As many of you know, The Friends of Paxton Pits Nature Reserve is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. We want to share this. We have an Open Day on 6th July with displays, self-guided walks, children’s treasure hunts and much more, so please come along. Most importantly the wildlife is sharing this with us as well.
All the habitat management, our volunteers have done, has particularly demonstrated how are wildlife is saying thank you. Our sociable wildlife surveys demonstrate this in many ways, such as new species for the reserve and the return of lost ones. I mentioned in my blog last month that they had ringed a male nightingale in the bird sanctuary. In the last couple of weeks, they have ringed a female nightingale in the same area with a brood patch, which means she has chicks to keep warm. Nightingales are firmly back on the reserve. Oh, joy of joys!
By the way, did you realise it is a 100 years since Miss Beatrice Harrison tried to encourage nightingales to sing with her cello?
They also ringed young treecreepers and long-tailed tits. They must have been also a joy to hold.
There are plenty of other young birds about as well. On another survey, the Breeding Bird Survey, towards the end of my patch, which goes through East Scrub, there was a myriad of young- at least 8 young blue tits, a great tit and dunnock juvenile, being fed and a family of long-tailed tits talking to each other as they flew past. Others saw young great spotted woodpeckers being fed in Rory’s Wood and there are quite large great crested grebe chicks on the Heronries. They are so often predated before they get to that size. We particularly noticed lots of blackcap singing this time, so I could imagine they are onto their second brood.
6 heron species have been seen recently over the extended reserve. That included a purple heron which stayed around for a couple of days and cattle egret that have been calling in for quite a while.
Our Saturday monthly lead walks are proving very popular. Over 25 people came out on the last one and 37 species of bird, 42 species of invertebrates and 41 species of plants were identified.
There is also plenty of other wildlife to see. The grizzled skipper butterflies are expanding their range. Small heath and common blues can be seen with them on sunny days. It is a shame that they all only live for about 2 weeks as an adult. Good news that tortoiseshell butterflies have been seen on the reserve and the sighting of a pair mating is even better as there hopefully will be more next year.
At least 10 species of dragons and damsels are out on the wing. There were plenty of banded demoiselle on the Himalayan balsam, we were pulling on our work party today, so they didn’t seem to mind the drizzly weather. Our other work today was finishing off the tree nursery, in readiness for more saplings, so we can plant more hedges.
We had a small celebration of our 30 years, by planting 3 Black Poplar for the future near the Riverview point. Did you know why they are rare? I found out why recently.
Apparently, they are a bit fire resistant, so the wood was used for the stocks of flintlock guns like the Brown Bess and powder kegs in Nelson’s navy. An awful lot of black poplar wood was used by companies such as the match company Bryant and May and no one replanted them for the future. If you want to see what they looked like in the past you have to look at old paintings, particularly those by John Constable.
Lots to say and I always like to hear more, so keep me informed with your sightings on friends@paxton-pits.org.uk
Best wishes
Ann
Ann Thomas 5.6.25