On Sunday I opened the moth trap for visitors to the reserve, the catch was actually not too bad considering how windy it had been overnight. The highlight was a micro species, Anania verbascalis, which I was only able to identify retrospectively, as far as I am aware it was new for the reserve as well as to me. Unfortunately it was very difficult to get half decent photographs as it was very dull and raining at times.
Luckily in the afternoon it did warm up and the sun came out. I had to mend part of the fence beside the sweep meadow and could not avoid admiring how good it is looking this year.
sweep meadow
It often has a good show of ox-eye daisy, but I think it is the mass flowering of bird’s foot trefoil that really makes it look so good this year. Actually there are four different bird’s foot trefoils growing across the meadow and nearby lichen heath. In the wettest areas there is the tallest one, the greater bird’s foot trefoil, in the general grassland there is the “regular” bird’s foot trefoil, whilst as it gets drier there are patches of slender bird’s foot trefoil and on the really dry sandy spots there is hairy bird’s foot trefoil. The rarest, at least in Hampshire is the slender bird’s foot trefoil, which seems to be having a very good year this year, with some large patches.
slender bird’s foot trefoil
As I finished repairing the fence I noticed a common toad crossing the path, no doubt tempted out by the morning rain.
common toad
As the sun warmed the insects came out in force. I came across my first bee wolf of the year, in fact several on a sandy patch beside the entrance track.
bee wolf
These wasps capture honey bees to provision their nests, which they dig in the sand, to provide food for their larvae. I also saw several other digger wasps, I only a picture of one and so far I have failed to get a positive identification of it.
digger wasp
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 