RXwildlife Sightings

A good selection of insects can now be found along the footpaths at Castle Water, a walk from the viewpoint to Brede Lock  through Castle Farm and then from the hide back to the viewpoint produced, Small Red-eyed Damselfly, Red-eyed Damselfly, Emerald Damselfly, Banded Demoiselle, Downy Emerald, Emperor, Black-tailed Skimmer and Four-spotted Chaser. Butterflies included Comma, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Small Heath and Meadow Brown. Pick of the bunch from the hoverflies Scaeva pyrastri which is a migrant, Episyrphus balteatus numbers of this species are also boosted with migrants and Parhelophilus frutetorum. I also had a visit from several Chrysops relictus, these horse-flies bite but its worth taking a look at the wonderfull green eyes before you swat.

Chrysops relictus, what fantastic eyes.

Read the rest of this entry »

A fine selection of waders were the highlight from the Beach Reserve this morning Wood Sandpiper, 9 BlacK-tailed Godwit, 18 Curlew and 5 Avocet were on the Quarry out from the New Denny Hide, Common and Green Sandpiper feeding along the margins at Ternery Pool , 4 Little Ringed Plover were on Harbour Farm Pools and 7 Avocet on Wader Pool.

Avocet from the New Denny Hide overlooking the Quarry

While moving an unused shed around at Watch Cottage yesterday an old Common Wasp nest was found inside, the complexity of the structure is amazing and shows what an ordered world social insects have. Just alongside the old structure was a golf ball sized nucleus of a new nest, this would have gradually increased in size as the population grew. So when you see wasps in your gardens shaving wood fibres from your fences this is what they do with it. 

Outside of the structure Read the rest of this entry »