Last Thursday afternoon we decided to visit a Warwickshire Wildlife Trust reserve that we hadn't been to before. The site was only given to the Trust in 2012 and prior to that it had been used for gravel extraction until 1975 and then some small scale landfill.
The reserve is situated mid-way between Knowle and Temple Balsall and there are a variety of habitats within the small (4.25 hectare) area - semi-improved woodland, wetland, areas of grassland, pools, a brook and wet flushes.
195 vascular plants have been recorded and here's a few photos of some I saw
Self Heal
Bird's Foot Trefoil? - forgot to check the leaves!
Creeping Cinquefoil (plus Heath Speedwell, Parsley Piert and Thyme-leaved Sandwort)
Lots of Dog Roses flowering in the hedgerows
Scarlet Pimpernel - such a pretty, often overlooked flower. Other names for this species include "Poor Man's Weather Glass", "Shepherd's Sundial", "Wink-a-peep", "John-go-to-bed-at-noon" based on the plant's habit of opening at seven o'clock in the morning and closing at 2. Its petals also close when rain is on the approach. Apparently anyone holding one of the flower's gains second sight!
Cinquefoil, Clover, Speedwell and Pimpernel
Various habitat improvements are in progress - paths are being established and scrub encroachment tackled. The wet flushes will be managed along with the silted up ponds to improve habitats for invertebrates. At present around 764 invertebrate species occur here, 12 of which are nationally scarce and 7 regionally important.
Had a peek under this refugia -
but there was only an ant nest!
Scorpion Fly
I'm still trying to identify this species.
Cinnabar moth - rubbish photo (very heavily cropped) as soon as I got close it immediately took flight.
There were quite a few Ringlets around the reserve and an unidentified blue butterfly too far away to even guess which species. There were quite a few blue damselflies around too but again I couldn't get close enough to identify any.
On the way home we stopped off at Barston Ford
Garden Moths
Finally, I'm trapping more moth species. So a few photos of recent moths.
First of all, a couple of the smaller or "micro" moths. I really do need to start getting to grips with these if I am to stand any chance of reaching 365 species seen in the garden this year (update on that challenge hopefully later next week).
Crambus pascuella
Juniper Webber
Buff Ermine
Bright-line Brown-eye
Flame
Willow Beauty
Not 100% sure of this one - think its probably a freshly emerged Willow Beauty again (its not large enough for Great Oak Beauty)
Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing (I don't usually start trapping these this early in the year).
Small Magpie
Heart and Dart
Dagger aggregate - there a couple of Dagger species that can only be separated by genitalia dissection which I have no intention of ever doing!
And a so-far unidentified weevil lurking in one of the egg boxes. My file of unidentified species from the garden and elsewhere just gets larger and larger - very hard sometimes to find time for identification especially when just one or two species can take me hours of trawling through books and websites.
