I have been away on holiday and did not have time to post about this visit on the Blog before I went away.
I was unable to identify all the invertebrates photographed but they are nevertheless posted here for interest. I'm not sure who said " Look after the invertebrates and the rest of nature will look after itself", but it's very apt!
On 9th May I spent some time at the reserve, not to do my usual recording visit but to remove wire netting from the old board walk timber and hammer down the sharp nails which were protruding from nearly every plank. Having made everything safe, I then stowed the old timber beneath the new boardwalk to "rot in peace" while serving as a habitat and hopefully suppressing vegetation at the same time. This old timber has lain there for several weeks now and naturally it had started to be colonised by invertebrates. These I photographed wherever possible and most of them are now living beneath the new boardwalk, still in the rotting timber planks. Here is what I recorded during the visit:
Birds:
SC209694 2 x Drake Mallard; Moorhen;
SC208694 female Blackbird; Sedge Warbler.
Other:
SC209693 Hare's Foot Inkcap fungi
SC208694 Unidentified fungi
SC209693 Orange tip butterfly egg on Garlic Mustard
SC208694 Unidentified worms; wood lice; snails, fungi, caterpillar.
SC208694 several White legged Snake millipedes
SC208694 3 x Pill Millipedes
SC208694 Polydesmus angustus millipede ?
SC208694 Unidentified snail
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| There were several of these worms |
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| a tiny caterpillar |
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| White legged snake millipedes were everywhere |
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| I thought these were insect eggs at first but in fact they are tiny toadstools |
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| some other mould or fungus busy recycling the wood |
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| This may be a Polydesmus angustus millipede |
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| a large chrysalis - moth? |
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| worm and tiny snail |
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| enlarged view |
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| there were plenty of wood lice |
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| very small beetle and a large Woodlouse |
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| some sort of gnat? |
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| Pill Millipedes roll into a ball when disturbed |
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| Slug |
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| Hare's foot Inkcaps |
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| unknown fungus |
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| tiny orange egg of Orange Tip butterfly |
And finally, some photos of the boardwalk on May 9th. There has been a lot of progress since.
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| start of the new bridge over the stream |
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| piles of timber now gone and stowed beneath the new structure |
I have been to the Reserve again since returning from my holiday and this will be the subject of my next post.
Please click on photos to enlarge them.
