Here we are again, another June and another 30 Days Wild, I will try to keep up this year and post something every day.
I was at Blashford today with the volunteers tidying up on the southern shore of Ivy Lake, clearing away some old tern rafts and doing a little Himalayan balsam pulling, actually the volunteers did these things, I cut a few brambles and set up the telescope to count the nesting common tern. I am pretty sure we now have 25 pairs on the rafts with nests and eggs, possibly 26 pairs. So with five pairs on the Pound we have reached thirty pairs for the first time! This has been a really successful project and almost entirely the work of our great volunteer team. Over the last ten years the Blashford terns have consistently produced more flying chicks per pair than any other local colony, with many pairs achieving the magical 100% success rate, laying three eggs and fledging three chicks. Over the last year we have made a whole set of new rafts funded by a grant from Hampshire Ornithological Society (HOS) to a design refined and honed by our volunteer team.
During the course of the work we came across two grass snake, a nest of bank vole and a number of dragonflies including an emperor, scarce chaser and broad-bodies chaser.
The weirdest thing I saw today though was an old favourite of mine, a slime mould, these are strange organisms that usually live as single cells but aggregate to form sporangia and it is this stage that we can see on old wet logs. The one I found today near the Woodland hide was a Stemonitis, possibly Stemonitis axifera. They take less than a day to aggregate, develop and produce spores and then disappear.
Slime mould, probably Stemonitis axifera on a damp log near the Woodland hide.
Regulars will be pleased to hear that the two lapwing chicks and the two oystercatcher chicks are still doing well outside Tern hide, with an additional and larger, oystercatcher chick in the distance on Gull Island as well.
You can see various 30 Days Wild stuff on Twitter via #30DaysWild and probably lots of other places too and it is still not too late to join the over 45,000 people who have signed up to do something wild on 30 Days. Our environment is vital to our wellbeing, physical and mental health and it is where we live, despite this it is not getting much attention
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 
It was nice to say hello for the first time a few days ago and put a face to the name Robert. I enjoyed watching you empty the moth trap, and our short chat about migrating Ospreys too, I would guess the work never stops at Blashford.
The moth trap was special for me that day, not because of rare moths, but because you took the time to share knowledge and teach a little of what you know to a complete stranger. It’s never too late to learn, but more to the point, it’s a generous person who never flinches at sharing what they know with others and help them understand Thank you.
P.S. I think I saw a Red Kite out towards Dorchester the other day, I wonder. I will have to go back and see if I can confirm it as I’m not sure. And so it goes on.