We had a visit from Northern Power Grid this week. They were here to fit bird scarers to the power lines.

This is what one looks like-

The method of attachment is a bit basic but effective. One guy holds the wire tight using a long fibre glass pole ( the wire is still live!) and another guy clips on the scarer using another long fibre glass pole. Unfortunately using this method they cannot fit them on the wires over Dunces Corner Pond.

They fit them every few metres so hopefully no more dead swans🤞

Another, hopefully passing, visit from an American Mink. It was having an early morning rest on the little jetty on Dunces Corner Pond.

I have not found any evidence that he has been feeding here but I do hope he left hungry!

We are at Morpeth Town Hall tomorrow for the Morpeth Festival of Community. The fair runs from 10-2 and we have a stall there to talk about Clarks Bog and what people can expect from a visit.

July is the month where we start to see more of the Roe Deer young, they start to feed themselves and the mothers start showing them around the area.

We also see a lot of insect activity and this year we have seen a significant increase in our Blue Emperor population (the UK’s largest dragonfly). I’m guessing it is weather related.

Below is a Banded Sexton Beetle caught in one of our moth traps and it seems to have a mite infestation.

It was a magical night last night when, I went out for an evening stroll, the wildlife was about to give me a very heart warming experience!

My first encounter was a male Roe buck on patrol and, while I was trying to catch a photo, I came across a Fox sitting at the edge of the reserve.

I then wandered further into the reserve and spotted two fawns feeding in an adjacent field of swedes. I positioned myself at the gate leading from the reserve into the field thinking I may get a decent photo of them in the distance. It was about 8.45pm so the light was fading fast. To my surprise the pair decided to scamper down towards me, where I was pretending to be a gatepost!

The pair then came and started feeding no more the 3 metres away from me.

While I was watching these little cuties I turn to find that there were two more fawns that had snuck into view. There was no sign of the mothers, they must have been resting up nearby. So I happily watched the little group feed for about 15 minutes, all of them just about in arms reach, awesome!

As I walked away I came face to face with one of our badgers (to dark for a photo by that stage) and was buzzed by one of our bats. So an eventful but very satisfying evening stroll, may just do it again tonight!

I thought we had missed the opportunity for out Little Grebe to produce a family but I had a pleasant surprise on Wednesday when two chicks made an appearance.

My favourite looking youngsters of the pond birds we have.

This month we welcomed the Cramlington Academies Green Influencer group to the reserve. They came to help and they did so with enthusiasm.

They did a considerable bit of path maintenance that now looks very smart.

They also helped with some boardwalk maintenance and weed suppression around our seating areas.

I would like to record my gratitude to Laura and her volunteers from Northumberland Wildlife Trust for the hard work yesterday removing my unwanted sycamore saplings.

I had quite a dense little forest of saplings strangling everything else. They managed to make very good progress.

Some of the pictures taken during a busy June.

We had a visit from Blyths Bede Academy with 10 students and 1 teacher attending.

We did a tour of the reserve including a little moth identification and ended with the opening of our fossil pit, the first visitors to use this facility.