Initially we headed to the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve at Lower
Moor.
From the first hide dragonflies were very much the order of
the day with Emperor,
four-spotted
chaser and brown hawker
putting on an amazing aerial show.
Four-spotted chaser |
The lake was covered with blue damselflies, no doubt a mix
of common
blue and azure.
It’s worth looking at the common blue link to see a pair properly forming the
heart shape!
Birds were a bit thin on the grounds, but we were lucky
enough to watch a common
tern fishing and see a family of mute
swan move effortlessly across the lake.
We then worked our way around the edge of the lake and saw signs
that otter were active in the
area.
The next dragonfly species seen was a couple of cracking
male black-tailed
skimmers.
A male chiffchaff
was singing from the top of a willow tree, but managed to stay hidden from us.
We then moved onto Clattinger Farm where we saw a number of
butterfly species: meadow brown,
ringlet, marbled
white, large
white, large
skipper and small skipper.
Male marbled white |
We also saw, smelt and tasted a number of plants including: pepper saxifrage,
lady’s
bedstraw, betony,
black
knapweed, greater
knapweed, salad
burnet, greater
burnet, devil’s-bit
scabious, bird’s-foot
trefoil and common
spotted orchid.
On our way back to the picnic area, a brief stop at
Twitcher’s Gate produced coot,
greylag
goose, cormorant,
herring
gull, lesser
black-backed gull and more common tern.
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