scarce merveille du jour
Here it is at last, that moth picture that would not load, the gremlins have hopefully ben banished.
A fine day at last today, but of course it was Thursday so it was perhaps to have been expected. Seventeen volunteers came out and we were once again pulling ragwort along the eastern shore of Ibsley Water. We have not been able to do the grassy promontory between the Goosander and Lapwing hides as the lapwing there has at least two chicks, the only ones I have seen on the lake this summer. We made good progress north towards the Lapwing hide and on the way saw a variety of insects including marbled white, meadow brown, emperor dragonfly, mint beetles, a white plume moth and lots of cinnabar moths and their caterpillars.
Having lunch back at the Center int he by now very warm sunshine it was again insects that caught the eye, a cream spot ladybird on the table was first for a picture.
cream spot ladybird
Dragonflies are still rather few and even damselflies are not as numerous as would normally be expected. The large red damselfly is usually the first species seen in spring, sometimes from late March and they usually are over by the end of June, so to see several still flying around now was perhaps an indication of how late the season now is.
large red damselfly
The damselfly was beside the pond and just below it was a young toad, not one of the tiny ones just leaving the ponds but an older, but still sub-adult one.
small common toad
The surrounding vegetation offers various chances for sun-loving insects to bask and on one leaf a young dark bush cricket was catching some sun.
dark bush cricket nymph
Looking at Ivy lake as I locked up the hides it was clear that a fair few of the common tern chicks have now moved away from the colony, although they have been replaced by other newly fledged ones, I think at least 25 have now flown and several are still on rafts still too small to fly. I also increased my record count of mute swan to 38. The arrival of a flock of mute swans is a new thing for this lake as the pair that used to occupy it would never tolerate incomers, their replacements are just not able to keep the hoards away. There are also two broods of Canada geese on Ivy Lake, this despite that fact that none nested there, these seem to have walked in from Rockford Lake.
Canada geese
The adult geese are all flightless now having dropped all their primary feathers and will regrow them at the same time as the goslings grow theirs, so all should become able to fly at pretty much the same time.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 