Kingfishers and dragonflies.

Two new arrivals this week and they weren’t chicks. The first was a pair of avocets which landed near Steggall’s hide. Unfortunately, they weren’t there for long and were soon off, later being spotted at another SWT reserve, Mickle Mere. The other new arrival was the spotted flycatcher, which unlike the avocet’s, should stay a lot longer. So these two new birds brings the reserve bird species list up to 130 for the year. 

The turtle dove has started to be seen again on the overhead wires as you drive into the car park. The best times to see these are early in the morning though. Although, there have been some daytime sightings in the adjacent fields.

The reserves team of volunteers had a bit of a clear out in front of Reed hide recently removing some of the encroaching reed bed. This seems to have had a positive effect, as hoped, as reed warblers have been showing well and also young kingfishers have been spotted there since. The young kingfishers are not the ones from Hawker pool though. These are young believed to be from a nest on the adjacent River Lark that have fledged earlier. The kingfishers at Hawker pool are still feeding their young and it’s believed they should fledge sometime this week, one to keep an eye on.

Juvenile Kingfisher with food at Reed hide © Duncan Fletcher-Brown

And in flight © Duncan Fletcher-Brown

Common terns have now hatched their young and can be seen on Hawker pool and tufted ducks have also been spotted with no loess than 6 chicks and can be seen from Steggall’s hide. Great crested grebes also have young riding on the adults back and can often be viewed from Bess’ hide.

The once famous stars of the Lackford stump, the nuthatch’s, have thought to have fledged their young, yet no-one has seen them yet. Another one to keep an eye out for. 

Strangely, in the middle of the night, the coots at the visitor centre pool, built a new nest on one of the floating islands and their last remaining chick has taken to sitting in the middle of it.

Coot with young in the middle of the new nest.

On the insect front

Things have been perking up on the insect front too and the butterflies seem to becoming out in force now with brown argus, peacock, brimstone, red admiral and common blue among others being spotted.

Male common blue © Rich Berry

Cinnabar moths can still be seen fluttering around the reserve and it won’t be long before their black and yellow caterpillars will be seen munching on the ragwort around the reserve.

Dragonflies are being seen in numbers now and the first black-tailed skimmer was spotted on the reserve at the weekend Damselflies have also been seen emerging from the water down at Orchid hide and are very numerous wherever you go on the reserve.

Dragonflies a plenty © Rich Berry

One damselfly that’s always a sight to see is the banded demoiselle and as usual, these can usually be seen from the bridge just before Bess’ hide. As always, pop into the visitor centre when you arrive to find out what is happening where on the reserve.

© Rich Berry

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. 

The darling bugs of May.

Wow, where does the time go? It only seemed not too long ago the reserve was getting a dusting of snow, now leaves are on the trees, flowers are in bloom and people are beginning to venture out in t-shirts. This was especially the case over the bank holiday weekend at Lackford, where we had the latest in our themed Wild for the Weekend event called May Bugs!

The weather, all except for Sunday, held out for us and the bug hunting and pond dipping sessions were well attended by eager adventurers wanting to explore unknown worlds. Saturday and Monday saw Visitor Assistant Hawk out on the reserve encouraging children to get involved in bug hunts. Armed with sweep nets and bug pots, the children got down to finding the creatures that inhabit the long grass and hedgerows near the double-decker hide. A variety of bugs were caught for Hawk and volunteers Joe and Ollie for them to identify, the majority of which were spiders. The air was alive with orange-tip butterflies, which had many children eager to capture one, in hot pursuit but often without success.

Lets get bug hunting!

One regular captive of the bug pot was ladybirds, with 7, 22 and 24 spot ladybirds being caught and recorded. The were plenty of small beetles being caught too including this beautiful green tiger beetle.

Green tiger beetle.

The green tiger beetle is one of those insects that has some fascinating facts about it. These are fast running insects that are indicative of heathland as they love bare sandy soil which they scuttle over to catch their prey, which is mainly other insects.

