Walking with a Camera

I rarely go out into the reserve without my camera.  It is sometimes amazing what you can find.  Looking at marks on the leaves of Rowan, we turned them over to be met with sputnik looking things. We presumed that they were galls of some sort and when we checked we found them to be Gymnosporangium cornutum, a rust gall.  This is a new species for the reserve.

No ringing tomorrow and as rain is forecast it could well be a day to update the species list and check the number of new species recorded over the last few months.

Some members of the bird ringing team are heading to Dividalen in Norway again, for a week of bird ringing.  They will have to remember the different birds they caught last year and to ring on the left leg, not the right as we do in Foxglove.  As there are no signals for communications so far north, inside the Arctic Circle, we will have to wait until they return with many photographs of their activities.

A slight detour from walking with the camera around Foxglove! 

We wandered into the Winter Seed Crop area and were really pleased with the way that it is developing.

The area has been ploughed for several years and each year there is an improvement.  Many of the stones have now been removed!

There were many spiders running around.  Running is emphasised as there was no way a photograph could be taken. A Small Copper butterfly was enjoying the sunshine in amongst the flowers.

Along the edge of the field is the conifer block and it provides several sunny glades that were being enjoyed by Speckled Wood butterflies.

Hemp Agrimony attracts many butterflies and this Red Admiral was drinking the nectar.

Harebells are beautiful, now growing at both ends of the moor.  We assume that plants grow where the conditions are just right for them.  These Harebells are growing in the middle of Gorse!