11th May 2017.


Thursday 11th May.

Cuckoo calling today and on 7th May.

Butterflies- Peacock and Brimstone.

First damselflies of the year. Banded Agrion (backwater) and Blue-Tailed Damselfly (pond in wood).

Disappearance of apples from the feeding raft on the pond raised false hopes that Water Voles had arrived. Several pounds of apples later a Moorhen was revealed as the culprit and the feeding was so good that it brought friend along!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

August 2024 Catch up

Image
 A quick walk around the Reserve on the morning of 17th August 2024. 25C. View West showing the entrance path onto the reserve. Now onto the floodplain and the start of the boardwalk. The main path off to the right with a good variety of wild flowers. The path is in the middle somewhere! The Reed Bed Pond with a Moorhen calling. Where we recently had to clear a fallen Willow. The wet woodland at the north end of the Reserve showing regeneration of the Osiers that we cut to make the Water Vole Viewpoint. The backwater with a heavy growth of the water weeds and bankside vegetation including masses of Himalayan Balsam, mostly on the other bank. Where we made the 'leaky dam' in the Winter, now heavily overgrown.                                            The Indian or Orange balsam, now making its appearance. There has been a splendid show of Marsh Woundwort. The path thro...
Read more
Image
 Many of the posts which would previously have been put on blogspot are now going on to 'Marsh People' WhatsApp. However, these posts are necessarily brief therefore it is proposed to continue posting longer items on this media. One of the features of the winter 2024 has been extensive flooding on numerous occasions, in many instances hindering work during the winter months.
Read more

Cutting Osier Willows. January 2020.

Image
At the North end of the Reserve is a small bed of osiers willows. These need to be coppiced regularly. This year we used the material to make faggots to build up the very marshy path at this point. Some of these thicker osiers were to be used as stock material to make a new Osiers bed in Pishiobury Park, Sawbridgeworth. To keep them fresh they were stood in the cattle trough which was full of water.
Read more