Thumb therapy and an excellent afternoon at Maple Lodge NR

I booked today off work as holiday as I had to attend the Hand Therapy clinic at Mount Vernon for my thumb. I fell awkwardly about four weeks ago, and was initially diagnosed as having a fracture, so spent two weeks splinted up like this.......

 

 

Then I was told I had ligament damage too, so spent another two weeks with a much easier and manageable splint......

 

and this morning I was told all the swelling had gone down, so a new smaller splint was made for me, and I'll be spending the next two weeks like this.....

 

Anna, my Hand Therapist, has encouraged me to keep up with my photography, so as long as I can hold a camera comfortably, my weekends out and about haven't been affected at all (except for some of my dreadful photos on my blog posts from a month ago when my wrist movement was severely restricted.....)

 

As I had to attend Mount Vernon for my thumb, my lovely Mum suggested we visit my second favourite place after my appointment. So Mum joined me for a couple of hours at Maple Lodge NR before going off to do her own thing and leaving me to enjoy the reserve on my own for another couple of hours.

 

As to be expected at this time of year, there weren't many birds to see, although I did point out a male Blackcap and male Reed Bunting to Mum, and we saw the juvenile Great Crested Grebes.....

 

 

We also bumped in to the Parrs at Comma Corner and saw my first Longhorn beetles of the year....

 

Rutpela maculate with mating Common Soldier beetles

Rutpela maculate portrait shot

As to be expected, there were plenty of butterflies around today. I really wanted to photograph the recently seen Small Coppers and Brown Argus that had been seen in the Barn Owl meadow, but although I did see one of each, I couldn't get any photos.

 

However, there were plenty of butterflies that I could photograph.....

 

male Gatekeeper

worn Comma

male Meadow Brown

male Small White

Holly Blue

female Brimstone

 There was also a teeny tiny macro moth near the Barn Owl meadow, feeding on bryony...

Nettle Tap macro moth

There were a couple of Common Darters around.....

 

 

 

 

but the one member of the Odonata family that I really wanted to photograph was the Brown Hawker. There were at least four flying around the Barn Owl meadow, with another three seen from hides elsewhere on site. After Mum left I spent over an hour trying to capture one, but to no avail. Then as I was packing up my rucksack to move down to the Puddingstone, one landed right beside me......

 

What a stunner ! After failing to get a photo of a Brown Argus, this more than made up for it.

 

I had spotted quite a few Ladybirds around, and saw these two meet up....

The one on the right is our native Seven-spot, but I think the one on the left is a Harlequin species, but I'm not 100% sure. Either way the Seven-spot was the first to move, and when it did, it moved fast....

 

 

 

There were plenty of other critters around to make up for the lack of birds as always at this time of year, I just need to learn what are bees, what are hovers and what I can do to identify any of them.

There is a great facebook group called UK Hoverflies (link here) who have helped me massively in the past. I have to give them a mention. More about that later.....

 

possible Nomad or Digger Bee

Possible Wasp mimic...

 And lastly a Leaf-cutter bee completely laden with pollen......

 

 

 

 Maple Lodge wouldn't be Maple Lodge without a couple of wild Rabbit photos. At my local Cranford Park patch, I know they are there, but I don't often see them because the park is so popular with dog walkers. So to get so close to them at Maple Lodge is a bit of a bonus for me.....

 

 

I spent the last hour of todays visit in the Club House hide. Gary Armstrong had already tipped me off that he had seen a Kingfisher from the same hide this morning so with me having come prepared with sandwiches, water and bananas, I was more than happy to wait it out and see what I could see.....

 

and I wasn't disappointed.....

 

First up was a male Great Spotted Woodpecker....

 

 

 

then there was a flash of blue low across the water and heading straight into the willow....

I could just see the Kingfisher perched, but certainly not within camera range.

 

Another black and white bird flew across my view point, and I was well chuffed to see a juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker.....

 

After all of my intense studying of Great Spotted Woodpeckers last year when Mum was ill and we had seven individual birds visiting her garden, I am almost certain this juvenile is a female. The red cap is towards the front of the head, where if it was a male juvenile, the red cap would be more at the back of the head.

 

Either way, watching these two made the wait for the Kingfisher worthwhile.

As I started to pack away my bins and food I happened to hear a 'plop' and looked up. There was the Kingfisher with a fish, perched on the branch Gary had told me about. I couldn't get my camera on it quick enough to capture it eating the fish, but I did manage to grab four photos before it took off....

 

 

So a great finale to my days visit.

 

When I got home it was great to see a book had been delivered.

Being a complete novice to Hoverfly id, I had asked on the facebook forum for recommendations for a book. A certain Owen Llewellyn not only recommended a book, but offered to give me his first edition as he had already purchased the second edition......

 

 

but as you can see from the photo below, I still need some help...

 

I'm a novice. Give me time..

 

All in all, it wasn't a bad day. I got my thumb re-assessed, got to have a good gossip with my lovely Mum, got to see and photograph a Brown Hawker and get a Kingfisher. Then home to a book I really need to read from cover to cover....

Cranford Park Open Day - Part Two

Some good news, more good news and some sad news about the wildlife at Cranford Park.....

 

Good news is the Swallows have re-built their nest, and even with the Open Day activities going on, the birds were seen going to and from the nest site quite regularly. Let's hope whoever destroyed the first nest, leaves this one alone....

 

 

The second lot of good news is that there are definitely five Kestrels out in the meadows at the moment. Four look like juveniles with the presence of at least one adult seen at times on Saturday. I only spent an hour with them, but it was still wonderful to watch their interaction with each other, and practising their hovering and flying skills.....

 

The sad news is it is now almost certain the Little Owls have moved away from their usual Oaks. There have been no sign of any owlets at all. Even one of the regular early morning dog walkers, who is generally the first one to spot them each year, has confirmed he hasn't seen any this season. This seemed to be confirmed when the Open Day falconer set up his display right by the Oaks, and there was no interaction from the resident Little Owls. Even the falconer commented he would have heard the birds if they had been in the nearby trees. They could still be present at Cranford Park, but at a different location. It might now be too late in the season to try and track them down, but next year in late spring, I'll search further out.

 

After my volunteer stint discussing the history of the park in the stables with the wonderful Christopher, I took my macro lens out around the nettles, thistles and buddleia at the back of the woods near the M4.

 

It might be noisy at that end, but that didn't stop me seeing a variety of little critters......

 

Mirid Bug (female) - deraeocoris ruber

The buddleia and thistles were attracting some lovely hoverfly species. I'm only just getting in to watching these beauties, and found three species today.

 

Volucella is a family of large, broad-bodied, dramatic hover-flies. They are migratory and males are often territorial. Adults feed on nectar of flowers and are often seen sunning on leaves. The larvae of most species live in nests of bumblebees and social wasps, where they feed off the bees and wasps larvae. Quite gruesome, but that's nature for you.

 

Volucella zonaria

Volucella pellucens

Volucella inanis

The same patch of scrub was also alive with butterflies. The Comma was the most prolific today, but there were other varieties seen to.....

Speckled Wood (male) - Pararge aegeria

Holly Blue (female) - Celastrina argiolus

Gatekeeper (male) - Pyronia tithonus

Comma - Polygonia c-album

Green-Veined White - Artogeia napi

Red Admiral (male) - Vanessa atalanta

Only a brief couple of hours spent watching the wildlife, most of my day was spent visiting the stalls at the Open Day (see part one of Cranford Park Open Day blog post), so not much of the park covered. Hopefully on next weekends visit, I'll concentrate on some parts of the park I often neglect to visit.