Sept 30th

Nothing much happening lately a lot of activity with boats and general public so we mainly limit our visits. Good numbers of Speckled Woods noted today though along with Singles of Peacock and Red Admiral . Brown Hawker Dragonfly looking for prey along north hedgerow and good numbers of Common Darter around top pool in the wood. Very quite on the mere as I said due to the amount of boat activity , hopefully as Autumn then winter approaches the boating will end. I know everyone has the right to enjoy there own activities but it really does get up my back , when birds have flown miles and all they want to do is feed up and rest only do be disturbed by someone in a floating tube splashing around oblivious to the damage they are doing to our wildlife. Oh a Common Marbled Carpet moth was seen along with a very large wasp like Hoverfly which iam still trying to identify.As I did not have my camera to hand I have added two images from Nature Guide UK. The species was definitely Chrysotoxum with this one from memory looking the closest .

Mothing session Part 2

A second moth trapping session was done last night again in and around the visitor's centre car park. I was joined again by Jack Swan and Cheshire Micro Moth county recorder Steve Hind. Between the two of them there is not much they don't know about Birds , Insects , Plants , Trees and anything Wildlife in general both of them a mind of information. Anyway back to moths it had been a warm day with temperature's around the 24 degree's mark and still in the high teens during the night. We caught well over 500 moths again but this time only 50 different species of which twenty one were new to the site. As you can see from some of the images below it paints a Autumn scene with gold's and yellows in most of the moths.

Sallow.

Centre-barred Sallow.

Orange Swift.

Goldspot.

Dusky Thorn.

Request for Sightings

If you have any sightings of Birds, Insects etc or photos please e mail address on right hand side of front page. astburywildlife@yahoo.co.uk or text to 07712 146418.

Raven

Raven over car park early morning . M Stubbs.

Black Swan

The feral Black Swan has appeared again on the mere doing the rounds again between north Staffs and south Cheshire. Very little else of note really . Butterflies noted were Comma , Red Admiral , Large and Small White's , Gatekeepers and Speckled Wood.

Kingfisher

Kingfisher returns to the mere seen this afternoon around the bay to right hand side as you walk down from visitor's centre. Also Reed Warbler noted feeding young. J Spottiswood.