of Ibsley Water near the Lapwing hide when I was moving the ponies round to the eastern side of the lake. I moved the ponies so that I can mow the western shore without worrying about them eating anything they shouldn't.

Great White Return

2011-07-07T00:35:00.000-07:00

I opened up the Ivy North hide just after 08:00 this morning, looked out and there was the great white egret, returned for an eighth season. It was ringed at Lac de Grande-Lieu, Loire-Atlantique, France on 4th May 2003 as nestling and first appeared at Blashford in the following August. It has returned every year since, usually staying until late February.

The Rarer Tiger

2011-07-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

Although there were not many moths in the trap, there were a couple of new ones for the year. The finest was an immaculate garden tiger, this used to be a very common species all over the place, but now I very rarely see them. This is not because of any lack of food, as the caterpillars will eat all kinds of general weedy plants, so just why they have decline so much is a bit of a mystery. There was also a gothic, another species I see rather rarely, but the garden tiger makes the better picture.

A good part of the day was taken up with a meeting, so I did not get out until after lunch and that was taken rather late. The carp removing team were working on Mockbeggar Lake again today, although I did not see them until they were leaving, once again they had caught a fair load of fish, so there are evidently lots more to go yet.

When I went to check upon my Crassula experiment I saw a bee resting on a low marsh thistle, it was a leaf-cutter bee. It was about the size of a honey-bee but are in many ways quite unlike most other bees. As the name suggests they cut leaves, rose is a favourite, using the leaf pieces to make their brood cells. They also do not collect pollen in the usual pollen baskets on the hind legs, instead using long hairs on the underside of the abdomen.

Good and Bad

2011-07-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

A day of two halves a fine, sunny start, warm and calm. From the Tern hide early on pretty much all the birds were on the southern part of the lake nearest to the hide. They were a fairly undistinguished mob of geese and gulls, but did include the duck pintail and as it came close to the hide I had another go at freestyle digi-scoping and the result was not at all bad.

The birds may have been close, but on the bank way up on the north-west of the lake I saw a group of four large fox cubs, they must have been some 700m away, so the picture is not that bad, all in all.

Just outside the Ivy South hide an adult great crested grebe was sitting close to one of the chicks and I had a go at digi-binning. Actually this was rather a poignant shot, possibly the last time that they were together like this. At the end of the day the adults were together and when one of the chicks came over it got chased and pecked hard several times, clearly it is time for them to fend for themselves.

I had occasion to do a more or less full circuit of the reserve this morning, on the way the full horror of the Crassula issue in the south-east corner of Blashford Lake was more than evident. Luckily it doe snot spread beyond the sheltered corner, but it would be good to have something I could do about it. There are new possibilities being trialed and so maybe next year there will be something to try.

Rather better was the realisation that a pair of lapwing had nested successfully on Rockford Lake, although the pair of Egyptian geese with three goslings there were less welcome.

Less Worried more Ragged

2011-07-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

I was working way up at the top of the reserve today so had to go up the path between Mockbeggar Lake and Ibsley Water, passed the "Worrying willows", which don't look so worrying now. Their leaves all went brown and crispy about six weeks or so ago, to me they looked to have been mined by a leaf-mining insect, probably the larva of a small moth, although I could not find any. The leaves mostly fell off leaving the trees looking like winter, but now new leaves are growing. This is just the same response that oak trees will make to being defoliated by winter moths, they produces a summer crop of leaves and I reckon this supports my theory, rather than any disease alternative. The picture shows a few of the old crisped up leaves with the smaller new growth.

Also on my way north I also spotted a small group of very fine parasol mushroom, growing in a very dark spot under some trees, so even on a day as bright as today I had to use flash to get a picture.The objective of my trek was the north shore of Mockbeggar Lake, I was going to cut the ragwort, not ideal but the amount of it makes pulling it up impractical and cutting is fine so long as the ponies are not allowed to graze there afterwards, in truth this year here is so little grass that they would have trouble in there in any case. Before I started I took a shot of the size of the problem! Sadly this is not the last of it, but it was the worst.

I was also briefly at Blashford Lake this afternoon and saw a few of the young common tern there, they are all over the reserve now, another group are using the small shingle spit in front of the Lapwing hide and there are still several on Ivy Lake. I got an incomplete count of the moulting greylag on Ibsley Water, there were at least 264 and 7 Egyptian geese.

A Sunny Sunday

2011-07-03T12:43:00.000-07:00

The day started badly, I opened the Tern hide and realised there was someone sitting on the western shore of Ibsley Water, resulting there being no birds on the western half of the lake. I went round and spoke him and he went off alright, although a bit oblivious.

The moth trap was fairly busy with a couple of migrants, in the shape of dark swordgrass and a rusty dotted pearl. There was also a peach blossom, one of the more attractive moth species.

