The Wildlife Wheel is getting old. The weathered and cracked wood is supporting a whole landscape of lichens that are colouring in the carvings.
Jay
Last week, Cheryl Cronnie photographed this jay (Garrulus glandarius) foraging in the long grass for the acorns it buried there before the winter arrived.
Continue reading “Jay”
Dogs and the wetland scrapes
When we planted up the wetland scrapes in Lambrok Meadow, a reader asked why we try to persuade people to keep their dogs out of the scrapes and how dogs can damage biodiversity.
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Grey squirrel
Cheryl Cronnie, a regular contributor, has spotted and photographed one of our many grey squirrels in an oak tree.
Continue readingMoles
More about the park’s burrowers.
Continue reading “Moles”Lichens
These are densely packed crustose lichens, on the bark of a young birch tree in Sheepfield Copse. Groups of lichen species are often consistently associated together, forming recognisable communities. It is probable this is a community, containing several species of Arthonia, that grows on smooth barked trees.
Next time you walk through the copse, pause for a closer look at the trunks of the birch trees there.
Bluetit factoid
Most birds can’t create pigments, other than melanin, on their own. This bluetit, high in the park’s canopy, can’t produce the pigment, carotene, that makes his tummy yellow; it comes from pigments in the green caterpillars he eats. The more caterpillars he eats and the brighter his tummy, the more likely he is to attract a mate.
Header picture by DKG; others CC0 from pixabay
Des res
Regular contributor Cheryl Cronnie sent in two lovely pictures of a pair of house hunting blue tits looking around a nest hole in one of our veteran oak trees.
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The chiffchaffs are home!
Continue readingDaffs for Mother’s Day
Rather than adding to the environmental cost of the cut flower industry, take your mother for a walk in the park to look at our native daffodils.
Planting the scrapes
by Ian Bushell
Today’s work party [the 15th] was all out planting in the mud.
Continue readingNew species
Horse-Leech
by Ian Bushell
During Wednesday’s working party, while planting up the new scrapes in Lambrok Meadow, I came across this leech.
Continue reading “New species”Tree numbers
There are forty six species of trees in the reserve.
Continue reading “Tree numbers”
A gorgeous picture of late snowdrops from FoSCP member Peter White.
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Collared dove
The sound of spring.
Bullfinch
Regular contributor Cheryl Cronnie has sent a beautiful picture of a bullfinch.
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Honey bee
If both have survived the winter, there are two feral honey bee colonies in the reserve. Feral bees are an important backwater in the Apis mellifera gene pool, busy adapting to the changing environment rather than to the needs of the beekeeping industry.
In March, our honey bees will be clearing out their nest cavities and working to replenish their depleted honey stocks. Here is a video about the way in which individual bees fit into a workforce of tens of thousands.
The beavers are back
Last year, between January and March, Natural England surveyed the Avon catchment, including Lambrok Stream, for signs of wild beaver. Their report was published last week.
Continue reading “The beavers are back”
Send in your snow pictures, please.
© Ian Bushell
Bumble bee school
Buff tailed bumble bees can teach each other to open a puzzle box.
Continue reading “Bumble bee school”
Wood anemone
There are wood anemones (Anemone nemorosa) in the copse between Sheep Field and Sleepers, and under oak 5552 in the corner by the central path..
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Tonight’s full moon will be the last of the winter season, the last full moon before the spring equinox. It is called the Worm Moon because it marks the beginning of spring, when the soil warms enough for growth to begin and the earthworms come back to the surface.
Searching for moon in our picture gallery…
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 