Tangled Snakes and the Tiger Path

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.

Busy and a Big Blue Hint of Things to Come?

No pictures and not a lot to report, there may have been things around but it was a very busy day. Volunteers in working during the morning, trimming willows and collecting plants for the rafts. All afternoon both Jim and I were busy with a Water Company conference group visit and of course we had to help eat some of the food provided for lunch, the trials of working at Blashford.

During lunch the sun had brought out a grass snake which was swimming in the pond behind the Centre, it could be the last one of the year, although with the temperatures predicted for the next few days I am sure they will be out and about for a while yet. During the afternoon we took the delegates on a guided walk, at the Goosander hide the great white egret was putting on a good show, there were also some goosander, appropriately enough.

Otherwise all I have to report is a couple of black-tailed godwit on Ibsley Water and 3 goosander flying out from the roost when I opened up first thing.

The next few days promise warm winds from the south, at this time of year that may not mean birds, but it could well produce migrant moths. Some of the most spectacular southern species can turn up at this time of year. By way of proof, when I got home and opened up my moth trap there was a Clifden nonpareil in it, this is a huge "underwing" moth, similar to, but larger than, a red underwing, but with black and blue hind wings. Perhaps it was a foretaste of things to come.