They can run so fast that they have to stop frequently to allow their eyesight to catch up with them! Their large bug like eyes, allow them to see for long distances making them very hard to catch as they can see you approach from a distance.

The Monday saw a welcome return to the lakes, damselflies! Yes, there seemed to be a small emergence event down by Atlas hide of blue-tailed and large red damselflies. They could just be seen as their fine gossamer wings flitted in the sunlight just above the grass. Lackford has a Site of Special Scientific Interest designation for its 17 species of dragonflies, so these two species are just a taster of what is to come.

The pond dipping event on Sunday saw Visitor Officer Mike and volunteer Joe outside, but under cover exploring the depths of one of our ponds. Lots of interesting things were found from horsehair worms, diving beetle larvae, shrimps and dragonfly larvae. Despite the weather, everyone who came said they really enjoyed and were amazed at the diversity of life often unseen in such a small pond.

Sightings

The lovely weather over the weekend saw many people seeking out the wildlife at Lackford, so the sightings were many. Hobby’s seemed to be the highlight for many with 5 or 6 being spotted at a time towards the rear of the sailing lake.The nightingale is still in full song in the scrub near the education meadow and lesser whitethroat, garden and willow warbler’s are being heard from around the car park. Redshank is still being seen at the Slough and buzzard’s can often seen circling from all over the reserve. 

Lesser whitethroat © Ian Goodall

Buzzard © Ian Goodall

Also to be seen in numerous places are blackcap, reed and sedge warbler’s, marsh tit’s and treecreepers. Swifts, swallows, house and sand martin’s continue to be seen and the common sandpiper can occasionally be spotted down at Steggall’s.

A rather busy sightings board.

Butterflies have been busy too with many orange-tips and peacock butterflies around. Brimstone’s and comma can be seen near the double-decker hide and small copper’s are to be found along the path between the centre and Tickner’s hide. Keep your eyes peeled ahead of you along this path and you may even spot a green tiger beetle. 

Binoculars

Some of the wildlife above can be seen quite easily around the reserve, however, some of it we all need a helping hand to see. Not all of us are lucky enough to own a pair of binoculars, or sometimes through plain forgetfulness, we leave them at home only to realise this when you park the car in the car park. If this sounds familiar, fear not. Pop into the centre and see a member of staff and you can hire some binoculars so your visit isn’t a wasted journey. 

We also stock a range of fine binoculars from Viking. These binoculars are excellent for wildlife spotting and are of a good quality that is built to last. 

A fine range of optics

So whether you fancy making the step to buying your first pair of binoculars, or fancy upgrading your old faithfuls, pop in and try our new range at Lackford. All of our staff will be able to give you expert advice and help you find the ideal binoculars for you.

Incoming!!!

Well, as predicted, the spring arrivals have made a big push and we've seen lots of new arrivals this week. This was the Spring arrivals sheet at the start of last week:

Last week's arrivals list.

And this is how it stands after this weekend:

This week's arrival list.

As you can see, the lull in the cold westerly wind has allowed a large influx of migrant birds to arrive.  A lot of these sightings are thanks to you, our visitors to the reserve who come back into the centre after a wander around and let us know what's been seen, thank you.

The Willow Warbler has been heard singing in the car park and as you can see from above, we still await the Garden and Reed warbler, the latter of which should appear any day soon as it has already been spotted at one of our nearby reserves Redgrave & Lopham Fen on the 10th April.

One of the first to lead the way last week was a Cuckoo, which could be heard in Ash Carr, and two lucky visitors, Jane and Ken Rowe, actually got to see it. However, the weather changed again and it is thought that the bird has moved on as it hasn't been heard since. But fear not, according to the BTO Cuckoo Tracker, many of the tagged cuckoo's are yet to arrive back. So plenty more to come.

Another bird that's been a bit elusive this week is our Kingfisher's. Often a familiar and popular sight at Lackford, however, now is the breeding season and the females are most likely sitting tight on the nest whilst the male is off out on the constant hunt for food to feed the female. There have been a few glances of the birds around the reserve, but not many where the bird is sat perched. So keep your eyes open, they are still around, just a little busy, that's all.

