Osprey sighted over Widdop Moor and Reservoir

Philip Booker emailed me a sighting of an Osprey over Widdop Moor and Reservoir East Lancashire heading south.

Ospreys pass through this area heading north in spring and south in late summer early autumn they often stop over at Stocks reservoir and I have seen one there.

Each year the RSPB track some of the Loch Garten Ospreys as they migrate back to Africa one of the birds they tracked came through East Lancs have a look here http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/tracking/lochgartenospreys/index.aspx click on previous years.

The Glorious 12th!

Walked over Weets from Salterforth to Todber. Weather started lovely and sunny - forecast for sunshine and showers. Saw several Green Veined White males battling and two paired up. There were also several Meadow Browns flying about near moorland path. Very dark storm clouds started gathering and we got caught in a torrential downpour. Just as it started we spotted two foxes crossing the track ahead of us. One spotted us and leapt over the wall into the wood, then kept peeking back over at us from behind a bramble. The other took longer to spot us and we got one photo before it saw us and charged off after its mate. It looks so anxious in the photo. Beautiful long tail. Worth getting very wet for.

Green Veined White Butterflies

Meadow Brown Butterfly (male)

Birk Bank

Photographed my all-time favourite fly  feeding on a patch of wild mint at Birk Bank near Clougha - the wonderfully named Tachina grossa. It's about an inch long with a beautiful yellow head, glossy black back and a very bristly bottom. The larvae hatch from eggs laid individually in burrows and which have kindly been supplied with a nice fat caterpillar each before Mum left. Wonderful!

More Hedgehogs

Earlier on in the year I said I was worried that there seemed to be less hedgehogs around than usual, so I suppose it  serves me right though in the nicest possible way that I now have at least three hedgehogs visiting the garden to be fed. There is at least one large one and last night for the first time we had two small hedgehogs at the same time.They fed side by side though they kept trying to jostle each other away and eat as much as possible as quickly as possible. One was lighter and slightly larger than the other. I also found a hedgehog asleep in a pile of bubblewrap in the garage that same morning. After eating the little hedgehogs trundled off in opposite directions, watched one go behind the house and eat fat fallen from birdfeeders, then it had a little scratch and sleep curled up behind house before heading back for more catfood. We still have to leave a little gap between the saucers for the baby hedgehogs to get their snouts under otherwise they can't dislodge the top dish and just round around it in panicky circles till we go out and move it.

Baby Hedgehog

The little hedgehog has sort of learnt how to nudge the top saucer off the food, sat eating in the rain with it on its head, not sure if intentional ! Ended up sat in the plate as usual.

Stocks Reservoir

16/07/10

Hogweed, Pink Valerian, Meadowsweet, Blackberries, Knapweed, Thistles, Nettles  and Meadow Vetchling all flowering which meant there were loads of insects flying on a warm, breezy overcast day with some sunny spells. Some of the hogweed flowers were just covered in soldier beetles and various flies. Meadow Brown butterflies are really hard to photograph as they drop to the ground to avoid predators (photographers) attention.


Sericomyia silentis

Eristalix pertenax

Sunfly, Heliophilus pendulas

Sawfly, Tenthredo arcuata

Grypocoris stysi

Gasteruption jaculator with Soldier Beetles

Soldier Beetles, Rhagonycha fulva

Meadow Brown

Hedgehogs

After worrying about the lack of hedgehogs earlier in the year we now have at least two visiting the garden every night to be fed, one of which is tiny.  To stop cats eating the catfood I put an inverted saucer over the bottom saucer and it seems to work. The big hedgehog just shoves it off with its nose or rocks the saucers.  The little one can't though. The other night the little one turned up around 9.50 pm, trundling around in front of the shed and climbing around on an alchemilla. It wandered around the saucers unsure what to do and I'd forgotten to leave a gap it could get its nose under. It was about to give up so I went out and uncovered the food. It froze, then ran off under the shed,but when I came back in we could see its little nose going  and it came back to the food. The big hedgehog came down the side of the house and up behind the small hedgehog and we thought it might be hostile, but it just ate a little alongside it, walked off, circled back a couple of times then left the little one to the food. We did wonder if it was its Mum. The small one ended up sitting in the middle of the dish troughing its heart out.