It's all kicking off!

Yes, spring already we hear you cry. It only seemed like last week when we were getting over new year and now we have our first sping arrival in the shape of a chiff chaff, which has been seen and heard chiff chaff-ing away along the path between the visitor centre and Bernard's hide. Another spring visitor that's also been seen and heard is a blackcap on the sailing lake path near the bench. Dunnocks can be seen around the reserve singing from the calling posts. This spring activity comes just in time for our spring activities here at Lackford.

We've got lots happening here at Lackford this spring starting with our Spring safari activity day on the 31st March where we will be looking for wildlife in the streams, lakes, ponds and woods of Lackford Lakes.

On the 1st of April, we have Family Friday where you can explore the reserve to see how many springtime challenges you can complete.

Our regular Naturally Art workshop is on the 2nd April as well as our wildlife weekend the Sounds of Spring, which runs throughout the weekend. This is the time of year when the air is filled with the sounds of birds calling for a mate. How many different species will you hear? Are birds the only thing you'll hear? On the Sunday, you can take a Wildlife Wander with the guides on a tour of the reserve and see some of the wildlife that lives at Lackford and how they are getting ready for spring.

On the 5th April, we have Love bugs and crazy daisies activity morning for 4-7 year olds, where they can go on a hunt for the mini beasts that inhabit the reserve.

At the end of the week on the 8th April, we have Young wardens who will be sharpening the conservation skills by working on the reserve.

There's always plenty happening at Lackford, don't forget to check out our forthcoming events list on the right of this page, or click on the link at the top.

Another first for Lackford!

Yes, another species has been recorded for the first time at Lackford in the shape of a raven, two in fact. The were spotted deep in combat with a pair of red kites over the sheep fields by several people and thankfully, captured on camera by our regular visitor and contributor Ian Goodall.

Two ravens circle one of the red kites © Ian Goodall

In pursuit, the raven identified clearly by its size and diamond shaped tail © Ian Goodall

Tables turned, the red kite dives after one of the ravens © Ian Goodall

Quarrel over, the red kite drifts majestically away © Ian Goodall

This just goes to show that even when the weather is overcast, raining or dreary, that the action doesn't cease. A big thank you to Ian for allowing us to use these photos.

Another unusual capture.

This weekend saw the kingfishers displaying well around the reserve, especially at the false bank at Hawker Pool. 

Male kingfisher approaches the false bank © Ian Goodall

However, another regular visitor Alan Theobald managed to capture this unusual situation at Bernard's Hide.

Kingfisher with a Great Crested Newt © Alan Theobald

Yes, the male kingfisher managed to catch and eat this great crested newt at Bernard's pool, which just goes to show that the lakes don't just have fish and crayfish in them, there's newts too. Thank you Alan for sharing.

It doesn't stop there, yes, there's more. Barry Woodhouse, another regular contributor managed to get a photo of this very shy individual also at Bernard's hide.

Water rail © Barry Woodhouse

Water rail are more often heard than seen with their screaming call being emitted from the reed beds, but of late, several have been showing well sneaking out of cover.

Elsewhere on the reserve, everything has been getting busy as spring finally gets under way. Our Visitor officer even caught this black-headed gull trying to chase off a mute swan, which in turn was seeing off a canada goose. 

Back off!! © Hawk Honey

So as we've seen, it doesn't have to be all blue skies and sunshine for you to see lots at Lackford, there are things happening all the time, so don't miss out!

Sightings

Red-crested pochard are still being seen mainly from Steggall's hide on Wilson's Flood near the pontoon. Shelduck have grown in number and we now have about a dozen that can be seen on The Slough along with oystercatchers, redshank, teal, shoveler and the odd kingfisher and snipe.

Snipe have also been showing very well at Bernard's hide, with the occasional jack snipe turning up from time to time. As seen above, water rail are also being spotted here too.

In Ash Carr, nuthatch, siskin, grey wagtail, goldcrest, great spotted woodpeckers, marsh tit, coal tit and treecreepers are regularly being spotted. Plenty of wrens are also being seen around the reserve too.

Wren looking for insects © Hawk Honey

Barn owl has been spotted on some evenings from the Double-decker hide. Buzzards are a regular spot over the reserve and red kite are also getting seen more. In the fields next to Ash Carr, look out for a pair of kestrels often seen perched in the lone tree.

Kestrel pair in Ash Carr field

Also in the field this weekend, 70+ redwing  were spotted feeding up getting ready for the long flight north.

Redwing getting ready to leave © Barry Woodhouse

Don't forget, soon the spring migrants will be arriving at Lackford and we want your sightings. So if you think you've seen a new arrival, please pop into the centre and let us know.

