Autumn is in the air!

On returning to Blashford after some time off there is a definite feel autumn is in the air. There is still warmth when the sun is shining, encouraging butterflies (primarily speckled woods) dragonflies and other insects to venture out on the wing, with regular visitor David  being lucky enough to photograph a pair of migrant hawkers in the mating wheel position by the Education Centre pond:

Mating migrant hawkers by David Cuddon

Numbers in the moth trap have however dwindled, yesterday it revealed only a handful of moths whilst this morning there was just one, not surprising given there was frost in places last night. Working out of the Welcome Hut is also a colder affair, and a shock to the system, but I have now found some warmer layers and turned the heater on!

Yesterday afternoon I managed a quick wander on the northern side of the reserve, and the reedbed up towards Lapwing Hide was looking glorious in the sunshine:

Reedbed

My real reason for heading out was to see what fungi I could spot and then label for visitors with our temporary signs, but although I could find some, mainly closer to the Centre, the ground is I think still too dry. Wetter weather is on the cards, so I will look again next week.

Beefsteak fungus

Turkey tail near the boardwalk past Ivy South Hide

Sulphur tuft along the footpath to Ivy South Hide

The spindle is also beginning to come into its own, displaying its pretty pink fruits. Soon the leaves will turn more of a russet colour and the pink fruits will ripen to reveal the orange seeds inside. It is just behind the badger sculpture along the path to Ivy South Hide.

Pink fruits of the Spindle

I didn’t get a chance to look at Ibsley Water yesterday as my wander was a little late in the day, so headed over to Tern Hide this morning where I was greeting by hundreds of hirundines (swallows and martins) flying over the car park, hide and water. You definitely didn’t need to be in the hide to watch and appreciate them swooping overhead. After watching them from the car park I realised they were flocking over a silver birch tree on the other side of the overflow car park, with some birds (mainly the house martins) pausing briefly on the branches before flying up again:

 

 

Gathering hirundines

 

 

Gathering hirundines

They were fantastic to watch. The photos above definitely don’t give an idea of the numbers present! Preparing to migrate, most hirundines will leave during September but some may stay into October before heading off to a warmer African winter. 

Finally, I will finish with a few more photographs David kindly sent in. The goldfinch, blue tit and grey wagtail were from a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t get round to sharing them before having some time off, and the greenfinch photo was taken yesterday:

Goldfinch by David Cuddon

Blue tit by David Cuddon

Green finch by David Cuddon

Grey Wagtail by David Cuddon

Grey Wagtail by David Cuddon

Grey wagtail by David Cuddon

 

 

Thank you very much David, the grey wagtail reflection photos are lovely!

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What a difference a day makes!

After a gorgeously sunny Christmas Day yesterday, today saw the return of the rain and I got soaked opening up the hides – needless to say the reserve has been very quiet today! Even the wildlife decided to stay in the warm and dry – we have been keeping an eye on the Tawny Owl box as something has definitely moved in and made itself a very dry and cosy home out of oak leaves and soft rush. Although not the owl we had been hoping for, it is still very nice to see a grey squirrel up close on camera, although you can’t see much when it hunkers down inside its nest:

Squirrel making itself at home in the owl box

Last week we realised one had stashed food in the box as we noticed it rummaging through the wood chip that had been put in the bottom – clearly it decided with all the rain we’ve been having this was a good spot, came back and made some home improvements. This morning I watched it look out the hole a few times before it decided it was better off back in bed:

Wet grey days are definitely for catching up with the blog, and this one may turn out to be quite long as I am two Young Naturalists sessions behind, one of which was our November residential at the Countryside Education Trust’s Home Farm in Beaulieu…

Unfortunately the weather was not quite on our side then either, although we were able to dodge most of the showers. We began on the Friday night with an excellent talk by Steve Tonkin about the night sky – sadly it was too cloudy to head outside for any observing so we will have to invite Steve again another evening, but the group enjoyed the talk and asked some excellent questions that definitely kept Steve on his toes.

Astronomy talk

On Saturday morning we headed to Rans Wood, just outside Beaulieu, to meet Sally Mitchell from Wild Heritage for a fungi walk. We didn’t have to stray too far from the car park and were rewarded with over thirty species which was great for late Autumn. Before heading off Sally tested the group’s current fungi knowledge with an identification activity – they knew a few edible and inedible species and were also very good at erring on the side of caution with those they weren’t sure about.

Testing our knowledge

Fungi is not my strong point so it was brilliant to go looking with someone able to identify what we saw and also be so enthusiastic about it. Sally also has permission from Forestry England to pick the fungi for identification purposes (not to eat as there is a no picking ban for this in the Forest), so we were able to study some close up and take a closer look at the gills or pores. We also used mirrors to look under some, including the Amethyst deceiver, so we could see underneath without picking.

