New Forest Wonders

On Sunday we went on a family walk at Cerne Abbas in Dorset. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great so it wasn’t the best day for wildlife.

That’s not to say there was no wildlife around though. From the car park I could hear loud screeching which could have only come from a buzzard. Sure enough, I quickly spotted the culprit which was clearly one of this year’s chicks.

Not far from the famous Cerne Abbas Giant we spotted lots of yellowhammers giving alarm calls. Ironically my bird book says yellowhammers are “typical on warm, sunny days”.

As the title suggests though most of today’s content comes from the New Forest. It’s always delightful to head out of the town and into the forest but this is probably the best time of year to go.  The boggy areas are drier than usual, there’s still hardly anyone around during the week and the heather is looking fantastic.

My first spot was a fungus, a Common Earthball (Scleroderma citrinum).

Near one of the streams, as well as a herd of cows, were loads of dragonflies. I thought I saw two different species but it turns out they were male (blue) and female (yellow) Keeled Skimmers.

It has become traditional for every post to have a photo of a deer in it and today is no different! This one is perhaps the best yet though, a fallow deer stag.

I also spotted a young roe deer stag, although this one was a little further away:

There were lots of birds flitting around the gorse and I couldn’t quite work out what they were initially.

I think that was a juvenile, or at least a female. When I eventually spotted a male it became clear they were stonechats. It’s amazing how these birds can stand on the sharp gorse.

I also spotted a more unusual butterfly on the heathland, a brown argus :

As I came back into the town I finally managed to capture one of the many white butterflies in the area. These butterflies don’t seem to settle very often and I have been trying to photograph one for ages.

I really struggled to identify this as any one species but I eventually concluded it’s probably a Green Veined White. It certainly looks about the right colour and they are apparently highly-variable.

All in all, it was a fantastic day in the forest.

Grasshoppers and Greenfinches

The temperature has reduced a little from earlier in the week but it’s still fairly warm, hovering between about 20 and 25 °C.

I have noticed that the birds are starting to be a bit less active. The majority have finished nesting and the earlier hatching juveniles are at the point where they are started to get their adult colours and are nearly able to fend for themselves.

Whilst these cygnets are still with their parents, they are nearly adult size and were feeding for themselves. This might well be the same swan family that I have featured here before given their location.

Whilst out by the river I tried to capture some photos of the swallows swooping over the water to catch insects. It is amazing to stand on a bridge and watch them shoot towards you. Sometime they fly really close to your head and other times they swoop low and go underneath the bridge. The best I managed to get was this:

This young blackbird was in the garden today, clearly now able to feed itself.

There are a few younger birds around though, like these baby goldfinches who were still waiting to be fed by their parents.

One final bird to share with you today, a robin sat on an old railway bridge:

I’ve seen lots of invertebrates over the last few days including yet another butterfly species- this is a Large Skipper.

I was walking along a street when I managed to spot this gorgeous Ghost Moth on a telephone pole. The name is perhaps appropriate seeing as though it was right outside the local cemetery.

I’ve seen lots of Cinnabar Moth caterpillars on ragwort this week. They are very distinctive and as ragwort often grows on the edge of paths they are really easy to spot. Ragwort is of course poisonous plant and therefore the caterpillars are poisonous too.

I haven’t featured a spider here for a few weeks now so here’s Tibellus oblongus. They don’t build webs and instead go and hunt their prey- it looks like this one was successful.

There’s a lot of grasshoppers chirping away in the long grass at the moment so I took it upon myself to get a photo of one. What with being tiny, hidden in long grass and able to fly that proved rather tricky but eventually I captured this one. It’s probably a Common Field Grasshopper.

Finally, here’s today’s obligatory deer photo:

Warm Wildlife

Summer has finally decided to put in an appearance this week. The temperature here yesterday was around 32° C and it’s been an uncomfortable few days and nights for us humans. The poor wildlife are stuck outdoors in it 24/7.

The Canada Geese haven’t been spending much time on the fields this week. With the majority of the goslings reaching near-adult size they are now spending most of their time on the lake, under the shade during the hotter parts of the day.

Meanwhile, the mammals are seeking the shade of the trees where possible. I saw this roe deer near the lake on Monday- I think they come down into the wooded areas of the New Forest to avoid the heat of the open heathland.

The oak trees near the lake are home to a fair few grey squirrels. They seem to be spending a lot of time on the ground at the moment, presumably avoiding the heat above. Being fairly rural squirrels these ones aren’t keen on people and hurtle up the trees as soon as you go near.

Life for smaller birds goes on largely as normal-you always need to eat after all. This is one of the Collared doves which frequents the garden and has learnt how to access one of the bird feeders.

It’s a precarious balancing act though and doesn’t always look so graceful:

The warmer weather is good news for some with the local butterflies starting to appear in some numbers. I’ve seen some of the usual suspects…

Meadow Brown

Red Admiral

…and some less common species.

Silver-Washed Fritllary 

Holly Blue

I have been keeping an eye on a nest which is in a box on the side of a telephone pole. Sadly when I walked past this evening I noticed a chick had obviously fallen from the nest and was squawking away.

I would have tried to put the chick back in the nest but given that it was some two metres above my head on a telephone pole it was impossible. The chick has no hope of surviving but I hope at least it will feed a hungry predator.

For me it was a reminder of the fragility of life in the wild. Rarely outside of TV do you get to follow individual animals, and even then you don’t see their demise. But in reality every thing you see is fighting for it’s very survival and often things go tragically wrong.

Well that was a melancholy ending wasn’t it? There’s good news though; I work in a school and have just finished for the summer holidays. That means I will have plenty more time over the next six weeks to get out into the wild so I hope to bring you lots of exciting things here in the coming weeks!

Blashford Lakes Again

Today I visited Hampshire and IoW Wildlife Trust’s Blashford Lakes reserve again. I had such a good time on my last visit I couldn’t resist taking my new camera along on another visit.

As I approached the reserve on the Avon Valley Path I spotted a few insects of interest. First up was this Volucella pellucens hoverfly. I love the way it is rubbing its front legs together as if forming a cunning plan.

Then I spotted this Bloody-nosed beetle (Timarcha tenebricosa) on a footpath. This individual was stuck on its back so I rolled it over and watched it scurry to safety. It gets it name from the fact it exudes a foul-tasting red/orange liquid to protect itself from predators.

By the shore of Ibsley Water I spotted several Oystercatchers.

I then headed to the Ivy Lake Hides and enjoyed watching the action on the rafts there. You can make out some black-headed gulls with chicks on this raft:

The main purpose of the rafts though is for common terns, as seen below. Terns are really struggling to find good nesting places at the coast and so places like this are really important for the species.

Next up I headed to my favourite hide, the Woodland Hide. I didn’t see anything particularly unusual or exciting but it’s always good to see birds like these up close.

Goldfinches

A very young blue tit

Robin

Chaffinch

Before I left there was just time for a trip to Goosander Hide. The scrape you can see from that hide is some distance away so even my new camera could only just make out the array of birds stood upon it.

Mute Swans, Cormorant, Egyptian Geese 

Tufted Ducks, Grey Herons

Over the course of the visit I got a good idea of how a great-crested grebe chicks grows up. These were seen on Ivy Lake:

And then later on I saw a much older juvenile on Ibsley Water:

Sometimes I think I could write a whole blog about great-crested grebes- I just think they’re awesome!