Nature Notes August 2022

Date Published: 02-09-2022

The hot dry weather continued, temperatures only cooling in the last week of the month.

SIGHTINGS
Birds (seen or heard): Carrion Crows, Magpies, Jays, Buzzards, Black-headed Gulls, Common Gulls, Tawny Owls, Sparrowhawk, Green/Great Spotted Woodpecker, Wood Pigeons, Stock Doves, Collared Doves, Nuthatches, Treecreepers, Wrens, Robins, Goldcrest, Blackbirds, Song Thrush, Dunnocks, Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs, Siskins, Stonechats, Coal/blue/great/Long-tailed Tits, Tree Pipits, Nightjar.
Mammals: Grey Squirrels, Foxes, Roe Deer, Pipistrelle Bats, Saprano Pipistrelle Bats, Hedgehogs.
Insects/Spiders: Wood Lice, Midges, Hover Flies, Buff-tailed Bees, Bumble Bees, Wasps, Hornets, Ants, Orb-web Spiders, Sheet-web Spiders, Funnel web Spiders, Common Field Grasshoppers, Crickets.
Reptiles/Amphibians: Common Lizards, Grass Snake, Slow Worm.
Butterflies/Moths: Speckled Wood, Holly Blue, Large White, Small White, Peacock, Species of day flying Moths.
Plants in Flower/Berry: Blackberry, Holly, Rowan, Bell heather, Cross-leaved Heath, Ling, Pond Lily.
Pond Life: Whirlygig Beetles, Pond Skaters.
Dragonflies/Damselflies: Small Red, Common Blue, Four Spot Chasers, Common Darter, Southern Hawker, Emperor.
Robins were singing in Winter song.
Nightjar prepares to leave the site.

NATURE FACT
Both Damselflies and Dragonflies have similar life histories and are commonly found flying, feeding and mating over the same stretches of water. They are both predators and either capture insects with their legs while in flight or snatch them off vegetation. They can only perch or cling to vegetation, being unable to walk on a horizontal surface.

Recorders: C. Wilcox K. Wilcox

SITE MANAGEMENT
Weak and damaged fence posts were replaced on the western boundary.