There are a fair few grey species, but I think the miller is the smartest, it is also probably the palest.

The morning was taken up with the first Sunday of the month volunteers, we were pulling ragwort again, unfortunately it is that time of year and there is still a fair bit to go yet. Still we have now got the western shore of Ellingham Lake done, or at least the major part of it.

In the afternoon I had a dragonfly walk, twelve people came for a two hour walk. It was a little disappointing, something I put down to the poor weather throughout most of June reducing numbers. We saw lots of common blue damselflies a few blue-tailed damselflies and a single large red damselfly.

Dragonflies were few but included egg-laying emperor, black-tailed skimmer, brown hawker and most surprisingly an egg-laying downy emerald.

At the end of the day from the Tern hide I saw the roe buck again, he was feeding right out on the lake edge.

Birds are still rather few, or at least ones of interest. On Ibsley Water a little ringed plover is still sitting on eggs and the geese are moulting in swarms, well hundreds. The geese included at least 5 Egyptian geese and the black swan is still in the mute swan flock.

Burrowing and burying Blashford beasties...

2011-07-02T02:19:00.000-07:00

It was already warm as I opened up and with no wind to speak of the lakes were all like mill ponds. Should be a few more dragonflies and butterflies around with more weather like this - having started spring well the recent wet weather has diminished their numbers somewhat. Indeed, locking up at the end of the day there was a clouded yellow butterfly in the meadow area north of Ivy North Hide. Although I wasn't close the distinctive orange of its wings in flight was quite obvious.

It's certainly good for the solitary wasps and bees that lay their eggs in burrows in the sandy soil around the reserve - I spent some time watching this "thread waisted wasp" excavating its burrow in some bare ground next to the main car park entrance while unlocking the gate this morning. It will paralyse some caterpillars with its sting, lay eggs on the poor creatures and then seal them in, fated to be consumed alive by the wasp larva when they hatch!

More familiar wasps are busy too - the "scritch-scratch" sound of common wasps chewing the wood that makes up the hides reverberates surprisingly loudly when your sitting in the hide that they are (very, very, very slowly!) destroying! This one was one of several working at demolishing Ivy North Hide. The chewed wood will be regurgitated back at the nest as wasp paper and added to the nest to increase it's larvae rearing capacity.

Good weather for reptiles too - having commented to someone while opening up that I hadn't seen a grass snake basking in the Ivy Silt Pond dead hedging for a while, guess what I saw on my way back up to the Woodland Hide? Yup, a grass snake. Unfortunately my comment that I hadn't seen an otter yet did not result in an otter... yet. I live in hope!

It was a good night for moths with 28 species, including some of my favourites; a poplar and an elephant hawk moth, buff tips and a burnished brass.

There was also a burying beetle in the trap - surprisingly fascinating animals. Apparently they can smell a dead body from some distance away and then having found it bury it by digging away the earth under the body so quickly that a bird can be buried within a couple of hours! A good tactic as once buried it is less likely to be discovered by other scavengers. The female then lays eggs in a little chamber next to the body which she feeds off until the larvae hatch when she promptly feeds them off the carcass too. How loving! They are often covered with mites which always makes them look a bit "unhealthy" somehow to me, but apparently even this is all planned - the mites don't feed on the beetle but simply hitch a ride and then prey on any blowfly larvae that hatch out in the carcass and so reduce the beetles competition for the food!

A Touch of Autumn

2011-06-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

The year slowly moves on and hints of approaching autumn are starting to appear. From the Tern hide first thing 2 common sandpiper along the shore near the hide were birds on their way south after, trying to breed somewhere in the uplands of norther Britain. A lot of the first brood juvenile sand martin will already have headed off. News from the ringers, in yesterday morning, included that they caught no young reed warbler, even though they had several on the last visit, presumably they have already moved on.

The moth trap included a scarce migrant, a small marbled, unfortunately it flew off before I could get a picture of it, a shame as it was rather attractive. I did get a picture of the other notable catch, a mirco that does not seem to have been recorded along the Avon Valley, or even in south-west Hampshire before, pictured below it is Stathmopoda pedella.

The day was fine and very pleasant, as befits "Volunteer Thursday". We were working on the eastern shore of Ibsley Water, somewhat inevitably, clearing ragwort. The longer grass on this shore is ideal habitat for butterflies like meadow brown and marbled white and for the Roesel's bush-cricket.

Other birds today included 5 Egyptian geese on Ibsley Water and the family of oystercatcher. At the Centre as I went through the moth trap it was pleasing to hear a lesser spotted woodpecker calling, it is good to know they are still around. From the Ivy South hide several more of the common tern are flying, some really rather well now.