Every little helps

Well last weekend was our themed weekend Things with Wings. Being a Bank Holiday as well, the reserve saw plenty of visitors, many of whom also came to see what had been caught in our moth trap overnight. The moths caught included poplar hawkmoth, white ermine, cockchafers and many more.

A fresh looking White Ermine moth

Poplar hawkmoth hangs onto a Cockchafer for support.

Yellow Belle, a Breckland species.

The visitors were amazed at the different varieties that we caught and some were even brave enough to hold them.

Getting to know a Billywitch

Poplar hawkmoth wows those looking on.

Due to the success of the moths, we may be holding moth trapping days more often, so watch this space.

The weekend also saw us hold our first bat walk on the reserve. Thankfully the weather held out and the bats enthralled all those who attended the walk. We saw and heard several species on the bat detectors including pipistrelle’s, noctule’s and daubenton’s to name a few. Look out for more of these bat walks in the future.

Every little helps

As many of you know, there are many people who help out at Lackford by donating their time, whether it is in the visitor centre or out on the reserve. One group that help out are the Young Wardens. Last week they got busy out on the reserve helping to clear some willow to create a dragonfly viewing point for visitors to the reserve. They also helped by filling the new tree nursery with some saplings and planting some saplings out on another part of the reserve.

Maria gets ready to plant some new saplings in the tree nursery.

A sapling planted out on the reserve.

A big thanks to the Young Wardens, your work has not gone unnoticed. If you are 10-15 and would like to join the Young Wardens, then click here for more details.

If you would like to help out in the visitor centre, we are still seeking some bubbly, confident volunteers to help out on Sunday’s, Monday’s (during summer period) and Tuesday’s. See here for more details.

Plants for sale

We have had a fresh delivery of plants with a big thanks to all those who have donated them to us. Please feel free to pop along and have a browse, all we ask for is a donation and all proceeds goes towards the Trust.

Give a plant a home in your garden.

Sightings

The past week has seen the kingfishers showing well and now their young have hatched, they will be seen more often as the busy task of feeding the chicks gets underway. Many of the smaller birds such as the tits and warblers will have had their young fledge by now, so keep an eye out on the reserve as the parents still feed their young, but out in the open now.

Kingfisher approaches with food.

Red crested pochard still have 3 young down at Fullers mill hide and the shelduck still have 7 young on the Slough.

Birds of prey are still to been seen with hobby’s around the visitor centre and sailing lake. There have been more sightings of late of red kite and other birds visible this week were buzzard’s, kestrel and sparrowhawk.

Swifts have been plentiful, especially when the wind picks up, and so have house and sand martin’s. Great crested grebes are nesting down on the east lakes. This is also a good area for the dragonfly spotters amongst you. Recent and regular visitors Tony and Sandy (@tonyandsandy) recently saw and photographed this unusual looking four-spotted chaser.

Libellula quadrimaculata praenubila form (@tonyandsandy)

This form of dragonfly is known as a praenubila form and can be distinguished by the extra darkening of the wing-tips, which isn’t seen in the normal form. It is thought that this darkening is caused by the water temperature whilst the dragonfly is still a larvae. 

A normal looking Four-spotted chaser taken by wildlife guide Colin Robson.

Hairy and broad-bodied chaser’s  have been seen flying around the reserve and red-eyed, common blue, azure and banded demoiselle have also been seen in numbers near Bess’ hide.

Red-eyed damselfly by @tonyandsandy

Butterflies are also being spotted around the reserve. This weeks sightings include brown argus, red admiral, small copper, peacock, brimstone, speckled wood, comma and still the occasional orange-tip.

All things small.

Well what a week it’s been at Lackford, with lots of new arrivals to be seen. A common sight this week has been lots of ducklings and goslings wandering around with their very protective parents keeping an ever watchful eye over their precious young. One of these new families was our only pair of red crested pochard’s who were spotted swimming around happily showing off their new additions.

Red crested pochard and young.

Ben Alder managed to capture this shot of the Canadian geese and their young down near Ash Carr and posted it to our Facebook page.

Lackford lakes is ideal for families © Ben Alder

A little bit further afield and harder to see are the chicks of the shelduck’s, but it’s still worth trying to get a peek if you can and the best place for this is either at Bill’s hide or the double-decker hide looking arose to the Slough.

Shelduck’s and young

We also have several great crested grebe’s nesting around the reserve and the best place to see this is at Bess’ hide where 2-3 nests can be seen, one of which is almost in front of the hide. It won’t be long now before we begin to start seeing the grebe chicks, fingers crossed.

