Pretty clouds of yellow and other lovely natural things

Recently a fair proportion of my time has been spent down at Oare Marshes for one Kent Wildlife Trust volunteer task or another. On Monday 5th August I joined in with some water vole monitoring as part of the Water for Wildlife project. We met at 8am and The project officer, Chloe, informed me of all the signs we were looking for to ascertain whether there were indeed water voles present. We used a map of all the dykes and ditches on the West flood and worked our way along. During the morning I stayed with one of the others until I felt confident I knew what I was looking for. It was a productive day, recording over 250 signs that the WVs were present! The things we were monitoring included feeding signs, droppings, latrines and burrows. Obviously, we were keeping an eye out for the elusive little critters, but the closest we got was a few large plops into the water and a 90% sure view of one. 

In addition to actually looking for signs of wildlife, we were completely surrounded by nature. Walking through the long grass towards the reed beds, we came across the brightly coloured wasp spider shown below. It was feasting on a moth of a similar size to itself and it looked so exotic. The stabilimentum is the prominent zigzag pattern in the web and although its function isn't completely clear, but there are a few ideas which if you are interested can be found on this website... Spiders: Argiope Bruennichi

We also had the privilege of watching dragonflies (some variety of hawker) emerge from their exuviae and hundreds of blue tailed damsleflies floating through the air, occasionally coming across a blade of grass and settling momentarily. Fabulous!

Wasp spider (Argiope bruennichi)

 

In the same afternoon I spent a little time watching the multitude of butterflies which were feeding on our buddleia. Small tortoiseshells, red admirals, peacocks and large whites all dancing around the beautiful purple source of nectar.

 

Large White

Peacock and a white-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) sharing a buddleia flower

The lilies in our garden opened up on the morning of the 7th and looked glorious over the next week or so.

Perfect Lily

I once again spent the day volunteering with KWT at Oare on Thursday 8th. Our task for the day - more ragwort clearing. Before we had donned our gloves and got to work, one of the other volunteers noticed a yellow butterfly flit past. At first it was thought to be a brimstone but quickly this identification was corrected and it was indeed a CLOUDED YELLOW! I had never seen one before and was delighted to see this wonderful butterfly! I followed it around for a bit, but it was fairly reluctant to sit still for a photo shoot. Eventually it settled on a beautifully contrasting thistle flower and allowed a couple of snaps before it set off again. We were very happy to see there were actually quite a few of them around. Other wonderful things seen included a garden spider, a common or viviparous lizard, a garden pebble moth, several silver Y moths, yellow wags, common gulls, herons, little egrets, avocets and huge numbers of godwits on the East flood. All in all, another wonderful day in the great outdoors, pulling ragwort and observing insects, birds and reptiles on this diverse reserve.
  

Star of the show... Clouded Yellow

I realise this is quite out of focus, but I like it anyway! I love its face!

Araneus diadematus

Common lizard (Zootoca vivipara)

Garden Pebble moth I think... CT??

After pushing the muscles in my back to their limit, I spent the evening with a few of my friends, chilling at the beach and cooking yummy food on a home made barbecue (by Laura and Noah), composed of an old satellite dish and some hand chopped wood. Top marks for inventiveness!

The sun setting over the beach huts at Tankerton

Still so behind, thank you for reading and hopefully I will catch up soon! :)

Next post.... A day trip to France!