I was at Cranford Park for a very short visit on Wednesday (yesterday) and spent most of my visit sitting on the log by the new pond.
The pond Robin seems to be quite used to visitors and popped out a few times to see what I was up to....
and it was really lovely to see our first pond plant in flower. I'm pretty sure this is Marsh Marigold but happy to be corrected.....
However within minutes of arriving for my visit this morning (Thursday) I could have cried. Some mindless idiots have not only pulled up the notice put up by the Green Spaces team, thrown the posts in to the pond but also thrown all of the logs in to the pond....
including the one I was sitting on yesterday....
Heaven knows what satisfaction they achieved from doing that !! But I know it's going to make a lot of us quite fed up. Many of the volunteers gave up their spare time to help make this pond. Dragena and her team from the council spent hours on this project. Money was invested in it. Time was spent planning it. And for what ? So a few idiotic kids who were obviously dragged up to have no respect, just ruin it in a short time. And yes, I did say kids because we know they were seen trying to remove the sign before being challenged by two dog walkers. Sadly they obviously came back to finish off the job !
I hope their parents are really proud of the job they have done in raising children that have absolutely no respect for anyone and who find enjoyment in ruining things for others.
Hopefully there will be no long term damage (eg the liner being torn or ripped) but we might have to wait a few days to see if the water level goes down. Extracting the logs from the pond now might make things worse, going in to the pond and trying to move waterlogged lumps of tree is not going to be easy and might even damage the liner even more.
Below is the only vandalism I tolerate at Cranford Park.......
a Mallard dragging vegetation down to eat !!!
Todays visit was obviously soured by the state of the pond, but there was still a lot to see.
The Kingfishers on the river teased me in their usual way......flying up and down and perching, but always out of camera range. The Grey Wagtails (I am certain there are two now) were much more obliging as always. There was one by the stable blocks again (but no photos) and another on the river with great views from the stone bridge........
Despite it being almost mid-October, the morning was mild and bathed in sunshine for nearly all of my visit. This meant there were quite a few critters around.
The Garden Spider below caught a nice fat juicy fly and swiftly killed it and wrapped it in silk...
There were several Common Darters flying around and even some Hawkers including this Southern Hawker below. Dreadful out of focus photo but nice to see it perched for a few seconds.....
I completed my last UKBMS butterfly transect of the season with a very short tally
Eight butterflies / two species
6 x Red Admiral
2 x Speckled Wood
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| Red Admiral |
I have been seeing the lovely autumn Ivy Mining Bee (Colletes hederae) for the last few weeks, but no photographs until today, and even this is purely a record shot.......
The Ivy Mining Bee was recorded as new to Britain in 2001 when a bloke called Ian Cross discovered specimens at Langton Matravers in Dorset. Since then, the bee has spread across much of southern England (as far north as Shropshire, Staffordshire & Norfolk) and into south Wales. It is now extremely plentiful in some coastal localities, and increasingly, inland. Peak activity matches the flowering period of its key pollen forage plant, Ivy (Hedera helix), and the species is on the wing from early September until early November. This makes it the last solitary bee species to emerge each year. This is the third year I have found them at Cranford CP.
Surprisingly I also found two species of Ladybird this morning...
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| 7-spot ladybird |
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| Orange ladybird |
The mild weather also bought out some hoverflies. I found three species today. ID's under each picture.....
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| Eristalis sp. |
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| the huge Volucella zonaria |
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| Helophilus pendulus |
As always at Cranford Park there was the usual sighting of a Common Buzzard. This one was photographed against the sun so creating its unmistakable silhouette.....
I spent some time sitting under the huge Yew in St Dunstans. I was hoping for Redwing sightings, one of our winter thrushes, but had to make do with a Grey Squirrel pretending to be an ornamental statue......
My last photo below is very out of focus but it's the comparison between the leaves and the bird that I wanted people to see. This is one of many many Goldcrests that are making their way around the park this season. The Goldcrest is the UKs smallest bird and weighs roughly the same as a 20p piece. The out of focus bird below is photographed next to holly leaves. That is how small it is. Literally the size of a standard holly leaf.....
So not my usual 'bouncy' 'happy' 'carefree' blog post today. I cannot deny that the pond being vandalised has really angered and upset me. I only hope that once Dragena and her team survey the damage, that we find none of it is permanent.
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