I stayed at Mum's house last night so today it made perfect sense to go to the nearest NR, which is Maple Lodge, rather than trek back home.
First port of call was the Clubhouse Hide to see if the recent resident rat-catching juvenile Heron was in attendance. He/she wasn't and it wasn't long before I spotted a rat. Some of the teenage Mallards (and a Moorhen) also spotted it, and although the rat didn't spook them off, they eyed it carefully at all times.....
By the Woodshed there was a large flock of Long-tailed Tits calling noisily and busily picking at the branches for any insects.....
I lost count at 20, but noticed at the tops of the branches moving along with the large family Tit group, were at least two Goldcrests, several Blue Tits and Great Tits and a possible warbler. No photos unfortunately, but it's always worth checking out LTT flocks at this time of year as you never know what's going to be flitting along with them.
At the Rotunda Hide I saw my first Kingfisher of the day, heard my first Cettis Warbler of the season and had a Wren posing on the log pile.....
I was making my way back from the Rotunda when I heard a 'scraping' noise. I stopped and waited in silence hoping it was a Weasel or Muntjac, but after several minutes I realised the noise was actually wasps taking wood off the fence panels.....Who knew they could be so noisy ?
They were pretty flighty though so instead of faffing about and taking off my rucksack and putting my macro lens on to the camera, I just fired off a few shots with my 150-300mm zoom lens.
Not the best quality photos, and although I have seen this behaviour before, I've never managed to capture it.......
After yesterdays dreary weather where I struggled to take any photos of anything in Mum's garden, today was bright though not hot, and there were lots of critters around.....
I saw at least three Damselflies, though I'm not going to hazard a guess at to which this one is.....
And there were plenty of Darters around too.
Last week I mis-identified the ones I saw, so I'm just going to call these 'Darters'.......
They were everywhere. On the three benches by the owl box meadow, each bench had it's own Darter sunning on the wood. In fact I saw so many Darters I could have filled a whole blog post just about them, and therefore correctly identified them too......
In the same owl box meadow I thought I saw a Brown Hawker but couldn't relocate it. But there were other Hawkers around too. As per the behaviour I witnessed a few weeks ago, when the sun went behind clouds the Brown Hawker settled in the scrub that runs alongside the path.
It was the same today. On the few occasions the sun did disappear, the Hawkers all settled in the scrub.
I'm as good with Hawkers as I am with Darters, but after zooming in and out of this photo below, I think this is a Migrant Hawker....
Other critters seen today was this female Scorpion Fly.....
and a fairly good selection of Hovers.
Sadly at this point, I still didn't have my macro lens on the camera, just the 150-300 zoom, so I haven't even tried to identify these hovers today. The photos just aren't clear enough......
All over the reserve you can hear Kingfishers calling, but they weren't being as photogenic and predictable as last week. I got a fleeting glimpse of one from the Rotunda as mentioned above, but decided to try my luck from the Teal Hide.
My decision was spot on, it wasn't long before a Kingfisher was heard calling, seen briefly, then done a U-turn and disappeared. I stuck it out for another hour and luckily for me it did return, but not to pose for photos.
Instead it flew from a distant shrubby tree....
to another distant shrubby tree (in shade).....
to a distant branch sticking out of the water....
Whilst waiting for the elusive King to provide me with a photo opportunity, I saw a Red Kite and Buzzard soaring over, and later two Common Buzzards came over together.....
There was also a teenage Great Crested Grebe that often came in to view, and spent more time grooming than feeding.....
Coming back out of the Teal Hide I found some Puffball fungi by the side of the hide (with one good sized specimen already gone over and been nibbled by mice), plus a possible Shaggy Ink Cap on one of the submerged logs.......
Along the same path was the sad sight of a dead rabbit.......
There were no visible injuries and flies were just starting to be attracted to it, so it's a recent kill. The head looked to be wedged under an already fallen tree, so I reckon (with my limited but still learning tracking skills) that this could be a Weasel kill and the prey has rolled down the slope, got wedged, and the Weasel has been unable to dislodge it ??? Feel free to comment with your own thoughts......
I've seen Weasels kill and carry adult Water Voles before, so a small Rabbit wont have been a problem for it. From my knowledge had this been a Fox that had killed the Rabbit, I wouldn't have been looking at a whole carcass......
Later on in the day a couple of ladies who I was showing the Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar to, had mentioned they had seen a dead Mole on the new woodland path. They were kind enough to show me the poor dead mammal, and we bumped in to Dave Simms just as he found it too...
I've only seen one Mole and that was a captive one at the British Wildlife Centre. I've never seen a live one in the wild, and this was also my first dead one.
So what killed it ?
As with the Rabbit, this was obviously a fresh kill. It was a good size (imagine a medium sized Rat without it's tail) so an adult rather than a young inexperienced Mole. There were no obvious injuries, as with the Rabbit.
I know Foxes will dig in to Rabbit burrows, but I don't think they have the expertise hearing that would alert them to a Mole burrowing.
But a Weasel does......
Mum came by later to pick up me up (bless her) and I showed her both the Rabbit and Mole, and after much discussion we think it's a Weasel responsible for both kills. If I had been carrying my camera trap, I would have set it up on one of the carcasses to see what came back to collect it.
But I wasn't.....
So back to the nicer things seen today.
Considering it was a cool but sunny day in September, I didn't expect to see many butterflies, but there were quite a few nice specimens around......
Speckled Wood....
Comma...
and a very tatty faded Blue that I can only guess is a Holly.....
There were also good numbers of Large White, some very fresh Red Admirals, a Small Tortoiseshell and reports of a Peacock and a Painted Lady, though I didn't see either of the latter.
On the woodland path I found a Snout moth, a member of the Pyralidae family.....
Not far from the Puddingstone one of the Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars was still visible.....
Mum arrived for my last hour on site, and as she's also a member, was able to let herself in. But this was her first visit without me and she was soon lost (just a suggestion for the Maple Lodge NR owners....a sign saying 'Teal Hide this way' might be an idea off the main path)
After a few texts we found each other only for Mum to tell me of her experience......a face to face encounter with a Muntjac. She spotted it disappearing in to the scrub between the new Woodland Walk and the opening to the old Woodland Walk whilst trying to find the Teal Hide.
I'm gutted. I've now been to the reserve several times and have still yet to see a Muntjac ! Mum turns up on her first solo visit, without a camera, and spots one within minutes of being on site....!
We spent the last 30 minutes in the Clubhouse Hide. Ever since I found out last week that I can make my own cup of coffee with a donation to the tin, I've been dreaming of sitting in the Clubhouse Hide on a late afternoon with a cup of hot coffee, so today I bought the milk, put my change in the tin and enjoyed half an hour of back lit viewing.....
I've left the rest of the milk in the fridge, and my next visit wont be few weeks, so please use it up :)
