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.

We had a tremendous thunderstorm on Friday evening that didn’t last long but deposited an awful lot of water. It was not good for the Woodchip paths, with a number suffering significant damage.

It also took its toll on our leaky dams, taking out the centres of dam 1 & 2

Fortunately our footbridges withstood the flood even though they were submerged, I estimate the stream depth increased by about 1 metre in less than 30 minutes. Kudos to Skillmill for their construction of these footbridges.

I had almost given up on our Mallards producing some youngsters. They are usually the first youngsters we see along with the Moorhen. So I had a pleasant surprise on Friday to see a female Mallard with a ‘magnificent seven’ ducklings. I’m happy to say that after 3 days we still have six surviving.

At this stage the ducklings are feeding on insects on the surface of the pond. They seem to be all fit and healthy so fingers crossed they avoid all the predators waiting to pounce!

A very beautiful first for the reserve, a butterfly that has not been seen (by me) in nearly 10 years of walking the reserve. The butterfly is called a Common Blue, not so common for me!