Great view of the Kingfisher early Tuesday morning. It was accidentally disturbed by some dog walkers and the kingfisher flew up onto a branch overhanging the Winterbourne Stream. It then flew down into vegetation out of site. A couple of minutes later it flew fast and low above the water back up the Winterbourne Stream [...]
As promised in my last post, ‘Wildlife Afternoon on the Reserve’ this post focuses on the amazing water stick insect that we found last Sunday. The Water Stick Insect looks remarkably like its terrestrial namesake but they are not closely related. In fact that are closely related to another fascinating pond inhabitant the water scorpion. [...]
We had a fascinating wildlife afternoon at the Linklater last Sunday. Despite the changeable weather, from hot sun to heavy showers, there was still plenty to see and share with the Bank Holiday Sunday visitors. Adjacent to the reserve on the banks of the River Ouse a patient heron hunted for small fish, standing patiently [...]
Some fascinating views today of greater water boatman right in front of the underwater cam in the Leighside pond. There appeared to be two greater water boatman, also called backswimmers. On two occasions that I saw, one of the water boatman swam over and grabbed the other, this could have been an attempt at courtship. The [...]
There is a lot of moorhen activity on the nature reserve, especially in the Winterbourne Stream and Leighside Pond in the woodland. Last year we were able to follow the daily life of a moorhen family through ditch cam we observed them from tiny newly hatched fluffy chicks until they were old enough to look after [...]
We have been seeing a lot of adult dragonflies and damselflies on the reserve - especially around the pond and I have seen occasional sightings through the ditch cam. Damselflies and dragonflies belong to the same group of insects and share the same general features. There are several things you can look for to help you [...]
Working late and treated to an amazing view of bats feeding over the winterbourne stream just after midnight through the winterbourne stream cam. The bats fly back and forth, twisting and turning coming in and out of view. There are many night flying insects over water and the stream providing a useful flightpath and a [...]
Today we added a new pond creature to our list of animals observed through the webcams. Attached to the housing of our pond cam Paul spotted a beautiful green and rather amazing Hydra. On the screen it looks huge but it’s only about a cm in length. Paul has changed the focus of the camera [...]
Paul has now repaired and re-sited the underwater cam in the heart of reeds. Installing the camera disturbs a lot of sediments making the water cloudy. The water is beginning to settle and today we were able to see some of the fish swimming past the camera. The large silvery coloured fish are rudd. We also [...]
The heavy rain yesterday evening and duri9ng the night left a few muddy puddles around the reserve. To us it was an inconvenience, wet feet if we did not have boots on. With the school that visited today we had to keep taking our footwear off before we went into the Linklater Pavilion because we [...]
