Blackcap singing in Pony Wood this afternoon
Month: May 2019
Nomada Flava
Phil Hendry took this lovely photo of a cuckoo bee on the margin of the Long Pads – one of very many. There were lots of mining bees too. This is what he wrote:
Following your questions about whether it is a ‘good’ bee… It doesn’t collect pollen; it visits a wide variety of flowers. It’s ‘naughty’ in that it is a ‘cleptoparasite’ – laying its eggs in the nests of several species of solitary ‘Andrena’ mining bees – along that path, they’re mostly Andrena fulva, the Tawny mining bee, though there are a few Ashy mining bees (Andrena Cineraria) nesting there too.
Volunteering session Saturday 11th May 2019
Here is Jonathan’s message, better late than never
Hello All,
There’ll be a volunteer session in Fairfield Orchard, Fauna and Flora this
Saturday the eleventh in the merry month of May, starting at 10.00am and
finishing at 1.00pm.
On the To Do list for this occasion…
* We have quite a lot of broken fence posts which need replacing.
* There are overhanging trees and bushes near the Cromwell Road entrance
which need cutting back.
* Several gates are impeded by growing vegetation which needs clearing.
* Our gate locks need cleaning and oiling.
* The excess gravel left by the contractors at the gates of the Flora
Field needs bagging up and stacking.
* Checking that the cow parsley is not overhanging the Pads footpath.
And that’s about it for this time,
Best wishes,
Jonathan.
Wheatear in Flora Field
We saw one possibly two wheatear today – they usually drop by after the field has been ploughed , en route to the Greenland probably. Also a mistle thrush. Over our garden , so should be over the reserve too, our first sighting of swifts.
We haven’t seen roe deer in the reserve recently but one was outside my kitchen window yesterday early morning, on it’s way to nibble the leaves off the roses.
Shell duck and roe deer
On Monday afternoon we saw two shell duck in the West Field wetland and a couple of roe deer peeping out of Upper Sowerholme toward the Fauna path.
Did anyone record the row deer we disturbed last Saturday whilst sowing the Flora Field seed margin? It ran out of Pony Wood and across the ploughed field and into Lower Sowerholme.
Birds this morning
A heron took off from Alder Pond as we passed this morning and a sparrowhawk was on patrol over Big meadow during the morning.