Hello everyone,

Sorry about the technical issues, Zoom via the Firefox browser doesn’t seem to work as well as I’d been led to believe.

A few comments.

Birds

I did see a turtle dove feeding on the very south of the wetlands where Andrew had been spreading the seed, so that has worked. I’ve seen the pair on the wires to the west of the land between the wetlands and the campus. They’ve also been in the trees the other side of the railway in Stephanie’s back garden, but I’m not sure if they actually nested there. No sign of them in the last few days.

Butterflies

Early on there were tortoiseshells, common blues and some orange tips. More recently there have been Biblical numbers of meadow browns, and also many small heaths and skippers. As mentioned quite a few marbled whites, also some gatekeepers, speckled woods, ringlets, commas, red admirals and a few brown argus and peacocks. No painted ladies yet. Oh and of course plenty of small whites. I’m not so up on moths, but in the last couple of days there have been loads of six spot burnet moths.

Plants, by which I mean orchids

Not a single orchid on the north side since the work was done. There were quite a few bee orchids there in the past, and some pyramidals. Also not a single bee orchid on the far south bank this year, and only a couple of pyramidals. There were, however, quite a few orchids on the south edge of the south pond. Early on a couple of southern marsh orchids, which the muntjaks got. Later quite a few bee orchids on the east side, and some pyramidals on the west, and a spotted in the middle. The best place this year was the little path through between the lakes. As you come from the far side, for me, towards the railway, just after a few saplings that are right on the path, there were bee orchids to the right, then a clump of four spotteds, further to the right in amongst the tall growth was a fabulous spotted orchid, probably close on two feet tall. A little further on, on the left was a fabulous pyramidal orchid that has only just gone over. There were also a couple of southern marsh orchids and spotted orchids further on. I’m not sure if it was the work on the north side, or the very dry May that meant there were no orchids this year. I’m a little concerned that if that centre part gets the same treatment we’ll not see orchids there next year.

Sarah, I’ll try to get something put in the Icene about permitted paths and dog fouling. I’m not sure how many people are reading it at the moment though, as it’s on line only.

Thanks everyone, and thank you for co-opting me.

Dave.