A Day Of Two Firsts

It's always a special wildlife-watching day to record a 'lifer' and earlier this week I was lucky enough to see not one but two first-timers for me. I have been running a Skinner moth trap in my garden and local area for nearly three years now and never cease to be amazed at the variety of species visiting a humble suburban garden. My 2020 trapping has been a bit hit-and-miss as despite the hot and dry daytime conditions bringing out plenty of butterflies, damsel and dragonflies the cool / cold / windy night-times have limited my moth finds. Oddly it took a turn in the weather this week to reverse that trend and although the trap took a bit of a battering in the evening from the thunderstorm the reward was this morning in the form of this fine eyed hawkmoth. Whilst this isn't an uncommon species it was my first-ever encounter with one and further evidence that moth trapping is a bit like Christmas every day - you don't know what you're going to find in that pile of wrapped-up parcels - sometimes a disappointment and sometimes a real treat. 

Rain was forecast once again but it was dry and warming up slightly as I arrived at the morning's destination of Wybunbury Moss. This is a National Nature Reserve and SSSI in South Cheshire and is one of only three subsidence mires - or schwingmoors to give them their more colourful name - in the country. The peat mire forms a raft, in some places only a metre thick, above a deep basin of water and as a consequence of this sensitive and unsafe environment access to the main area of the reserve is restricted. Besides a range of specialist invertebrates my target for the day was to encounter a grass snake, with the site being a bit of a hotspot for them. 

The reserve is accessed through the beautiful churchyard of St Chad's - itself a victim of the unstable local geology as the church has been demolished and rebuilt no fewer than five times since the fifteenth century. A team of groundskeepers had been appointed in the shape of three bonny Hampshire ewes grazing between the gravestones. From here the path descends a steep bank and onto the circular route round the edge of the mire. Most of the route is boardwalk and these are stretches I particularly enjoy exploring as magnets for basking coldbloods. Sure enough even though the sun hadn't put in much of an appearance two common lizards were already catching the warmth and by the end of the morning a total of five had staked out their spots on the lounger. 

Natural groundskeepers       Common lizard

With careful movements it was possible to get some good close views and photos of these lizards. A few of them had shed and were regrowing their tails, evidence that it's quite an exciting life being a lizard in these parts. 

     

In the nearby horse paddock a few rabbits hopped around whilst a great spotted woodpecker was drumming in a stand of birch trees. The permissive path soon split off from the main footpath and towards the edge of the mire. In the increasingly-damp ground reeds and marsh thistle were the most plentiful plantlife with the purple flowers of the latter attracting a lot of pollinators. Alongside the bumbles, hoverflies and flower bugs were a couple of meadow brown, a very lively small skipper and a more obliging tortoiseshell.

   

Small Skipper                    Meadow Brown                            Tortoiseshell

Soon the boardwalk entered the woodland stretches and in places is replaced by peaty stretches of footpath reinforced by branches. At the edge of the mire I peered over the locked gate and out across the open stretch of bog, punctuated by the skeletons of dead trees poking dramatically from the swamp and with a trio of mallards flying overhead. A ditch ran alongside the boardwalk at this stage and I was optimistic of grass snake but nothing doing, although there were more lizards at this point including one intrepid adventurer which had climbed to the top rail of the fence. 

View to St Chad's                            Intrepid Common Lizard

The boardwalk now headed back towards the main footpath, over a slightly awkward style and through very damp well-vegetated wood margin. It was here the my second star find of the day made its appearance, as what I at first dismissed as a superannuated ladybird larva on closer inspection proved to be a glow-worm making its way along the boardwalk. Ok so it wasn't glowing and it could be easily overlooked but this was another special encounter to add to the day.

 The Glow-worm

As the walk came to an end still time for one more encounter as I startled a grey heron which was hunting in a very overgrown ditch next to the path. As it flapped up out of the water it became entangled in the fence for a few moments but thankfully, as I apprehensively weighed up a rescue mission avoiding the ditch, the barbed wire and the heron's beak, it managed to free itself and flew away none the worse for its misadventure.