Paxton Snails

On Monday, I spent the day with Richard Preece at Paxton surveying some of the molluscs that live there. We only managed two areas but from that Richard identified 31 species.  The Caddis Fly that inhabited this case obviously had a liking for snails' shells - many might still have been alive when added and carried around. Some of the snails had very interesting origins such as image 4, a very small snail with a very long name Potamopyrgus antipodarum an immigrant all the way from New Zealand, and a bivalve (no.5) spread here from Asia. The grid is 5mm so you can see how small some of these were.

Botanic Garden challenges

 We had a good turnout for our camera club trip to Cambridge Botanic Gardens and generally kept the public amused with our various antics while fulfilling five challenges - Contrast, Close up, Colour, Movement and Creative. Here are two attempts each at the subjects.

Nature at Your Fingertips

Yesterday was the September Wildlife Survey at Paxton Pits and was in a large meadow complex adjacent to the River Ouse with damp ditches so it was not surprising to find quite a few wet species such as this Pond Olive that I rescued from a spider's web (it has lost one tail streamer). Lots of Spiders around this time of year including Xysticus matching its surrounding as does the Pardosa species running across pond weed. Otherwise the species that I was very pleased to record two years ago, Ormyrus nitidulus, a metallic green wasp, were very abundant below the oak trees (they lay eggs in the gall-causing caterpillars!).

Summer Leys Walk

We took a very warm walk at Summer Leys Reserve today, visiting the various hides where a Kingfisher and friendly Chiffchaff partly made up for the lack of close waders and Egrets as on previous visit and the 'Toad Pond' where we were entertained by Grass Snake, Terrapin and various Dragonflies. The Willow Emerald has unexpanded hind wings but did manage to fly away.

Striped Insects on the Ivy

 The Hoverflies, Other flies, Wasps and even Moths were enjoying the nectar on the Ivy flowers today, and several spiders have already reduced the hundreds of Ivy bees that are out foraging in the garden amd village