Monday, 4 August 2025

Summer highlights

Summer highlights 

Summer holidays are already upon us and our programme of family events have started last week with a very successful look at the butterflies around the nature trail, culminating in submitting the group's sightings to the national Big Butterfly Count. A total of 37 butterflies of 8 species were counted along our Buddleia border in just 15 minutes. The Big Butterfly Count is a national survey that gets people out and about looking for butterflies, giving them an appreciation of the many different species that are around in gardens and parks up and own the country. Great fun and valuable science to add to our own butterfly transects that continue each week till the end of September. Two notable highlights this year, although not recorded along our transects are the appearance of 3 sets of purple hairstreak butterflies, 2 in the canopies of the oak trees in  D woods and Hempholme and a further sightings of a pair at the western side of O reservoir grassland. In addition there have been two records of a wall brown butterfly, again in two distinct sites on the reserve. 

Ringlet

Following on from our butterfly event we also held our annual moth night to coincide with National Moth week. Again families joined us for an informative evening and were introduced to the many different species that inhabit the reserve, from the flamboyant poplar hawkmoths to the microscopic leaf miner moths and everything in between. Compared to only about 70 species of butterfly, there are 2,500 species of moth, 790 of which have been recorded at the reserve. They have some spectacular names like this beautiful ruby tiger.

Ruby tiger
School holidays means the end of the summer term and the end of school visits for this academic year. So far, the education team at the reserve have engaged with 550 pupils and their teachers since March with another 80 pupils to still visit before term ends. That’s a great number of youngsters that have been engaged and inspired by the natural world around them. And we don’t always have school visits to the reserve, our education team often goes into local primary schools as part of their outreach programme, delivering sessions about the water cycle, clean water production and some of the problems with waste water. It is these very pupils that help the reserve find out about the pond water invertebrates in reception pond; their data forming a detailed picture of how the pond has changed since it was built in 2017 and how its invertebrate change throughout the year. The facts and figures are fantastic to see and the way the pupils use the identification keys to name lesser water boatmen, water stick insects, cased caddisfly larvae. Damselfly nymphs and many more is a great way for them to appreciate not only the variety of life in a freshwater pond but to study some of the amazing adaptations these creatures have to survive underwater. Visitors see and hear our marsh frogs but down below the surface is so much more. If you are a teacher in the area and want to take your classes somewhere to learn outdoors, whether it is about water, woodlands or to get inspiration for maths and English then our school visits are FREE and we take bookings all year round. Please visit our dedicated education pages and booking form at https://www.yorkshirewater.com/education/teachers/availability-booking/

It is also the end of the year for our Kingsmill sixth form students who have been volunteering every Friday morning throughout the year. Giving up their time to help the reserve staff with all sorts of practical habitat management from planting trees, collecting seeds, cutting down vegetation to clearing paths and carrying out wildlife surveys. They have been brilliant all year and show such resilience in all different situations, their tutors and school should be very proud of their achievements. The staff and volunteers here at Tophill Low would like to pass on a huge thank you and to wish them well in their future as they prepare to leave Kingsmill. We had a lovely Thank you & Celebration event when we shared stories and photos of the range of activities that the students have done, some their favourites, others not so much.

Certificates

Thank you cards from all the students & staff

For the wildlife on the reserve early summer is very much all about raising young, whether it is the common terns and shelducks on south marsh east or the willow warblers and blackcaps in D woods, there’s even a very fraught pair of adult wrens constantly feeding chicks just outside the office. In the last week a pair of Little grebes on north Lagoon has hatched a very cute, stripey youngster that is now out on the water or indeed on the adults back. Waders that have already bred further north however, are now starting to move south on migration, landing at the reserve to refuel before carrying on their long distance journey. In the last few weeks, wood sandpiper, green sandpiper and common sandpiper have all been noted, as well as black tailed godwit and ruff. A slight amount of rain early evening is often the right conditions to bring them down onto the southern marshes. 

Common sandpiper

One of the local annual summer events is Driffield Show and it was gold again for our wetland plant display this year. Our volunteers, under the direction of Richard, the reserve warden, put together a fantastic display to demonstrate the wealth of wetland plant species that are grown in our wetland plant nursery here at Tophill Low. From the rare marsh pea, only found on a handful of sites in East Yorkshire to the greater water parsnip, the species that once was rare but now flourishes across the reserve. Part of the project is to grow on plants for replanting out on the reserve but the majority of the plants grown are handed over to other local landowners and partners such as JSR farms, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust,  Dumble farm, Albanwise and the Environment Agency, so that these rare plants can continue to thrive in the wider Hull valley. In amongst the display was a nod to local folklore and the existence of Old Stinker, a werewolf type beast who inhabited the marshes, preying on local folk wandering off the path. If anyone is interested in finding out more about the wetland plant project then do pop in to the polytunnel and ask or even come along and volunteer to help out. 


Gold medal winners again this year
The reserve changes through the seasons in terms of species and how the habitats themselves change. Many visitors like to come along and experience it at different times. Just remember that over the summer the road into the reserve is diverted via Cranswick so it may take you about 10 minutes longer.