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Nature Watch Late Summer

Nature Watch Late Summer

It has seemed to have been a summer of interesting bird watching withour family of Canada Geese on the lake, turning from fluffy green goslings to fully feathered geese, our delightful pair of Kingfishers on the top lake and the nightly visits from the magnificent but silent Barn Owl.  How much longer they will all be around is debatable as the nights draw in. There must be just short of 30 swallows accumulating on the farm wires, we suspect all are from this years broods. As with last year, the British Trust for Ornithology have been busy monitoring and ringing the occupants of our many Nest boxes and fledged birds, though down in number have been of good quality. In the last week they have set up drift nets to catch birds, to be able to ring, to log weight/sex and age. All useful information for the BTO to assess the current state of our nations feathered friends. On the first day they got 53 birds from 14 species, including Marsh Tit, Goldcrest, Willow Warbler, Tree creeper to name a few.

Our David Bellamy Conservation Award Assessor has had his inspection visit and whilst our fingers are crossed for another Gold, he is also undertaking some detective work for us to identify the species and age of some of the giant freshwater Mussels the lake throws up. He was interested to hear that I had seen two Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillars- he hasn’t seen one for years!! (I have to confess I’d never seen one before and had to look it up!!) 

Our Bees seem quite content in the field behind the Park, the 2 hives quickly became 4 when our bee Keeper John, with the help of Chris, managed to avert a swarm into other hives. One has gone to the Moors for its summer holiday and we hope to have some Honey back before the end of the year. As new hives, this may not be in great quantity as we need to leave a proportion behind for the hardworking bees to live on.

Remember John is quite happy to show you the bees in all their glory and has the correct protective gear for you to wear to avoid their personal attention.

For those remembering the delightful spring lambs, it might come as a shock to see how big they have grown. The recent rain doing a good job in keeping their fleeces beautifully clean and the clover in the fields growing well, ensuring they continue to rear well. For those of a meat eating genre, their delicious result is now available for your freezer.

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