The heat returns

Wow, what a week we have had in the UK, despite the coldest spring for 50 years the sun has finally got his hat on and is spreading his heat over Belvedere fields. I have a few visits to note down in this blog entry, just a catch up on these last weeks.

The 7th May was a quiet visit, a humid day made for a slow walk in the afternoon. A brimstone butterfly was spotted, a first for me over Belvedere, they put me in mind of the high visibility safety jackets, that vivid greeny yellow reflects the sunlight beautifully. A watchful Kestrel sat on the rooftop of one of the buildings that make up the Water Treatment Plant, suspected female, while two juvenile kestrels swooped around, occasionally having to escape the attacks of the annoyed Jackdaws.

Just to the south of Point 5 there is a small pond, a typical British pond full of weeds and reeds and positively bursting with life. I only learned of it's existance a few days ago, it's just off my usual route. I have made trips for the last 3 days and found a variety of different species such as small surface dwelling spiders, Midge Larvae, Caddis Fly Larvae, Pond Skater, Backswimmers, Water flea, Common Blue Damselflies, Crane Flies and Hover Flies. My plan is to continue monitoring the pond, there are some tadpoles in there and many more species.

Just further on from Point 5 is a Greater Spotted Woodpecker nest, the young are easily heard from inside. Both male and female have been doing a great job of feeding, they return every few minutes  with small invertebrates. On the same tree Blue Tits are nesting in a split in a branch, woodpeckers have been known to break into nests, especially nest boxes and predate young so these blue tits need to be careful. To add to the excitement two Buzzards have taken to hanging around this tree, they lazily drift over the adjoining fields and sometimes perch high in the tree, all the time calling to each other.

North from Point 5 a path leads up and along the farm, a few Linnets were active in the high grass, sometimes perching on the wire fence around the farm. The star bird of today was a Treecreeper, that was oblivious to me crouched down taking it's photo. It seemed content to settle on a slim branch about 10 feet away from me, and it stayed there for around 2 minutes before flying further up into the tree to join another one. I have seen Treecreeper once before over Belvedere and on that occasion there were also a pair and not very far from this second sighting but with a gap of a bout one year.