Wildlife Wander...

...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

Breaking Eggs and Boiling Up

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.

Run, Run as Fast as You Can

Highlight in the moth trap this morning was a Rannock looper moth, a male, which flew off before I could get a picture. This moth is only resident in central Scotland in the UK, but occurs as a rare migrant elsewhere. Actually this year it is not so rare, with a few hundred already recorded in southern England and this follows a slightly smaller invasion two years ago. Other moths included eyed hawk moth, buff tip and lots of heart and dart.

Once again it was volunteer Thursday, unfortunately we were clearing ragwort yet again, although we have made significant progress so I am planning something else for next week, perhaps a bit of Himalayan balsam pulling....

I finally managed to retrieve the failed raft from Mockbeggar Lake today, although I had a hard job getting the mooring weights free of the mud and up into the boat. I am hoping to reuse the floats on a new raft to see if we can get terns to nest in a second location on the reserve.

At the end of the day when I went to lock up the Tern hide I was a little surprised to see a summer plumaged sanderling, I know they are late migrants but this one must almost have left it too late even for nesting in the very far north. However the most enthralling sight was the little ringed plover chicks away to the east of the hide. There are least three still and they were whizzing about in their usual hyper-active way. Then a young grey heron wandered down the shore, it spotted the nearest chick and started towards it, surely the chick stood no chance. The chick ran, then crouched in the stones, but the heron's eyesight was too good and it stalked up and fixed on the chick from about a metre, looking ready to strike, this had to be it for the chick. The heron hesitated, the chick got up and zipped off up the bank and out of sight, at least to the heron, circling round the chick rejoined the female and was brooded. It seemed incredible but the plover had got away and perhaps learnt a lesson in survival as well. The heron probably learnt that when you have a meal for the taking it pays not to hesitate, so the chick may not be so lucky next time.

Finally a little late news from this morning. The ringers were in catching some of the nesting sand martin, included in the catch was one bird ringed elsewhere in the UK and even more interesting a bird ringed in Spain.

I Bee Mystified

Spring advances with birds hatching and fledging all over the place. My personal highlight today was the first little ringed plover chicks I have seen this year. It was also good to see the lapwing chick near the Tern hide still growing and the oystercatcher chicks further up the lake doing likewise. The woods are crowded with family parties of great spotted woodpecker, great and blue tit and somewhere, hopefully the lesser spotted woodpeckers, last seen as large nestlings a few days ago, surely they will have fledged successfully.

Today also saw the arrival of two mares and two foals to graze the western shore of Ibsley Water, a few more should arrive over the next few days.

Following yesterday's work party on which we cleared the sides of the Rockford path and pulled Himalayan balsam along the Dockens Water, there was one outstanding job to do. On the Rockford path we found that there were bees on one of the benches. At the time I thought there was a small nest in the post supporting the bench, there were about a hundred bees gathered under the seat. Today we went to put a sign warning of the bees and I took a closer look, it was obvious there was no nest, the bees were being attracted by something under the bench. There were both worker females and males, or drones and I could not see why they were there. There are some small patches of white on the wood, but the bees did not seem to be especially interested in them. I am mystified, so if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them.