Trumpington Meadows Butterfly Transect

Other than a few green stinging nettles nestled in the hedgerows, everywhere is dry and brown as in other reserves, so we were not expecting and did not find large numbers of Butterflies on our weekly transect. Small Coppers, Small Heaths, Small Whites, Brown Argus and Common Blues were the only species present in any numbers. I photographed a single Green-veined White and a Hummingbird hawkmoth egg laying plus a couple of Wasp Spiders.

 

Paxton Egrets and Great Crested Grebes 14th August

The young Egrets were testing out their flying skills and social interactions while the male of one of the Great Crested Grebe families was challenged over territory and quite a fight took place before the family retreated to their previous area.

Paxton Dragonfly Walks

We were lucky with the weather (warm but not too hot) for our walks at Paxton today with a good turnout of people keen to explore Paxton's Dragonflies. We split into two groups with our group exploring the Heron Trail in the morning and then Cobham Hide and part of the Meadow Trail in the afternoon. Trying to separate the Common and Ruddy Darters occupied a lot of time - seems to be the pale stripe on the legs in the Common Darters plus the 'Waists'  in the shape of the Ruddy Darter. Usual title sheet to check IDs

 

Preparing for Dragonfly Day at Paxton

Today is our Dragonfly day at Paxton Pits reserve with walks in the morning and afternoon - thankfully in cooler conditions according to the forecast. Yesterday we did short walks in the heat just to check on what is around. Certainly the Migrant Hawkers are the stars with their stationary hovering as well as frequent perching but there are Brown Hawkers, Common and Ruddy Darters and some Damselflies on the wing as well as some incomers this year such as the Lesser Emperor and Southern Migrant Hawker though with a reserve as large as Paxton, sightings cannot be guaranteed!! Plenty of other insects if the flying conditions are right such as the Beewolf Wasp.

Guided Walks – Dragonfly Day – Paxton Pits Nature Reserve

RSPB Sandy 12th August

 A curtailed but enjoyable RPSNature outing to Sandy on Wednesday - those booked to come on the outing who lived a long distance away took the advice to postpone to a cooler time so just Chris and I braved the temperatures spending most of our time where we could stand in the shade photographing insects on sunlit plants. We concentrated on the Butterflies and Hummingbird Hawkmoths in the morning. In the afternoon, I hoped to get a range of Bee species on the heather to start to learn IDs for this group of insects but there were very few active in the intense heat so we decided it was wise to also abandon the open spaces and head for home!!