The Reptiles of Blashford 2023, a summary of the reptile survey team’s findings.

It has been an interesting if mixed year for reptile sightings this year. We have seen
all our regular species of reptiles on the reserve – adders, grass snakes and slow
worms.

Male adder – photo taken by Bob Taylor

Female adder – photo taken by Bob Taylor

For adders the sightings were above our usual average. There were a number seen
early in the season, at the same time in a range of different locations. This often
indicates that there are a number of separate populations as they would be coming
out of their over-wintering sites, called hibernacula. It also indicates the possible
locations of the hibernacula. We think there are probably four different populations.
Sightings continued throughout the season although they varied in numbers as is
usually the case. As the days get longer and the temperatures get higher the adders
warm up and disperse earlier in the day – looking for partners and subsequently food. The
males usually look for females before they focus on their food!

For grass snakes it was different. Very few were seen early in the season when they
would normally be leaving their hibernaculum so identifying possible locations was
not possible. Although a limited number were seen through the remaining part of the
season there was a large number seen during August. Probably cooling down and
warming back up during the longer days and warmer temperatures of the late
summer. They would move around between water and land and take advantage of
good basking sites such as the stump in front of Ivy South Hide.

Grass snake from Ivy South Hide – photo taken by Catherine Wright

In terms of slow worms we didn’t see many but we did see some together. This year
the sightings were towards the later part of the season, August and September, and
they were hidden in a safe place under one of our tins.

We were fortunate to see adults and juveniles of both grass snakes and slow worms.
A good indicator of breeding populations. For the first time we didn’t see any juvenile
adders so we will need to keep an eye on that. We normally do see them and
historically have had good signs of breeding population of adders so hopefully this
was not an indicator of none present on the reserve.
One of our most unusual and exciting sightings was of snakes in the sand martin
wall. So, if you are visiting there look out, not just for the sand martins, but visiting
snakes!! We also saw a grass snake coming out of the water in front of Tern Hide,
up the shore and under the hide. You might be lucky there too. What with sightings
in front of Ivy South Hide, in the sand martin wall at Goosander hide and on the
shore in front of Tern hide you never know when you might be lucky!

Thank you from Blashford Lakes to the Reptile Survey Team and to anybody else who reported their opportunistic sightings for the team to record. and to Jacki for providing this write up for the blog.

A note from the Blashford Team:

Our central Comms Team have been busy making Blashford social media content available to those who don’t have Facebook. It’s wonderful to see so many people posting their photos to Facebook and sharing their visits, and we wanted to make sure everybody is able to access this. Please visit https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/nature-reserves/blashford-lakes-nature-reserve#updates and scroll down the page to see a feed that includes these posts. We’re really excited about this as we hope it will help keep everyone updated and engaged with what’s going on around the reserve from staff, volunteers and visitors.

We will soon be posting more content on the main HIWWT website blog, https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/blog/tag/blashford-lakes so that more people across Hampshire can see what we are doing at Blashford, and everyone can explore what is happening across other sites too. This blog will appear on there soon, along with a wonderful bird blog by Welcome Hut volunteer (and wonderful writer of our bird sightings board) Nicky, and then more regular updates from the staff team too!

Tern Hide and north side car park closed due to flooding.

Notice: Tern Hide and the car park are closed today due to flooding.

The rain has caused more flooding in the car park on the north side, and with it looking set to rain all day we can’t see this improving!

South side is still open as usual, with the walking diversion down the main track as the little footpath that runs from the lower to the centre car park is still flooded.

Tern Hide car park – open!

Tern Hide car park is back open, the flooding has gone down and the whole car park is accessible. Please be mindful that the water has deposited some sediment across the car park, and on the footpath from Tern Hide car park the footpath gravel has been disturbed quite considerably. Please take care when using this path.

We are due to have more rain very soon, so we may be flooded again, if so we will update on here/Facebook/chalkboards around the site.

Wildlife Tots – the story of the Stickman

We had a wonderful sunny morning for Wildlife Tots today, and with 6 small people (and their adults) we went on a Stickman adventure! First, we made our stickmen. We used forked sticks for the body and legs, then tied another stick on to make the arms. Then, with many colourful things, we made clothing from material, pipecleaners, made sure our stickmen had scarves (some fluffy and warm, some fancy and made of ribbon), and then we glued some googly eyes on. Some googly eyes were straighter than others (I suspect parental intervention for these ones!) and some were upside down, but all stickmen eventually had two eyes (for the start of the walk at least).