We did quite a lot of sniffing! Here are some of the different species we found – I think my favourites were the Amethyst deceivers, the bright Yellow club and looking at the tubular pores inside the Beefsteak fungus:

We also paused to have a go at ‘creating’ a Fly agaric – sadly we were unable to find any – using a balloon and a tissue. The tissue was held over the balloon and sprayed with water to make it damp. When air was blown into the balloon, the balloon became larger and the tissue broke up into smaller pieces as this happened, to create the speckled effect of white spots seen on the Fly agaric fungus.

 

Making a Fly agaric

We also found a huge oak tree so decided to see how many Young Naturalists could fit around it:

Hugging a very large oak tree!

After thanking Sally we headed to Hatchet Pond and had lunch with the Mute swans, Black-headed gulls and donkeys.

We then spent the afternoon at Roydon Woods, another Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust nature reserve, and tested the fungi identification skills learnt that morning, keeping our fingers crossed for a glimpse of a Goshawk whilst we wandered. We last visited the reserve in the Spring, when the woodland floor had been carpeted in bluebells and other Spring flowers, so it was nice to return in the Autumn.

Some of the group were also lucky enough to spot a Goshawk fly past, but only because we had stopped to wait for others to catch up and it flew past behind them. A lucky encounter!

On the Sunday the group enjoyed a farm feed session first thing with Education Officer Steve whilst Michelle and I tidied and cleaned Home Farm ready for our departure. They love doing this as they can get up close to many of the animals and help out with the feeding:

We then visited the New Forest Wildlife Park and were joined by another couple of the group who had been unable to stay for the weekend. We had arranged a guided tour with one of the park’s education team and Laila was brilliant – I think she enjoyed a slightly older audience to usual and the group were great at engaging in conversation about the wildlife and different conservation projects. I was impressed by how much they knew. We got caught in a couple of heavy showers whilst we were there which made taking photos a bit difficult, but here are a few, the harvest mice were popular…

We had a brilliant weekend so although it was a while ago now, would like to thank Steve for the astronomy session, Sally for her fungi knowledge, Steve for the farm feed session and Laila for the brilliant tour around the wildlife park. We also couldn’t run residentials without volunteer support so would like to say a huge thank you to Geoff, Nigel and Michelle for giving up their weekends to join us and help with all the cooking, cleaning, minibus driving and evening entertainment (we had a quiz Saturday night which was hilarious)…

Sticking with the Young Naturalists theme, on Saturday we ventured over to Poole for a boat trip with Birds of Poole Harbour. The group had been fortunate to win the boat trip as their prize for coming first in the bird trail here at Blashford back in May, and we were able to open it up to other group members who hadn’t been able to join us on the day and turn it into our December session.

It was rather cold and wet at times, and we saw a lot of rainbows whilst out in the harbour, but also managed at least 26 species of bird including Red-breasted merganser, Shag, Great black-backed gull, Great crested grebe, Great northern diver, Brent goose, Gadwall, Avocet, Shelduck, Teal, Shoveler, Cormorant, Black-tailed godwit, Grey heron, Oystercatcher, Grey plover, Dunlin, Knot, Little egret, Wood pigeon, Sandwich tern, Goldeneye, Starling, Carrion crow, Spoonbill (very distant!) and Curlew.

We had some nice views of Brownsea Island and the lagoon…

Brownsea Island

Lagoon at Brownsea

…and a very distant view of a rather grey Corfe Castle:

Corfe Castle

The rainbow photographing opportunities were numerous:

Our Young Naturalists group is kindly supported by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.

Thanks for reading! Here’s a sunnier photo taken just up the road at Ibsley when I was passing yesterday morning as a reward for getting to the end, hopefully it will stop raining again soon!

View from Ibsley Bridge – the River Avon is just out of shot to the right

Fungi spotting

Autumn is a great time to go looking for fungi, so on Sunday after spying a few whilst unlocking the reserve in the morning, we decided to head off in search of more during our Young Naturalists session.

We began however with a rather nice job of weeding the path which leads to our campfire – although possibly not the most exciting of jobs, it was one that needed to be done and it was very satisfying to be able to see just how much they had managed to clear in the hour or so we were out there. We did however decide to do the rest another day when the showers became heavier!

After lunch and a disappointing rummage through the light trap which contained a number of crane fly but not much else, we headed off with a couple of guide books and cameras to see what we could spot. Fungi is definitely not my strong point, so it was a learning curve for all but we enjoyed looking out for different types and photographing them to hopefully identify later.

Now is a great time of year to look for them as many of the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting bodies are emerging above ground, either on the soil or on decaying wood.

We found a number of very smart looking Beefsteak fungus, also known as ox-tongue, oozing red droplets that did look a lot like blood:

We also spotted some Sulphur tuft and Common puffballs nearby:

Near to Ivy South Hide we saw Honey fungus along with a couple of different colour variations of Turkey tail:

On a branch near the boardwalk we spied the tiniest mushrooms growing, I don’t know what they are but they were so delicate we had to stop to photograph them:

We took the long route back to the Education Centre, choosing the path that runs parallel to the main road so we came out by Ellingham Pound, as I was hopeful here we would find a number of Fly agaric. So far we had only seen a couple that had been nibbled or fallen over. We were not disappointed:

We also spotted what might be a Bay Bolete, but Jim’s told me off for not checking the ‘gills’:

Here’s a selection of some of the others we found, the first I think could be a young puffball, but the others I’m afraid I’m not sure about.

