Disclaimer

This blog is written by employees of Nottinghamshire County Council, the views in this blog are personal and may not be shared by the County Council.

Monday 25 August 2014

Wild Sherwood 20.8.14

Wild Sherwood once again put in a big shift at Rufford. After doing a fantastic job of clearing the nettles along the path side a tree decided to fall right on where they had cleared the week before. So the first job of the day was to clear back the tree so the path was accessible. Pics below show before and after.



On top of this they cleared an are beside the hide for a potential butterfly bank and behind the hide where a bird feeding station is. 

Sunday 17 August 2014

Devil's Bit Scabious

    
  



The meadow has shed most of it's wildflowers now but a late arrival creates a lovely purple carpet, it is then cut later in the year. Butterflies are still plentiful in the meadow too.

Painted Lady at Rufford

Although no photo was taken a confirmed sighting of a Painted Lady butterfly was logged at Rufford today. It was seen by myself on a recently planted Buddleia bush near the Orangery. Along with the painted Lady were two Red Admirals and yesterday a Stoat was seen by a member of the public in the same area, although the local Robins were not too happy about this as they escorted it off their territory.

A Swallow has also just fledged it's third brood of fledglings, so that's 12 extra swallows heading for Africa now.

Friday 15 August 2014

Pond Dipping

Another successful Ranger lead event happened this August.
A mass of creatures were once again found in the Wetland Conservation Area. 
Below is a photo including lots of waterboatmen, leeches, flatworms, dragonfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs, ramshorn snails, pond snails, whirligig beetles and a fish........to name a few.


Monday 4 August 2014

Wild about Rufford

The picture below shows how much can be achieved when a few volunteers and their supervisors get to work. Wild Sherwood come to Rufford on a Wednesday and are based down the Wetland Conservation Area. Without their hard work the area would be less bio-diverse and events such as pond dipping wouldn't be able to take place.


Over the next fortnight an area for a potential Butterfly bank will be being cleared and some small trees under power lines too.



Friday 1 August 2014

Cygnet update and more.............

Quite surprisingly the swan which had seven cygnets still has seven!! The male has also turned back up on the scene after seemingly vanishing for a while. Below are some photos of their size change, they are nearly as big as their parents now.




Also down the other end of the park the hot weather bought out a Common Lizard, photographed here basking in the sunshine.