Not a very Wild Day today as I was mostly inside receiving First Aid training, important but not very wildlife-filled. On the plus side the training was taking place at Testwood Lakes, so at lunchtime I got out for a short walk around the area nearest the Centre. They have a fine education pond and it had several dragonflies racing about over it, I saw emperor, four-spotted chaser and black-tailed skimmer. On the emergent stems around the edge there were lots of damselfly exuvia, the case that is left when the larva leaves the water to transform into the flying adult. Unlike butterflies and moths this is done without a pupal stage, the aquatic larva walks from the water, the larval skin splits and the adult emerges, this is known as “incomplete metamorphosis”. Other insects that use a similar route are grasshoppers and true bugs. I could not get a picture of a damselfly exuvia but I did find an emperor one close enough to photograph.
emperor dragonfly exuvia
The pond is planted up with a good range of native water plants and marginals, we have many very attractive species to choose from. This makes the trade in invasive pond plants all the harder to defend, we do not need them to achieve an attractive pond and dealing with them when the get out into the countryside is very costly. One of my favourite native marginal species is the flowering rush and Testwood has several on full bloom now.
flowering rush
I was first introduced to this species when working at Titchfield Haven many moons ago in a time before digital cameras and mobile phones, hard to imagine such a time now I know!
What’s in My Meadow Today?
It was rather breezy and cloudy when I got home but as quick look in the meadow and I found a resting male common blue, it was waving about alarmingly in the wind but this shot is more or less in focus.
common blue at rest
Training continues tomorrow, so I doubt I will see much wildlife, but at least everyone should be a little bit safer on the volunteer tasks.
I am lucky as usually I get to spend a lot of my time out in the open and in wildlife rich places, today I had to grab what few minutes I could, but luckily there is, or should be, at least some wildlife somewhere to make every day just little bit wilder.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 