Nature Notes

By Denis O’Connor

Wharfedale Naturalists Society

(wharfedale-nats.gov.uk)

AS summer faded into autumn I visited three widely spread wetland nature reserves, Leighton Moss, Staveley and Minsmere.

Leighton Moss was rather quiet and did not produce the hoped-for otters and bitterns although marsh harriers quartered the reedbeds. On the freshwater lagoons there were few ducks while those most elegant of birds, black-tailed godwits, accompanied by a single greenshank, were the only waders. There was more action on the saltmarsh pans with hundreds of teal, redshanks and lapwings and a few avocets. Standing out were the little egrets (pictured), a dozen in view with more hidden among the channels, a species previously rare but now on an inexorable march northwards as the climate warms.

An evening visit to Staveley two days later also started quietly until lapwings dipping down crazily over the East Lagoon alerted us to three otters porpoising across the water, probably a mother with large cubs. One soon retired back through the reeds while we watched the other two for an hour. Is there a more charismatic British mammal?

Three days after that my wife and I departed for a week in a Suffolk cottage. During two sunny days wandering around Minsmere we saw lots of ducks and waders, little egrets again everywhere and most of the more elusive specialities with bittern and bearded tits on both days. Marsh harriers were common and at one point three circled with a hobby in the same thermal.

For me the highlights were a fox that caused havoc crossing one of the lagoons and a water rail, such a skulking bird, which scuttled along the edge of the reeds.

Otters had left footprints in the mud below the ramp up to one of the hides so I returned one evening and waited until dark but, with typical perversity, neither they nor the crepuscular bitterns showed.

Just north of Minsmere, walking through the Dingle Marshes Reserve behind the long shingle bank cutting it off from the sea, we had to tread carefully to avoid dozens of enormous, two-inch hairy caterpillars, the offspring of the fox moth, a moth I have never seen.

A moth trap outside the cottage attracted a few autumnal and East Anglian specialities. My favourite was a red underwing, a big moth with a three-inch wingspan which sat on my finger vibrating its wings in preparation for take-off, its red hindwings just beginning to show while I had my camera poised to capture their full scarlet glory. As it sprang into the air the shutter clicked. I had taken a perfect photo of my empty fingers!