Great crested grebe on nest outside Bess’ hide.

If you go to our Youtube channel, you can see the above grebe doing some bond affirming head shaking.

Moorhhen’s and coot’s  are also hatching chicks on the reserve at the moment and some of these are actually visible on the visitor centre pond. However, here is a clip from Reed hide taken earlier this week.

Of course, it’s not just about the waterfowl. Josephine Sweetman visited Lackford recently and her sharp eye managed to capture these superbly camouflaged treecreepers.

Newly fledged treecreepers © Josephine Sweetman

Such amazing camouflage © Josephine Sweetman

As the weeks progress, we are bound to see many more fledglings around the reserve and we look forward to seeing your photos of them. If you are lucky enough to capture these in the viewfinder of your camera and want to share it with us, then please send it as a .jpg file to lackford.centre@suffolkwildlifetrust.org where we will do our best to feature it in the blog. Or you could share it to our Facebook or Twitter (@SWTLackfordLake). We look forward to seeing your photos as do many of our expanding army of followers.

Sarah Steggall emailed us her photos from her visit this week. Sarah was lucky enough to capture another two new arrivals, banded demoiselle and red-eyed damselfly.

A male banded demoiselle © Sarah Steggall

Red-eyed damselfly © Sarah Steggall

Dragonflies and damselflies can be seen in most places around the reserve as was the case earlier this week when several were ticked off our ‘Return of the Dragons’ list, which can be seen in the centre.

Busy as a bee!

This time of year sees a lot of bees buzzing around the reserve, only a couple of weeks ago, a swarm of honeybees escaped from a hive on an adjacent property and spent the night sleeping on a fencepost on a non-public part of the reserve.

Honeybees resting on a post.

Not a lot of people realise this, but in the UK, there are around 250 species of bee. 24 are bumblebees, 1 species of honeybee and the rest are known as solitary bees. These are small bees that do not live in social groups like honeybees and bumblebees. Instead, they create their own burrow, or find a previously created burrow and fill it with pollen and an egg before sealing it up to allow it to develop over the winter before hatching the following year to begin the process all over again.

Some of these bees can be found on the reserve and they are usually much smaller than honeybees. One of these species of bee that has already been found this year on the reserve is the two-coloured mason bee (Osmia bicolor). This bee is rather special in that it lays its eggs inside empty snail shells before filling the shell with small gravel and then it goes off to collect bits of straw and grass to build a teepee around the shell to help camouflage it.

Then there are leaf cutter bees that find old holes in wood or even the holes in bamboo canes that many people have in bug boxes inter gardens. These bees do the same thing but create a chamber inside the hole out of very carefully cut pieces of leaves, before laying an egg in the hole and filling it with pollen and then sealing the chamber with another perfectly cut piece of leaf.

Some bees are tiny, so tiny that they will build their nest chambers inside holes left by nails removed from timbers.

A tiny (7mm) mining bee.

Some bees to keep an eye out for on the reserve are tawny mining bees, early mining bees and chocolate mining bees.

Chocolate mining bee

Early mining bee

Brown carder bee

A mining bee seals off a chamber in a bamboo cane.

Some of these bees are not mining bees, for just like in the bird world there are cuckoo bees! These bees are kleptoparasites of mining bees and do not build nests or chambers for their young. Instead, they look for the nest holes of other bees and when the host bee is away, they sneak in and lay an egg. This egg will hatch before the egg of the mining bee and will eat all the provisions stored for its original host. Cuckoo bees even exist in bumblebee species, where a similar looking in appearance queen bee, will seek out a nest of its host species, sneak in and will kill the host queen, then it forces they worker bees of the host species to rear the young of the cuckoo bee.

If all this talk of bees has whetted your appetite for more, there will be a one day course on mining bees next year at Lackford, details of which can be obtained by phoning 01473 890089.

Wild for the Weekend

This weekend is Wild for the Weekend -Things with Wings. Come down and see what you can find on the reserve. We will have Wildlife guides around the trails to help you spot the things on your spotter sheet and at 1pm, we will be showing the moths that we caught in our traps the night before. 

It’s not only the things that fly in the daytime either, we will be holding a special bat walk on the Saturday (23rd) to hear and see the bats that hunt on the reserve at night. This will start at 9pm and will end around 11pm. This event has limited spaces and BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL. Please phone 01284 728706 to do this, price is £2.50 per person.

Sightings

Turtle dove’s have been spotted and heard on the reserve this week. The best place is on church walk in the early morning or late evening. Nightingale is still singing at the reserve, although not as much as in previous weeks. This week might be the last chance to hear this beautiful song. Hobby’s can still be seen around the sailing lake and over the double-decker hide. Common sandpiper has been spotted from time to time at Steggall’s hide and redshank from Bill’s or double-decker.