We started our walk and each collected a good ‘pooh sticks stick’ and took them to the bridge over the Dockens Water. Thankfully the river has gone down quite a bit now, so we had resonably sedate pooh sticks games. We read some more of the story, and then collected sticks on our way to the meadow to make a nest for a swan.

Once our (sort of) circular nest was created, we put our swan on top, and carried on along our walk.

We continued our stroll and got to Badger Wood, where we sat in a circle on the logs. I showed everybody how to make a flagpole and leaf-flag, and then we made some sandcastles and put our flags on. Once we had done this we sat back in the circle and listened to the rest of the story…. and thankfully Stickman was found by Father Christmas, and returned to his family tree.

Storm Ciaran – we will be back open tomorrow, 4th November

Thank you everyone for your patience during the storm. Thanks to some incredibly hard work from Jack and Pete, we are back open tomorrow. The reserve was very flooded, and Tern Hide car park may take a while to go down, but the river receded enough for the site to be assessed and works to be undertaken.

There were quite a few trees down that needed to be taken care of, a power outage to the centre, and it’s entirely possible that Pete’s camera trap was underwater for a while, but after Jack and Pete worked tirelessly today, the reserve is good to open again. Well done to them!!!

Blashford Lakes CLOSURE: 2nd and 3rd November

Closure notice for November 2nd: In response to the severe weather warnings issued for Storm Ciaran, and to prioritise the safety of our staff, volunteers and visitors, we have made the decision to close our head office and cancel all volunteer work parties tomorrow. In addition, our visitor centres and nature reserves at Blashford Lakes, Swanwick Lakes and Testwood Lakes will be closed to the public. We strongly advise not visiting any of our other reserves during this time due to the potential risks of falling trees, flooding and other weather-related hazards.

Official statement above, but Blashford will also remain CLOSED on Friday 3rd November to give reserves staff time to assess the whole site before re-opening. Please keep an eye on the Facebook group for updates, as well as the main HIWWT website.

Thank you for your cooperation, storms are a dynamic situation here and we need to ensure that the site is safe before re-opening.

The Blashford Team – Catherine, Jack, Pete and Chloe

Half term events

It’s almost October half term… how it’s come around this quickly Catherine and I have no idea! At least it’s getting chilly now, a little more inkeeping with the time of year, if a bit of a shock to the system.

Events! Visit http://www.hiwwt.org.uk/events to book on.

Path and track repair works: 23rd – 27th October

Please be aware, contractors will be carrying out much needed repair work to the centre track and paths on the south side of the reserve between 23th-27th October.

The reserve will remain open, however some paths will be closed/ rerouted during these dates. The works will be staggered to minimise any impact this may have on your visit.

Please pay attention to the temporary access signage in the affected areas. Many Thanks.

P.S. here’s a lovely orange peel fungus found on the reserve earlier today.

September Wildlife Tots – Teddy Bear’s Picnic

After a month off because of the school summer holidays, Tots has returned!

We had a few booked on, and some who came on the day just in case we weren’t full, so we ended up with a lovely middle sized group for our picnic.

We sat under the shelter outside and did some colouring-in to start, while we waited for everybody (and their teddies!) to arrive. Once everyone was ready, I went through what we were going to do for the day, and had some very excited little faces looking at me!

Our first task was to go for a walk to collect kindling for the fire. We walked past the compound and out towards the lichen heath, collecting fallen twigs that were like ‘spaghetti’ and ‘pencils’. We went through the types of sticks we wanted… ‘snappy’ sticks not ‘bendy’ sticks, so that we didn’t have to light the fire with green or damp kindling.

Once we got to the side gate of the Willow Wood ed area we stopped collecting kindling, and walked in to sit down around the fire circle. We spoke about fire safety, and I got some brilliant answers to my questions. ‘Why must we be careful around fire, and only come into the circle when invited?’ ‘Fire is hot and dangerous and you could get burnt!’. Brilliant! It’s lovely to see such young children know the answers to very important safety questions.

