Here’s an arty shot of a bumble bee on a flower in the butterfly garden.
A damselfly in the alligator’s mouth.
OK, so this isn’t an insect. It’s the heron that’s been a near permanent resident on the mere, taking off from the fallen tree.
A fly, on the bridge railing. Common, yes, but interesting in close-up all the same.
A heron goes in for the kill! There’s been one on duty on the mere for a few days.
I imagine it’s all the fish that attract the heron. The mere is teeming with them. Just stand on the bridge for a few seconds and you’ll see plenty. They’re hard to photograph though!
The butterfly meadow is coming along brilliantly with a variety of butterflies seen across the site. Here’s a Speckled Wood.
As people left the Wassail on Sunday, there was a somewhat uncommon visitor in the mere – a Little Egret. It’s fundamentally a small white heron in appearance and reasonably rare in the UK though becoming more popular year on year. You can find out more from the RSPB. A kingfisher also put on a good display, fishing happily at the top end of the mere (beneath the houses) whilst people watched from the bridge.
A robin pretending to be a hummingbird. It was doing this an awful lot, just hovering in one spot for a few seconds at a time.
And again.
This heron flew right over me on the main bridge, making a hideous squawking!
A long tailed tit in the branches of the tree in the pond in the middle of the reserve. Actually there were loads of them. Apparently they like to exist in flocks of 20 or so. They hardly ever sat still for a moment though, continually running up the branches, presumably looking for bugs
A common sighting on the reserve, but not so often photographed. Jack and Howard (and Sheila, off camera) dealing with the remains of one of the trees fallen in the water. Just the branches have been removed, leaving the trunk and some lower bits as it seems to provide a nice habitat.
A nice early winter view through the willow to the sky.
Come along to the the Midsummer Madness family fun day on the reserve on Saturday 23rd June. Festivities start at 3:30pm with various activities for the kids and duck racing on the river at 4:30pm. In the evening we’ll have a BBQ – bring your own food and drink! Association members should be receiving a leaflet with full details, but you can download the leaflet as a PDF right now if you want. We look forward to seeing you.
I went back and got some pictures of the fish, though it’s not easy to do so when they’re small and underwater. These were in the mere itself, right on the edge, next to the far end of the bridge. There was a shoal of about 50 or more.
Also spotted were both male and female bullfinches feeding at the same time. The male is the more colourful of the two, at the bottom.
I had my macro lens so I went hunting for smaller beasties. Here are some that I found. Note the three aphids line astern on the stem above the moth.
Just went down to the reserve today and was astounded to see a 6cm greeny brown fish under the bridge nearest the river. Probably a fully grown stickleback, but my fish identification skills are limited. Lots of small (1-2cm) dark fish hiding around the edges near the next bridge, by the spit too.
I couldn’t get a picture of the fish though, so here’s a damselfly – a Banded Demoiselle I believe.
The ducklings were also out – just five of them, and quite grown up now. I also saw one or two moorhen chicks with mother, though they were darting amongst the fringes and so hard to be sure whether it was one chick going in circles or two in a row.
Finally – a picture of a ladybird larva for those that don’t know what one looks like. They’re quite different to the finished bug!