Red kites are being seen on a more regular basis at the reserve now and it won’t be long before they are a common sight on the reserve. Hirundines are gathering in large numbers now and often the skies over the reserve are often filled with swifts, swallows and house martins. However, we have yet not been able to coax the swifts into using our swift boxes.

Reed, sedge, garden, willow and cettis warblers can still be heard singing around the reserve, many of these just from the centre car park. Another bird often heard but not seen on the reserve is the cuckoo. This is often heard calling around the sailing lake. Lesser whitethroat and whitethroat can be heard and seen down towards Reed hide and treecreepers and nuthatch’s in Ash Carr. 

Don’t forget to pop into the centre to see the sightings board when you arrive, things move around all the time and it’s worth checking first. Also please pop into the centre to add your sightings to the board regardless of how common you may think it is. We have visitors from across the UK and further afield who don’t see the birds that we get in their regions. 

Stoat was seen to chase and catch a rabbit down at Ash Carr this week as well as still being seen around the visitor centre much to everyones delight. Also spotted this week and causing a commotion for some birds were otters. These were spotted from Bess’ hide and captured on camera by Andy Johnson and share on Twitter (@SWTLackfordLake).

Otter gets mobbed by a black-headed gull © Andy Johnson

Tucking into a tasty crayfish snack © Andy Johnson

A close up shot from © Alan Reynolds

Not the loch ness monster, it’s an otter © Alan Reynolds

Butterflies are still everywhere to be seen and this will be one of the last weeks where you will get to see orange-tip’s as the end of their season approaches.

Don’t forget, we want your sightings, so pop into the centre and let us know, you can even sit down with a nice slice of cake and a cuppa tea whilst you tell us about it. 

A welcome return

Yes, a very welcome return this week to the very endangered Red Data Book species. Yes, turtle dove's have been heard and spotted  around the reserve, but only solitary or pairs of birds have been spotted at this stage. 

Another new visitor to the reserve this week is our first dragonfly, which has always been present at the reserve lurking at the bottom of a pond, but has now emerged into adulthood to begin the summer days looking for a partner. A broad-bodied chaser female was spotted and photographed by Tony and Sandy (@tonyandsandy) on twitter.

Broad-bodied chaser by Tony and Sandy

They also managed to capture this beautiful and a first for this year, brown argus butterfly.

Brown argus by Tony and Sandy

Butterflies have been in abundance this week too with still lots of orange-tips, small white, green-veined white, speckled wood, comma and peacocks about. 

Comma by Duncan Fletcher Brown

Another bunch of new arrivals came  in the shape of long-tailed tits and was captured by Terence Chaplin.

5 newly fledged long-tailed tits await for the parents to bring back food. © Terence Chaplin

Terence even spotted this slow worm making its way along the path near Reed hide

Slow worm by Terence Chaplin

More damselflies have been spotted on the reserve this week and our wildlife guide Colin Robson managed a photo of a blue-tailed damselfly.

Blue-tailed damselfly by Colin Robson

A grand day out

We had a lovely review this week from a couple of visitors at Lackford, who enjoyed their day so much. they decided to write a blog about it. You can read all about their adventure in their excellent blog here.

Sightings

Well, the sightings are still coming in and there's lots to be seen here at Lackford, as the sightings boards testifies to and the eagle eyed among you will have noticed we are now on 127 species of bird at Lackford.

Sightings board at Lackford

Our newest species to hit the list are a pair of redstart and turtle dove, which we mentioned earlier. Common sandpiper, hobby's, cuckoo and the warbler's (Cettis, garden, reed, sedge, willow, etc) can be seen from all around the reserve, starting in the car park where many are heard when visitors get out of their cars.

Reed warbler by Ian Goodall

Marsh tit with spiders web nesting material by Ian Goodall

Kingfisher's are still nesting down at Hawker pool, although they are often spotted as a blue flash as they dart back and forth from the nest.

Buzzard's, sparrowhawk can be seen from time to time around the reserve and we are getting more sightings of red kites drifting over. This species has made a spectacular recovery since breeding projects began in the late eighties/early nineties and have spread eastwards across the country ever since. So in time, these magnificent birds will soon become a regular sighting at Lackford.

SPECIAL BAT WALK 23RD MAY

As part of our themed Wild for the Weekend -Things with Wings event on the 23rd May, we will be having a bat walk at Lackford to explore that we don't often see. Places are limited, so booking is essential and you can do this by phoning 01284 728706. 

Don't miss out, book your place now!