A song thrush singing his heart out from the top of one of our oak trees. Thanks for the picture Cheryl Cronnie.

Song Thrush recorded by David Bisset (CC BY-SA 2.0) xeno-canto.com

Wildflower meadows

Gorgeous pictures taken in our wildflower meadows by wildlife photographer Simon Knight and sent in with a question:

“Here are some pictures from the reserve taken over the past few weeks. It’s a shame we’re about to lose most of the flowers and a huge amount of invertebrate life with the grass being cut so early. Why can’t the grass be cut later in the summer?“

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Bumblebee flight

For a long time, bumblebee flight was considered to be aerodynamically impossible. We know better now and are beginning to understand how such fat furry creatures can take to the air. Here is a video about their surprising flying skills:

Here’s a fascinating but frightening fact: in the last couple of decades, we humans have pumped so much water out of the ground that we have actually shifted the planet’s poles by almost a metre. Earth’s poles are not fixed points. They wobble around to the rhythm of several cycles, some millennia long, so it’s hard to tell what, if any, effect this human interference will have. But it does show us what an enormous amount of ground water we are using and how damaging the consequences could be.

Header image: Irrigation in the desert by GRID-Arendal (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) flickr.com

A gallery of the reserve’s photogenic grey squirrels. Destructive invasive aliens, we know, but so cute.

There are three species of woodpecker native to the UK. Two of them, the green woodpecker and the greater spotted woodpecker, nest in our reserve. Here is a short video to help you tell them apart.

Header image: greater spotted woodpecker photographed in the reserve by Simon Knight.

Spindle ermine moth caterpillars (Yponomeuta cagnagella) found, photographed and videoed yesterday in the reserve by Sarah Gould. Thanks Sarah.

Breakfast

A moment’s predation in our nettle beds, photographed one morning last week by Ian Bushell: a crab spider, probably Xysticus cristatus, has caught a red and black froghopper, Cercopis vulnerata, for breakfast. Crab spiders don’t build webs, they lie in wait and pounce on passing prey.

Header image: crab spider (Xysticus cristatus) and froghopper by Ian Bushell (SCPLNR 0523)

On Thursday, travellers broke the locks on our gates and set up camp in Simpson’s Field. Wiltshire Council and the police acted swiftly and the group left on Friday night for a more appropriate site. But there are reports of human faeces in the hedges and edges of Simpson’s Field and in the little triangular field at the top of the hill. We will do our best to clean up after our uninvited visitors but if you are walking dogs or children, please take extra care in these areas.

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