One bird that has been seen and heard in increasing numbers this week was the Blackcap. 

A singing Blackcap.

A not so tasty snack!

Those regular visitors to Lackford know that our cake is a lovely tasty snack to reward yourself with after a long arduous walk watching all the wildlife that is here. Hard work, but someone has to do it! However, there was one who found what it thought was a tasty snack, but was not impressed. Who? Our regular night time visitor to our feeder cam, the Tawny owl. But this time, he brought along a catch, an unfortunate toad. However, it didn't take long for the owl to realise that toads are not good food and the scene ended well for the poor toad who made his escape.

Toads have a couple of defence mechanisms that help stop it getting predated upon. The first is that they emit a foul tasting poison from their skin. This causes the predator to be sick and secondly the toad when attacked will puff itself up and make itself as rigid as possible, again making it awkward for it to be consumed. This last defence can be seen in the video just before the toad launches itself of the feeding post. It's also interesting to note that the feet and under belly feathers of the owl are clearly quite wet, which means that it actually took a dip in the shallows to catch the toad as opposed to catching it on dry ground.

Not just birds

As the temperature rises, it's not just the birds that are coming out to play. The insects too are beginning to emerge with lots of sightings of various butterflies this week including Comma, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Brimstone, Red Admiral, Small White and Green-veined White. New visitor Robert Quadling got some amazing shots of the insects that were about last Thursday and shared them on Twitter (@SWTLackfordLake).

Green-veined White © Robert Quadling

Beautiful Peacock butterfly © Robert Quadling

Plenty of these now to be seen, Bee-fly © Robert Quadling

As you can see from the above photo, Bee-flies are also in abundance at Lackford. These are flies that look like bees and are parasitoids of mining bees. They seek out the holes of mining bees and then flick their eggs from their tails into the hole of the bee whilst hovering over them. The species above (Bombylius major) is known as the Dark-edged Bee-fly and is quite common in Southern England. 

If you see or photograph an insect whilst walking around Lackford and want to know more about it, then pop into the centre and ask our staff, or send your photo to Hawk, or insect man at hawk.honey@suffolkwildlifetrust.org and we will endeavour to help you.

Another regular sighting this week has been the Stoat and one person who was lucky enough to grab a photo of it was regular visitor Ellie Stones who shared her picture of it on Twitter.

Peek-a-boo Stoat. © Ellie Stones

Spring holiday events

We had some events on over the Easter break and one of the was Egg Quest. Demand for this event was so high, that an afternoon session had to be set up to cater for it with over 90 people attending.

Activities for all.

Daisy with her self made mouse mask

Collages and big smiles

Bringing the art out in kids

A selection of the collages that were made.

Thankfully, the weather stayed lovely and sunny and everyone had a good time. If you would like to attend one of our events at Lackford, then please see our Forthcoming events panel on  the right hand side of this blog, or alternatively, you can look at our What's on guide for the whole of Suffolk here.

Sightings

Well, as you already know from above, lots of new things about. But there was also another new arrival that wasn't on the list and that was Little Gull. These have been varying in numbers all week from 2 -12 birds seen at the sailing lake and also at Steggall's. Barry Woodhouse managed to get some shots from over the Sailing lake.

Little gull in flight © Barry Woodhouse

Little Gull © Barry Woodhouse

Other sightings include the Red Crested Pochard's at Fullers mill hide, the Great Crested Grebe's are now nest building near Bess' hide and this is also thought to be where the Kingfisher's are nesting too. Ash Carr is still good for Nuthatch, Coal and Marsh tit, Blackcap, Goldcrest and Treecreepers. Redshank, Oystercatchers, the occasional Goshawk and Red Kite can be seen from Bill's hide and Chiffchaff's can be seen and heard nearly everywhere from around the reserve.

Tufted Ducks, can be seen at the Sailing Lake and at Steggall's and the Sparrowhawk has been seen from various parts of the reserve.

