Pure gold

When the farm was acquired back in 2001 and we started to take stock of what species we had, it was generally believed that Marsh Fritillary wouldn't be one of them, on account of the fact that it's probably too exposed. The following summer, one day in July, I was therefore pretty surprised to find a single, very worn individual, leading us to wonder if we could have a colony after all.




Well it turns out that we did. Our best counts were of 18 butterflies in 2004 and 12 in 2006. Then we had that run of lousy summers. After seeing just two specimens in 2007, we had two blank years and we reckoned the colony had been lost. But.....last weekend Dougy was mooching around along the western edge of the heathland and, lo and behold - two beautiful, crisp Marsh Frits!



This morning, despite the fact that it was overcast with quite a cool breeze at home in Wendron, I eventually mustered enough enthusiasm to go down to the farm to join Dougy in looking for them again. As is so often the case when all points north are shrouded in cloud, the sun was blazing on the southern end of the Lizard.

As it happens we didn't find any Marsh Frits, but we did see some Small Pearl-bordered, along with Large Skippers and Common Blues, and lots of Common Heath moths, Four-spotted Chasers, Black-tailed Skimmers and some pristine Emperor dragonflies.

We started to wander over to Ruan Pool and Dougy idly remarked that it was time we found something good. Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks. Did I just hear a Golden Oriole??? A brief pause. YES I DID!!! It was singing repeatedly. From a tall willow hedge not 50 yards away. I just couldn't believe it. Sure it's a bird we always hope for, but in warm south-easterlies in late April or May, not a rather cool north-westerly airstream in mid June when Cornwall hasn't appeared on the scarce/rare birds websites for some while. Anyway, we walked the hedge for a while, hearing it all the time, but they are sods to see in the foliage. It then moved across one of the meadows to another hedge, but a few minutes later we had great flight views as it flew back across. It was clearly a 1st summer bird, a bit green and streaky, but with a nice yellow rump.

Amazingly this was my first oriole in Cornwall in nearly 25 years birding here. And of course to see it at the farm was just priceless.

Creatures of the night

I had the moth-trap running at the farm on Wednesday night, its first outing of the year. With a clear sky and fresh south-easterly wind, conditions were not ideal and I only had 80 moths of 24 species, plus a few cockchafers. Clockwise from left: Puss Moth, Eyed Hawk-moth, Cockchafer and Elephant Hawk-moth. The moth species list for the reserve is 294.

Dragon-slayer!

I sat in the old hide at Ruan Pool this morning, watching the same 1st summer Hobby that we saw earlier in the week. At first it was hunting from a perch on a dead branch, making short dashes to the ground to pick up prey. When the temperature reached the point where the dragonflies started flying, things got very exciting. It would come dashing towards me, then shoot back and forth across the pool, making sudden twists upwards to catch its prey. After a few minutes it would return for a short rest before doing it all over again. It made at least a dozen forays in the hour that I was there and it was extremely efficient, catching around 25-30 dragonflies in that time. There were moments when it flashed past only feet away and at one point it nearly came straight through the hide window! These are among my best shots.

Bank Holiday rarity!

Relax, I'm just talking about the sun. It was beautiful on the Lizard this morning. The 1st summer Hobby showed up again but not long enough for me to improve on my photos taken in very average light yesterday, when Dougy and I watched for it hunting over Ruan Pool for over half an hour. The summer-plumage Black-tailed Godwit that Dougy also saw wasn't around today.




There were lots of dragonflies and damselflies on the wing today. Here are shots of a teneral (= recently emerged) Broad-bodied Chaser and a male Beautiful Demoiselle. The best area to see lots of the latter is along the western boardwalk.








Meanwhile the short boardwalk behind the old scrape (the one in front of the large hide) is great for Common Lizards. Walk along slowly on a sunny day and you can get very close without disturbing them.





The Hereford cows' dreams came true this morning when the bull arrived. When they saw him coming down the ramp out of the trailer they all went charging across to greet him, but he did his "Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" act, turned his back and got stuck into some serious grazing. That lasted about five minutes before he realised he was in heaven. For a while he didn't know which way to turn, but he left me in no doubt that he didn't welcome any paparazzi clicking away while he was at work. That photo (right) was taken with a standard lens and, just for a moment, I was ever so slightly worried! My advice is to give him a wide berth until he's used up some of that adrenalin.




Our contractor has buried a flexible pipe in the bank of the pond formerly know as the dead pond (see a previous post), to allow us to maintain a low water-level. The bit sticking out needs pruning but I'm showing this photo first to demonstrate how the colour of the pipe has been carefully chosen to blend in with the environment....

Stripping and clipping (in more ways than one)

This is one of our hay meadows, photographed yesterday. When this was a working dairy and beef farm, fertiliser was applied to the fields and they had a limited flora. Since then we have been managing them with the aim of nutrient-stripping, with some being used as hay meadows and others being grazed. Nutrient levels have fallen dramatically: the hay yield in 2003 was 68% of that the previous year. In 2004 it was 58% and in 2009 just 38%.


Alongside this, there has been a considerable increase in bioversity in these meadows. Later in the summer they will be full of Yellow Bartsia.

Note the hedgerows in that top photo. There are several kilometres of them on the farm. A Hedgerow Importance Test was kindly conducted on a wide selection of the hedges last summer by Shanelle Edelman, a student at the University of Exeter. Most of them had an overall score of 8 or above, which means that they are precious! We'll need to give some of them a trim soon as they're getting a bit leggy.



The contractor has now finished excavating the old trackway (see post on 15th March). All we have to do now is wait a year and two and it should be full of Pygmy Rush and other astonishingly rare plants! Whilst on the job, he seems to have run ever so slightly wide in one particular gateway, but all credit to him, he replaced the gate immediately.