On Tuesday we had our second “bee” walk, organised for us by Nikki Gammans of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. (The first was at Dungeness RSPB reserve). We were met at Cliffe Pools RSPB reserve by Rosie of Buglife and, after an introductory talk, we set off armed with nets and plastic pots. To begin with […]
During lunch, at our recent trip to Sevenoaks Reserve, Derek introduced the topic of the proposed Swanscombe Recommended Marine Conservation Zone (as you do!). If, like me, you thought that Marine Conservation Zones are all about dolphins and sea horses, then think again! The Thames, between Greenhithe and Swanscombe (Broadness Point) has been proposed as […]
Fifteen of us met and decided to walk along the sea wall as the tide was on the way in. We saw little grebe, cormorant, black headed gulls, heron, avocet in flight, coot, moorhen, mute swan, lapwing, starling and a mediterranean gull. Pied wagtails were busy foraging among the rocks. A wasp spider was seen […]
Our bumblebee walk at Dungeness on Saturday produced a worker bumblebee that had collected green pollen. I thought this was really odd (the green colour that is). A google search revealed that Rosebay Willowherb has green pollen. So today I went in search. And it does! I burst open an anther (pictured) and out popped […]
We recently had an indoor talk from Dr. Nikki Gammans of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust on bumblebees. At the end of the talk she said that she would be happy to arrange for our group to visit Dungeness RSPB reserve to find out more about bumblebees and the conservation work being carried out to reverse […]
On Tuesday we visited the Kent Wildlife Trust reserve at Sevenoaks. We were greeted by an assistant warden who suggested that we visited the Tyler Hide overlooking the East Lake. A common sandpiper and 2 little ringed plovers had been reported from there. We set ourselves up in the hide and carefully scanned the East […]
At our last Tuesday morning group trip to Northward Hill RSPB Reserve we had a great time finding and watching some of the special butterfly species that can be found there (such as Marbled White). Alan added a comment to my report – he wrote “Are butterflies getting rarer?” and added a link to a […]
A large group (30+) of members and visitors met at 10am at the RSPB reserve at Northward Hill. We had decided that we would head for the woodland – hoping to find some shade, in what was already a very hot day. With permission from Ruby, assistant warden, we headed off in the direction of […]