June 2024
Following a very successful Open day, with visitors engaging with lots of our partners the reserve has quietened down to let the wildlife get on with breeding. Our breeding bird surveys, conducted by our volunteer team and local birders are coming to an end, having surveyed plots across the reserve four times, each an early start. Results look promising with a whole range of resident and migrant birds breeding on site. One of the more interesting birds is the cuckoo, a rare summer visitor now to the UK, suffering the hardships of habitat loss and persecution on its migration journey. On one day there were four singing males, and there have been lots of sightings by visitors, including a pair mating. We believe their key target species is probably reed warblers and perhaps reed buntings, both of which have good populations.
One pair of marsh harriers has recently fledged three youngsters,
we await the sightings of the other pairs on the reserve. No such luck for the
little ringed plover pair, but oystercatchers are now on their second nest and
there’s a possibility that a pair of avocets may try to breed too. Other
sightings include grasshopper warbler, spoonbill and the first green sandpiper
of the year, on 15th June, an indication that the year is turning!
Green sandpiper by Lee Johnson
With all the breeding going on, habitat management turns to plant propagation in the polytunnel and the new outside wet beds. Over the past two years this venture, run mostly by volunteers has gone from strength to strength, supplying neighbouring landowners with a range of wetland plants.
The new wetbeds installed at Tophill
This week volunteers have visited areas of Leven Carrs and land adjacent to Wansford Beck to collect important plants and seeds, bringing them back to site where they can be grown on in numbers to then be distributed to other landowners in the wider Hull valley. Whilst visiting Leven Carrs it was great to see that the greater water parsnip, a rare wetland plant, that was planted there a couple of years ago is now doing exceptionally well, thriving in the wetter areas of the site, a real success story for the team.
Other plants that were collected were marsh lousewort and bog bean. Of course once our collection was completed then it is really important to abide by biosecurity so that no invasive species are transferred between site.
If visitors are interested in the polytunnel and its plants then please pop in and find out more, the team are very knowledgeable and happy to chat about their stock.
Anecdotally, butterflies seem to be in very low numbers across the area this year, so in the next few weeks we will be carrying out several butterfly surveys to monitor the numbers. We can then compare the data to previous years, similarly to our breeding bird data. If visitors spot any butterflies during their visit, we really would appreciate it if you could add your sightings to the sightings log before you leave, that way we can get a better picture of populations in the different areas of the reserve. Similarly if you spot any dragonflies or damselflies please add them to our sightings.
Four spot chaser by Margaret Boyd
Speckled wood by Margaret Boyd
We hope that visitors will enjoy a walk around the reserve with this warm weather, keep a look out also for grass snakes in the water bodies. Please remember that we do not allow dogs at the reserve and
the only facility that we have are toilets.
