Goodness Grays!

The nature reserve at Hanningfield Reservoir opens at 10 am, so when my friend Samantha and I arrived early for a bit of bird watching and photography, our route through the woods was in a pristine state. As we brushed away invisible silken threads we realised the hazards of being the first people there. Everywhere we looked seemed to be covered in dense cobwebs. Entering the bird hives was like a scene from a horror movie! It was only on our route back to the car that we finally noticed the spiders that must have been responsible for enveloping the natural world in their netting.

Samantha had hoped we would see some greebs with their young, but we did not see many greebs at all today. Instead, we saw this mother tufted duck with two duckings trying to catch a lift on her back. She was moving pretty fast and her youngsters were finding it hard to keep up the pace.

The water level in the reservoir had dropped since I last visited in May and the rotting shoreline vegetation gave off quite a whiff! Still, it did give us the chance to see a lapwing and a young black-headed gull.

Most of the birds were too far away for a clear view with my camera, but it was still a pleasure to see the variety of birds today.

The woodland was also full of wildlife but I am still new to identifying British creepy crawlies. The photo below left is an Essex Skipper (a butterfly which looks like a moth), and in the centre is a comma butterfly which was remarkable bright orange in colour, so lovely to look at. And on the right we have s scorpion fly. I know it is not a very sharp image but the brown blob near the end of its tail was the give away feature. This is what gives the fly its 'scorpion' name and are the claspers used by the male flies for mating. It's amazing what you learn when you have a camera in hand!

A one sight which is always a pleasure to see are the squirrels at the bird feeders outside the cafe. Of course these bird feeders are supposed to be squirrel-proof, but squirrels are smart!