It is not often we carry out three activities in a morning, but when requested we aim to please. A small group of children attended the Reserve. With the moth trap set the night before, a familiar moth to us here, but a crowd pleaser The Poplar Hawk moth.
This fairly large moth is a common find during the summer nights, especially as it is drawn to light traps, and open light windows. During the day its camouflage blends perfectlyagainst tree trunks. As its name suggests its food plant is the Poplar , but also the caterpillars foodplants of willow, aspen and sallows. By September the caterpillars will form chrysalis and hibernate to hatch out May June the following year.
A brief pond dip produced the usual suspects of various pond skaters, such as this Water Cricket
These fairly numerous little chaps are often overlooked.
The eggs are laid in long rows on floating plants and are found in May and June, nymphs from June to August. The adults feed on various small insects that have fallen into the water, using their rostrum , a straw like feeding tube, that they stab into the struggling exo-skeleton and drink the internalsoft tissue.Five larval stages, and two or three generations a year have been observed.
Dragonfly, as well as damselflies larvae are also on the hunt, using their alien like mouth parts to attact pretty much anything from minnows to tadpoles.
Ponds are pretty much everything eats someone else, to add to the predator list is the back swimmer, in this case the Common Back Swimmer, Notonecta glauca.
Up to nearly 2 cm in size, and commonly called backswimmers because they swim upside down and are often seen at the surface of the water. Notonecta glauca is light brown in colour with a number of dark markings and large reddish eyes. It often looks silvery as air becomes trapped in a layer of bristles covering the lower surface. The powerful oar-like hind legs are modified for swimming; they are long, flattened and fringed with hairs.
Various birds were seen at the Trust, by far the commonist is the Blue and Great Tits. Our young resident bird ringer demonstrated the reason why bird ringing is licenced and permitted. Look at previous blogs giving more detail on the UK ringing data.
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