After our fire talk, I held up my teddy, and let everybody know that there were ten other cuddly toys, hidden around the field and inside some dens that wanted to join our picnic. Once found, the children needed to think about which animals they were, where they might live, and what they could be doing as the season changes from summer to autumn. Within our cuddly toy collection we had blue tit and great tit, pochard, tufted duck, badger, fox and frog to name a few. When everything was found, and the fire was lit, we regrouped around the circle to talk about our animals. We learned about migrating pochard, about badger setts, and about where frogs go at different times of year.

This gave us enough time for the fire to establish, and with some resharpened toasting sticks at the ready, we put bread on the end and did some toasting! Everyone was very happy with their toasted baguette pieces, butter and jam, with only a couple of mishaps where the bread nudged into the fire as our sticks were being turned!

Seed, apple, casters and hay…. sounds to me like a small mammal trapping day!

Thank you to everybody that booked on to Blashford’s Small Mammal Trapping and Handling workshop, it was so much fun!

We all met on the 22nd August in the evening, and I started off with a presentation about why we trap small mammals, how, and some information about the welfare, types of traps and considerations. It was lovely to have an audience who were eager to listen and learn, and asked some interesting questions. The age range for this workshop was 12+, specifically as I was aiming for some handling of animals, which we managed successfully on the morning of the 23rd! We had some families, individuals, and also environmental students who wanted to upskill their mammal handling, and I am so glad we can offer them the opportunity to do so.

Female Wood Mouse

Everybody had two traps to prepare. We used hay as bedding, and then put bird seed, casters (blowfly larvae), and apple inside too. The apple is useful for moisture, and also as an attractive smell, and the casters are required in case shrews are caught. Shrews need to feed every two hours, and are insectivorous. Our Longworth traps don’t have shrew holes, which I am glad of – they are designed so that shrews can escape, but I have found that sometimes mice and voles think they can escape, and then get their heads caught, which is not a good trapping result.

Once everybody had prepared their traps, they took a piece of brightly coloured material and set their traps out behind the centre. We used the area from the Welcome Hut, around the play area/boat, and around the ponds across to the compost bins. This area supports a fairly large number of woodmice, voles, and a smaller number of yellow necked mice, so we were fairly hopeful of catching some. The material was tied above the traps so that we knew we could locate them again in the morning, and then we all went home, hoping some of the doors would be closed in the morning.

A bright and early start on the 23rd, everybody arrived for 9am and we set out to retrieve the traps. Importantly, we collected all the traps but left the flagging material in place. Once we had all the traps in and counted, then we removed the markers.

Chloe (me) demonstrating how to check a Longworth trap inside a handling bag

A quick recap on welfare, making sure everybody was quiet and calm, we then checked some traps. I demonstrated how to check them within a handling bag, holding the bag tight around my arm so that no mice could make a quick escape, and then it was time for other people to have a go! We caught 3 animals in total (I really was hoping for more with 21 traps out, but you can’t guarantee things, never work with children or animals right?).

Gail checking her trap

We found 1 male field vole, 1 male wood mouse, and 1 female wood mouse (who were named Ted, Pie and Kylie!). Usefully, this was a good range to be able to show how to determine sex, and for everybody who really wanted to to learn to handle them. We also kept them in tanks, in the shade on the benches, so that we could look at the morphological differences between mice and voles. Once we had checked all the traps and tidied the bedding and food away, we released the animals.

Looking into the tunnel section, here we can see that bedding has been pulled into the tunnel, a good sign that the trap is occupied.

Those that had animals in their traps had remembered exactly where they had placed them, so we were able to release them back very close to ‘home’. A brilliant workshop, which ended with one participant saying ‘this is the best thing I have done in the morning in I don’t know how long!’.

A male field vole in a scruff grip, with a hand underneath to support the body

Once everybody had left we began to tidy up, but in true mammal-enthusiast fashion… I decided to set some of the traps out again in the hope of catching a vole or two. We set 9 traps back out, and caught 1 vole. This gave Kate our regular Welcome Hut and Education volunteer chance to try some handling, as we just didn’t have the numbers in the earlier session for her to have a go. Thank you to Kate, Liz and Jill for helping out on the workshop, we couldn’t run anywhere near as many awesome sessions without our volunteers!