A blood vein moth photographed in the reserve by Clive Knight
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Azure damselfly
The Odonata season is with us. Here are pictures of azure damselflies, male and female, (Coenagrion puella) taken in the reserve by Clive Knight.
Conservation status: common and widespread
Weekend photography
by Simon Knight
The weekend of May 21st and 22nd was pretty special for me in the reserve.
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Record holders
The record breaking swifts are back from their winter feeding grounds.
Continue readingFig gall
This is a fig gall on an elm leaf in the hedge between Sleepers and Cornfield. It is caused by Tetraneura ulmi, an elm-grass root aphid with a very complicated and quite astonishing life cycle.
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A willow warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) photographed in the reserve by Cheryl Cronnie.
Audio: Willow Warbler by Stephen Barlow (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) xeno-canto.org
Small Tortoiseshell Caterpillars
The female small tortoiseshell butterfly lays her eggs on nettles. Every year there are small tortoiseshell caterpillars somewhere among the nettles next to the path as you walk up the hill through Simpson’s Field.
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Small copper
A small copper (Lycaena phlaeas) photographed in the reserve at the weekend by Clive Knight.
Swarm
On Friday afternoon the feral honey bee colony in oak tree 5532 swarmed. Julie Newblé found the swarm hanging from a blackthorn branch in the hedge between Puddle Corner and the decorated Bridge and used the last of her phone’s charge to photograph it. In her picture you can just see the swarm’s home tree, oak 5532, in the background.
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Invertebrate life
The warm weather has woken up the reserve’s invertebrate inhabitants and set them about their business. Here are half a dozen that the Friends have met and photographed this week.
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Clive Knight has discovered and photographed a new species of fly in the reserve. He writes:
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Great tit
Clive Knight has photographed a great tit at its nest site in one of the reserve’s oaks.
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Park photography
by Simon Knight
There’s not a huge amount of easy-to-spot insect life at the moment. There will be the odd butterfly or two about: speckled wood, peacock, brimstone, small white, comma, green-veined white and holly blue. I managed to photograph this perfect male green-veined white in the picnic area whilst deliberating over whether to continue to feed the birds in the picnic area.
Continue readingDagger Fly
by Ian Bushell
I photographed this fly by the pond on Saturday. It’s Empis tessellata, one of the larger species of Dance or Dagger Flies. It can be seen from April to August.
Continue reading “Dagger Fly”Drinker moth caterpillar
While they were tidying up the edge of the big pond last week, the Friends found a drinker moth caterpillar (Euthrix potatoria), so called because it is believed to drink drops of dew on grass stems.
Continue reading “Drinker moth caterpillar”Swallows, swifts and martins
The swallows, house martins and swifts have all returned now and are hunting for winged insects over the reserve. Here is a short video to help you tell the three species apart.
Grey Squirrel
A grey squirrel feasting on the flowers of one of the reserve’s oak trees, photographed by Cheryl Cronnie.
The house martins are back
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Pica pica
The Eurasian magpie (Pica pica) is the only species of bird to have passed the mirror test.
Continue readingBluebells
Bluebells photographed in the reserve on Monday by Cheryl Cronnie.
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Long-tailed tit
by Simon Knight
This past weekend I had an amazing afternoon in the park watching a pair of hardworking, caring and protective parents. It was one of the best wildlife moments that I have had this year. As you can see from the pictures, the parents were long-tailed tits who, in my opinion, win the award for ‘cutest bird’.
Continue readingPond skaters
There are pond skaters (Gerris lacustris) on the little pond under the wooden bridge at Lambrok Meadow end of the tributary stream.
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Identifying small brown birds
Sun 24/04/2022 09:39 From Suzanne to Ali and Ian
Good morning,
This is another of the pictures sent by Cheryl Cronnie, who is a photographer rather than a ornithologist. Is this a twite?
While we are on the subject…
…here is a list of ragwort’s many common names, some of them downright vulgar:
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Long tailed tit
A long tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus) photographed in the park a couple of weeks ago by Cheryl Cronnie.
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Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 