Birds, butterflies and bees

A fine, sunny and warm Sunday morning, but only saw a few dog walkers with well behaved dogs and evidence of only one uncollected dog do!  No signs of any more damage to trees or noticeboards.

The wood was filled with birds singing and flying about.  I probably heard more birds than I can identify because my birdsong recognition is not very good and I would welcome some help with remembering which bird makes what noise!  I can definitely say I saw several blackbirds zooming about, great tits collecting nesting material, blue tits, chaffinches, a dunnock, lots of robins and chiffchaffs singing strongly.

There was also lots of insect activity, especially many bumble bees searching close to the ground.  The aroma of wild garlic was very strong!

The badgers have been busy lately with much evidence of bedding replacement taking place.  In the clearing near the car park a green-veined white and an orange tip butterfly were patrolling.

Added by JARC

Before Easter

We went for a walk on a slightly damp Thursday morning and were saddened to see that a number of saplings next to the car park had been snapped off and a bit more damage had been carried out on the notice board.  I'm not sure when all this happened but guess it was a few days before we made our rounds.

We were showing off the reserve to a visiting herpetology expert, in the hope that she might declare the wet woodland as perfect amphibian and reptile habitat.  Unfortunately, she found no encouraging signs of any herpetofauna activity, but if anyone knows any different please let me know.  On a warm day it often appears that conditions are ideal for lizards, or maybe grass snakes, but I have yet to see any reptiles here.

We moved on to the main millpond and looked at the end near Barnard's Tower where a still-pond area is being created.  Our expert felt that we should carry out a pond survey, including overnight bottle trapping, torch light searches or netting to identify which species were currently resident.  Has anyone seen any spawn, tadpoles or adults either in the past or recently?

In an ideal world a separate amphibian pond would be preferable because of the likelihood of predatory species already being present.  Has anyone any views on this?

added by JARC