Back in the good old days we did some work on a private nature reserve with a few good mates. One of whom, Andy, revisited it with me last weekend to have a shuffy about to see what we could see.
It was a mild day but without much sunshine so we struggled to find any reptiles in their usual places as we set off on our wander. Birdlife too was hard to come by but then it's that time of year when many of the summer birds have already left, the winter birds haven't arrived yet and the local residents are moulting and keeping their heads down. Only a Wren made it's presence felt. I saw, and I'm not sure if Andy did too, a Stoat dashing along the winding footpath about 20 yards ahead of us. I've not seen one for yonks - not since the now infamous 'Stork on the bridge' incident at WWT's Martin Mere reserve a few years ago.
Odd snippets of sunshine between the clouds brought out some butterflies but as soon as cloud cover came back they quickly descended to bask on something warm
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| Small Tortoishell basking on a boardwalk |
Always on the lookout for something we followed the track down to the riverbank. Here the water was beautifully clear but no fish were spotted. In a calm eddy away from the rushing stream several
Pond Skaters were scooting around on their wide-spread lanky legs. Not the 'normal' ones you see on a normal pond these were 'reet big dobbers' biggest either of us had ever seen!
Back on the reserve's 'main circuit' we both kept an eye out for the large
Raft Spiders known to inhabit the pools within the bog but to no avail, none showed themselves today. Much easier to see were the numerous fungi, it's that time of year now. A large
Boletus lay crumpled and slug damaged beside the path and several pure white once weren't inspected too closely. Fallen trees give the best opportunities for checking out the
Bracket Fungi.
Late summer isn't the best time of year for wildflowers particularly after a hot dry summer but we did come across several
Ragged Robin plants still in flower and then a small patch of
Common Toadflax.
By now we were retracing our steps back towards the car park and began looking in earnest for reptiles again. Success this time when I spotted a
Common Lizard trying to warm up on the edge of the boardwalk. There still wasn't quite enough sun to bring out the snakes though. A
Common Hawker dragonfly buzzing around along the trail wouldn't settle for a pic.
After a ten minute sit down listening to the local
Ospreys whistling around the valley, they'd been the soundtrack of the day, how often do you get to say that???, we wandered into the woodland. As expected it was a quiet in there, mid to late afternoon isn't the liviest time for birds in a woodland so we 'made do' with exploring some interesting dry stone walls that wriggle their way through parts of the wood. Their function, whatever that was, is now long gone. This one had an unusual plinth on one side of an opening. It has the look of somewhere you put your milk churns out for collection in times gone by. But this wall was deep in the woods with no sign of a track that a horse and cart might have plodded along...chin-strokingly interesting...hmmm. Answers on a post card please!
On the other side of the gap (no sign of a gate or gate posts) the wall looked like it had been repaired in the not too distant past where a leaning tree had pushed over the original stones. A out of place right angled section had been built to accomodate the, now larger, tree with the wall then curving to join the original undamaged section a few yards further on...chin-strokingly interesting...hmmm.
This next wall is very obviously on the side of an old track.
Its cloak of
Moss was lovely to behold and had there been any fruiting bodies poking up from the lush green carpet we'd probably have tried to take some close up pics.
This wall leads out of the woods to an open view looking up the valley towards the southern fells of the Lake District. Not a bad spot to sit for while on a warm afternoon and just soak up the scenery
Re-entering the woodland we followed the trail markers back to the road where we turned left to visit the large pond by the main gate. Nothing doing there, a
Great Tit called from somewhere above us and that was it, the sun was no longer on the water so there were no dragonflies flying around. Two
Emerald Damselflies quickly disappeared into the long bankside vegetation. A shame as they warranted further investigation as the much scarcer
Willow Emerald Damselfly is currently on a northwards march due to climate change.
Walking back up the road we passed the big tarn where as expected a couple of Little Grebes showed themselves, the only other bird on there was a lonely Mute Swan. The roadside wall here nearly gave us good views of a male Black Darter dragonfly but with the sun shining on the other side he chose to settle to bask there rather than on the top where we could have seen him.
With time pressing on we had another look to see if any snakes had come out now it was a bit warmer but with their favourite areas now in shadow we were out of luck.
And with that news all good things come to an end so we'll see you out on safari somewhere next time.
Bye for now
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