A pair of Tufted Ducks © Barry Woodhouse

House Martin's were also spotted over the sailing lake and the centre which brought our bird species total up to 118 birds for 2015

The current bird species list for 2015 so far

Remember, if you have sightings you wish to share or add to our board, please do so by popping into the visitor centre.

One Swallow, does not a summer make

Aristotle once said, “One Swallow, does not a summer make...”. Well it’s a shame he wasn’t at Lackford this week then, when yesterday (Monday), 10 were seen above the centre. The first were spotted over Lackford by our regular visitor and contributor Ian Goodall on April 1st (of all days), over Long Reach where Bess’ hide is situated. Ian managed to get these shots from Bess’ hide.

Swallow © Ian Goodall

© Ian Goodall

So, what does this mean for Lackford? It means that there’s a very good chance that a lot of Spring arrivals will start arriving. Blackcap has, after a lot of false sightings, eventually turned up at Steggall’s and Ash Carr and there’s a lot more to come, just take a look at our Spring arrivals list, which can be found pinned to our sightings board in the visitor centre.

Plenty more to come at Lackford.

So with the wind direction set to change to a nice easterly/south easterly this week, we are expecting a lot of new arrivals at Lackford. Why not come down and see if you can help us spot these as they come in!

Activities at Lackford

We’ve had quite a few activities at Lackford this week, which were well attended by children enjoying the Half-term break. The Springtastic event was one of the sessions that was fully booked and enjoyed by all despite the windy weather.

The children and their creations at the Springtastic event.

Judging by all those smiley faces, a good time was had.

Out and about exploring the reserve.

And the activities are set to continue this week with our Egg Quest event on Thursday 9th April. The morning session is fully booked and due to the high demand, we have organised an afternoon session too from 2-4pm. But act quick as this is already half full and filling up fast. To book, call 01284 728706.

Sounds of Spring!

This weekend will also see the next Themed weekend in our Wild for the Weekend programme. The Sounds of Spring will explore the many sounds you can hear in the wild at Springtime and if you pick up a spotter sheet at our visitor centre, you can follow the trail and see if you can work out the sounds situated along the route. There is no charge for the activity, but a donation would be appreciated. Sounds of Spring starts this weekend 11am - 4pm.

Sightings

Well as we are aware, Swallows and Blackcap  have arrived on the reserve and more are to come. 3 Med Gulls have been spotted from the Steggall’s hide along with the Egyptian geese and their goslings.

Egyptian geese and goslings © David Ward

The Canada goose is still on the nest near the Double-decker hide and David sent us in this picture too.

Canada goose on the nest © David Ward

This time of year its not all about chicks and nests, there are territories to defend and unwanted attention to fend off and new member and novice photographer Pat Cutting caught this fantastic action shot of two Canada geese at odds with each other.

Time to scarper © Pat Cutting

Ian Goodall managed to capture these stunning shots of two pairs of Great Crested Grebe’s defending their territory. 

© Ian Goodall

© Ian Goodall

© Ian Goodall

© Ian Goodall

© Ian Goodall

© Ian Goodall 

© Ian Goodall

© Ian Goodall

The Nuthatch is still down on the Lackford Stump as well as the Marsh Tit and Coal tit and many others. Great Spotted and Green Woodpeckers are being heard everywhere, but particularly in Ash Carr. Chiffchaff is to be heard everywhere around the site and Cettis Warbler’s are heard mainly around the Sailing lake path and near Bill’s hide. 

Nuthatch posing © Tracie Emerson

Red Crested Pochard can still be seen at Fullers Mill Hide, but they are tending to stay towards the far end of Mill Deep lake. On the raptor front, 10 Buzzards were seen circling over the centre car park and a Sparrowhawk was also spotted displaying over the centre. The Kingfisher has been a bit elusive of late and we put this down to that they may be nesting around the Double decker and Bess’ hides. The female is probably on the nest and the male is busy catching food. 

The sightings board.

This is how the sightings board looked as of yesterday, don’t forget, when we are open, you can find the board inside the visitor centre next to the map. We need your sightings so that others may see what’s about.