A new broom

After 11 years as voluntary warden of the reserve, I've decided to stand down and let my natural successor, Dougy Wright, take over. Dougy loves the place as much as I do and I've no doubt it will be in good hands.

 Dougy birding in Hungary back in 2008

Hoverflying

There was a noticeable influx of the large hoverfly Helophilus trivittatus evident at the farm yesterday. I counted 30+ and they far outnumbered the resident Helophilus pendulus. These are almost certainly immigramts from the Continent.   They are larger and paler than pendulus and their face is entirely yellow.  Pendulus have a dark stripe down the centre of the face.

Helophilus trivittatus

Helophilus trivittatus

Helophilus trivittatus

Helophilus pendulus

Helophilus pendulus

Have you seen Erica?

Cornish Heath (Erica vagans) grows only on the Lizard peninsula

Bell Heather (Erica cinerea)

Mixture of Bell Heather and Cross-leaved Heath (Erica tetralix)

Mixture of Western Gorse (Ulex gallii) and Cornish Heath

BioBlitzed!

Well the weekend's BioBlitz was a great success, with twenty or so attendees (some of whom stayed all night, studying moths etc in between short bouts of sleep), plenty of sunshine and only a little rain.  The final species count is yet to be tallied as there are some that remain to be identified from photographs or descriptions, but there's no doubt that a number of new species have been added to the reserve list.

I want to thank everyone who came along, and in particular Sally Luker for helping to get it organised (and baking cakes) and Sue Scott, who brought along masses of equipment (including the mobile tea-shop) and lots of identification guides and took on the recording.  Special thanks too to the group who came all the way from Reading.  One of those intrepid travellers, Christopher Foster, has written his own take on the weekend here.

Here are some photos from the event (thanks to all concerned for permission to use them):

Forest Bug (Sally Luker http://thenarcolpeticnaturalist.blogspot.co.uk/)

Sneezewort (Sally Luker http://thenarcolpeticnaturalist.blogspot.co.uk/)

Female Adders (Sally Luker http://thenarcolpeticnaturalist.blogspot.co.uk/)

Meadow Grasshopper (Sally Luker http://thenarcolpeticnaturalist.blogspot.co.uk/)

Minor Shoulder-knot (David Fenwick)

Campion moth (David Fenwick)

Eristalis hortocola (Christopher Foster http://consideringbirds.wordpress.com/) 

 Ichneumoid fly (Christopher Foster http://consideringbirds.wordpress.com/)

Wood Sandpiper (Christopher Foster http://consideringbirds.wordpress.com/)

Scaeva pyrastri (Andy Pay http://consideringbirds.wordpress.com/)

BioBlitzers (Christopher Foster)

BioBlitz

We're holding a BioBlitz at the farm on 28th/29th July, starting at 2.00pm on the Saturday and ending 2.00pm Sunday. A BioBlitz is to wildlife recording what the Le Mans 24hr is to motor racing and involves finding and identifying as many species as possible. We have invited local (and not so local) experts in various fields and hope they will help us to build on the reserve's species lists.

There will be moth-trapping, small mammal trapping, pond-dipping, birding, invertebrate hunting, botanising, hopefully bat-detecting and much more.  The information centre on site will serve as a laboratory and tearoom.  The Lizard is pretty special when it comes to hosting rare species of all sorts of things and there are sure to be some goodies on the farm that haven't yet been discovered (as well as lots that have!). Everybody is welcome and for those who want to make a weekend of it, there is a campsite just down the lane.

Here are some examples of what we should find, photos taken on a rare sunny day on Sunday. The first two are hoverflies - the top one is Sericomyia silentis but the second is at yet unidentified.  Below them is a Scorpion Fly (Panorpa communis) photographed by Dougy Wright.