Monday and I was up before dawn to head out to do a breeding bird survey in the south-east of the county before heading into Blashford for the day. Although I like being up at this time it does get to be quite hard when it means getting up before 04:00 in the morning! The first couple of hours of daylight are often the best of the day and there is something about being out and about when almost everyone else is still tucked up in bed.
Being the first week of June I came across several great spotted woodpecker nests with large, noisy chicks hanging out of them and also saw the first family parties of great tits. The site is a woodland and as well as the birds I frequently see roe deer, often at close range and perhaps not expecting anyone to be about so early in the day. I also found a swarm of tiny moths dancing over the tops of some bracken fronds.
Adela croesella
It was not easy to get a shot as it was early and rather dark underneath the tree canopy, but you can see that they are rather splendid creatures with extraordinarily long antennae.
The woodland has a wide range of tree species and much of it is clearly ancient, with a ground flora including bluebell, wild daffodil, ramsons and Solomon’s seal. There is also a good amount of standing dead wood, beloved of woodpeckers and fungi. On one partly dead oak I spotted a clump of sulphur polypore.
sulphur polypore
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 