There are at least two feral honey bee colonies in the reserve, nesting high in our mature trees. Unlike common wasps, honey bees don’t die at the end of the summer; the colony stores enough food for the queen and the workers to survive through the winter.
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A southern hawker (not the one in these images) visited the Wednesday Work Party in the picnic area at the reserve last week: such a beautiful creature.
Southern hawker (Aeshna cyanea)
There are hundreds of species of crane fly in this country and almost all of them go by the name of daddy-long-legs. The differences between species can be microscopically small but we think this specimen photographed in Sheep Field is either a common European crane fly (Tipula paludosa) or a marsh crane fly (T. oleracea). At this time of year they hatch in the reserve’s field in their thousands, if not millions.
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ONE: Pipistrellus pipistrellus, the common pipistrelle.
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An iridescent green, female Oedemera nobilis, known as the thick legged flower beetle or swollen thighed beetle, photographed in the reserve last year. It is the male (see below) that has the strangely shaped hind legs for which the species is named
[1] by Gail Hampshire (CC BY 2.0) flickr.com; [2] © Hans Hillewaert (CC BY-SA 4.0) wikimedia.org
These are the flowers of Typha latifolia, the common bulrush, growing vigorously in Lambrok Stream.
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The changing climate rushes our flowering season on and the reserve is already full of seeds, fruits and berries, food for our wildlife but not always for its human occupants. Some berries are poisonous and every year we publish pictures of those best avoided.
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The Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend.
This strange growth is called a robin’s pincushion.
Continue reading “Robin’s pincushion”
While here in the UK, July 2023 was slightly cooler (and a lot wetter) than usual, worldwide it was the hottest July on record.
Continue reading “Hottest July”Our swifts are leaving already.
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The rosebay willowherb (Chamaenerion angustifolium) in the Arboretum is in flower and well worth a look.
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A walk in the park
by Ian Bushell
Just some thoughts and pictures on a pleasant Sunday afternoon walk in the reserve.
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Ragwort is extraordinarily successful; all the “injurious weeds” named in the 1959 Weeds Act are.
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Here’s a good news story: deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen by 60%.
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The Big Butterfly Count ends on Sunday. So far, citizen scientists have sent in more than 85,000 counts and recorded more than a million butterflies and day-flying moths.
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We have two different species of ragwort in the reserve, common ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris) and hoary ragwort (Jacobaea erucifolia), both valuable nectar sources for our late season butterflies.
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The Big Butterfly Count ends on Sunday, August 6th. Are you still counting?
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These are five spot burnet moths (Zygaena trifloii), dayflying nectar feeders. Regular contributor Cheryl Cronnie photographed this mating pair at the end of June.
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The reserve’s great pond snails (Lymnaea stagnalis) can crawl on the under side of the water surface, eating algae as they go and breathing oxygen from the air.
Header Image: Great pond snail by Peter Pfeiffer (CC BY-SA 4.0) commons.wikimedia.org
After the triumph of the silver washed fritillary, Max is back with a possible sighting and a photograph of another new species for our lists: a female pied flycatcher.
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Rock doves (Columba livia) are known to have been domesticated for more than 5,000 years. They are mentioned in cuneiform writing on clay tablets dug up in Mesopotamia and in hieroglyphics on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs. There is a growing belief among archaeologists that these pigeons were, in fact, the first birds to be domesticated, more than 10,000 years ago,
Continue reading “Pigeon post”
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 