I’m happy to announce the arrival of my first red squirrel to be seen on the reserve. I saw it today, being chased by a very irate wren, by the Deer View Hide.

Our vole population is now being more active around the bird tables and log piles at the moment, here’s a few I caught on camera:-

I thought I would post a few of my feathered friends pics taken over the last couple of months:-

Many thanks to Janet Fairclough, RSPB Conservation Advisor, for her visit to the reserve on Wednesday.

I had asked Janet to visit the reserve to review our plans, for the largest pond, to be located in the reed bed. She was happy with the proposed plan we have, which was a relief!

We had a good chat and she gave me some useful advice, which we hope to put into practice. She kindly loaned me a book on reed bed management, which gives me some interesting reading.

One of my Roe Deer has taken a liking to jumping onto one of my little islands on the small pond. I have eventually caught the culprit on film, see below:-

The first Kingfisher I’ve seen on the reserve arrived today to check out the small pond, they tried all of my perches.

I had a trip around the reserve on Saturday specifically to capture some photos of the butterflies around on the reserve at the moment. It seems to have been a good butterfly season this year.

Thanks to Brian Harle and his crew for carrying out a moth survey on the reserve, over a couple of nights.

Over the two night they identified 31 different species and there is  some photos of a few of them below.

Moth capturing light box

Brian and crew

Drinker – Male

Drinker – Femail

Fen Wainscot

Plume moth

Poplar Hawk Moth

Thanks to Hazel and Nick for doing a bat survey on the reserve on Monday evening.

I will update the post when I get the official results from Hazel but we did detect at least three different bat species on the reserve.

The pics below are Hazel and Nick scanning for bats and a Soprano Pipistrelle bat that hazel brought along for Nick to do a medical check.

I spent a while watching this female laying eggs all around my small pond, amazingly agile little creature.