A Year of Wildlife in Wymeswold
NatureSpot parish editor and heritage warden, Lorraine Ellison, has written up a summary of her wildlife finds in and around Wymeswold. More...
Spring started for me in mid February, when, at a temperature of only 7 Degrees, I saw a Bumblebee. It has a furry coat to keep it warm, so it is the earliest of the bees to emerge after hibernation. On March 1st there was the first sightings of butterflies – bright yellow Brimstones. There were at least three in the village on that day, in my garden at the Six Hills end, in the middle of the village, and one seen by Marilyn Rowley at the Hoton end of the village. The Brimstone was soon followed by a Small Tortoiseshell, and we hoped for a summer full of butterflies on the wing, but the weather set them back, and national surveys showed that populations of butterflies fell a lot this year. I had one very good day in my garden though, I counted 95 Peacock butterflies, nearly all on the Buddleas.
In April there was an exotic visitor to the village. A beautiful red and blue bird, native of Australia, and presumably someone’s escaped pet. Glenda Yeldham took lots of photographs of the Crimson Rosella.
Also in May, Vela Burden sent me a picture of a colony of about 50 ladybirds which were clustered together. They were all our native 7-spot Ladybird, and it was good to see so many of them this year. When the large Harlequin Ladybird arrived here a few years ago many thought that our native ladybirds would suffer.
We had a hare visit our garden in May. It seemed tame, and hopped about the garden and came as close as about a metre from three of us. It seems that it is normal behaviour at that time of year, and since I have got close to another three hares. Wonderful!
At the end of May a Grass Snake had a swim in our pond, and then hid somewhere in the plants. A couple of minutes later a large frog plopped into the pond. On the same day I saw some enormous dragonfly larvae and guessed that they were Emperor dragonflies. As these normally hide, seeing them is an indication that they are about to emerge, so I was eager to see if there were any signs of the adults the next morning. What I found proved that they were indeed Emperors, but the only evidence was a head, thorax and wings. They eyes and wings are so distinctive that it couldn’t have been anything else. So what ate the rest of it as it emerged? Was it the Grass Snake, the frog, the newts that live in the pond, or one of the occasional mallard visitors, who I have seen eating damselflies? That dragonfly had a very short life, but if the Grass Snake had it for breakfast it would have helped it produce the baby Grass Snakes that were in our compost heap later in the summer.
In July Shirley and Norman Bryan-Peach found a dead bat in their garden with enormous ears. It has been identified as a Brown Long-eared Bat. This is another new species for Wymeswold.
The best sighting for me was one evening, in our parish, watching two young badgers playing. One saw us and came closer to investigate while the other chose to have a bit of a snooze. That was a real treat.
Today I saw a Sparrow Hawk, Greater Spotted Woodpeckers, Long-tailed Tits, Redpoll, Goldfinches, Pheasants, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits…..
Please let me know of anything unusual that you see, and I will put your sightings in the national and county records that are being kept about wildlife in Leicestershire.
Happy wildlife watching.
Lorraine Ellison (Wymeswold Heritage Warden)