We had a fun wander with lots of the group taking photos, so perhaps next time we could invite someone who knows a bit more about fungi to come with us!

Finally, Daisy and I spotted a number of relatively young Parasol mushrooms near Ivy North Hide when locking up last night – when I unlocked this morning, the one we had been admiring had opened up more and had a Common darter resting on it, making the most of today’s sunshine.

Our Young Naturalists group is kindly supported by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.

Popping up

There was a proper wintery feel to things at Blashford today, a cool north-westerly breeze and bright sunshine. Working with the volunteers near the main car park we had to keep moving to stay warm. The sunshine brought out good numbers of visitors and most of them seemed to make use of the “Pop-up Café” which was set up in the Centre for the first time today (I had a slice of apple cake which was delicious). The café will be back throughout the winter on the first and third Sunday of each month, so look out for it if you visit the reserve.

After working with the morning I was told that Walter, our regular great white egret, had a companion pop in to join him. The second bird does not carry rings but they seemed to be associating all day and went to roost together at dusk. A good few years ago there were also two present but then they were almost never seen together.

During the afternoon I got out on the reserve for a bit and there are still lots of fungi around.

Sulphur tuft, on logs near the Woodland hide.

Honey fungus n a dead birch near the Ivy South hide.

A small, unidentified fungus near the Woodland hide.

The weather went downhill a little in the afternoon and by the time it got dark it was raining, but before that there were occasional patches of very contrasting light and dark, which made for quite attractive scenes.

Ivy lake, with cormorant roost tree.

Other sightings today included 2 drake pintail on Ibsley Water, where there were also 2 duck goldeneye and at least 18 pochard. On Ivy Lake there were several water rail near Ivy North hide and a singing Cetti’s warbler. On arriving at the reserve I was greeted by the sound of cronking as a raven flew over and I also received reports of both water pipit and rock pipit being seen from Tern hide and there were 2 or 3 chiffchaff around the main car park for most of the day.

 

Frustration Always Rings Twice

Bird News: Ibsley Water – black-necked grebe 1, goosander 35+, goldeneye 11+, yellow-legged gull 10+. Centre – lesser redpoll 3+.

A very busy day on the reserve today. The largely fine weather coupled with the closure of many schools seemed to have brought out more visitors than for some days. We also had the Lower Test Volunteer team in felling the diseased alder trees near the Centre, it seems we lose more each year. Jim and Michelle were busy with an education volunteer training session and on top of all this the fencing of the northern boundary of the reserve was cracking on at a good pace.

I seemed to spend a good bit of time moving between these various activities checking all was going to plan. On the way I did not see many birds but I did come across a few fungi. On the Dockens Water path running east one of the shaggy parasol mushrooms still stands.

shaggy parasol

Returning to the tree felling I came across a small clump of sulphur tuft fungi on a pile of logs that resulted from last year’s felling of diseased alders.

sulphur tuft

Sometime ago I put up some rails in the lake outside the Goosander hide, these were to provide some more attraction for birds close to the hide. I hoped they would be used by perching gulls, cormorants and similar, incidentally I thought that it would also mean they would be close enough for any colour-rings to be read. Since I put them in I had not really been over to have a look at how they were working, but this afternoon I did. There were lots of gulls on the lake at 3:30 when I got there and several on the perching rails, including a couple of yellow-legged gull.

yellow-legged gull, sub-adult, probably 3rd winter

The one above is not quite adult, the brownish markings in the tertials and dark band on the bill give this away, but at any range in the roost would be hard to spot. The mid-grey mantle and yellowish legs, or here just leg, identify the specie. An adult also hopped onto the perch for  a time as well, one of at least seven or eight on the water nearby.

yellow-legged gull, adult

This particular one is not as clean white-headed as most at this time of year, still cleaner than almost any herring gull, but well-marked for a yellow-legged. I then realised that there was a colour-ringed adult lesser black-backed gull as well and that I could easily read the code printed on the ring.

lesser black-backed gull, ringed

The code is A2C4 engraved in white on a black ring. It is usually quiet straight forward to track down the scheme that has ringed such birds, there is a good website that lists all the schemes operating in Europe, but this one has foxed me so far, several scheme seem to use similar codes, but none are just right, so where it comes from will have to remain a mystery for now.

Then I spotted another ringed bird, this time a herring gull with a faded white ring engraved in red with B+V, obviously form a quite different scheme. I got home hoping to find out where two of our gull came from, after one disappointment it was all up to the herring gull. However it was not to be, I could not find a scheme to match this bird either.

herring gull ringed

Obviously it is interesting to know where the birds come from but it can also be of more importance than that, especially if the bird has been seen many times during the years since to was ringed. Our great white egret is colour-ringed and so we know it is the same bird every year and that it is now eight years old. Hopefully these gulls will also give up some interesting information if I can ever track down where they came from.