The beautiful and spectacular dragonflies and damselflies that add a splash of colour to our ponds and ditches in the summer spend most of their lives underwater as a dull brown or greenish nymphs (larva). Why do you think that the nymphs are such a dull colour? We have many damselfly nymphs during the RLL [...]
Two species of warbler return to the heart of reeds each year, the reed warbler and the white throat. REED WARBLER The reed warblers have now returned in the Heart of Reeds where they will nest. Their arrival on the reserve follows a long migration as the warblers fly to the UK from their winter [...]
Pond cam has being providing views of how rich the life is in the woodland pond. Some of the pond life is quite large, such as the fish and the newts. But some of it is very tiny, too small to see in detail but you can see lots of tiny creatures swimming in front of [...]
In the autumn last year, adult common eels migrated down the river Ouse and other Sussex rivers to the sea. Their return to the sea was the first stage of a very long migration when thousands of common eels swim to the Sargasso Sea where they are believed to breed. The adult eels live in [...]
One of the big wildlife events of the year in the ponds and ditches is the arrival of common frogs, following their winter hibernation. Frogs spend most of their life on land, but when they awaken from hibernation they feed and then head off to the pond and ditches to mate. The frogs feed using [...]
Many animals awaken from hibernation in March and so as we start April many of the animals are out and about. Newts, which have hibernated away from the ponds and ditches, will now be active. They will slowly make their way back to water, but its slow progress. On land newts look like lizards, but their movements are [...]
You may have noticed through our pond cam that there are lots of tiny creatures swimming about. Most of these are tiny freshwater crustaceans called daphnia and cyclops. These tiny creatures are very important as they are food for many of the fish, newts and other animals that live in pond. As the pond water [...]
We have been seeing some exciting behaviour through ditch cam the last few days. The moorhen that live in the ditches are preparing to nest. Before this happens the males tend to squabble and chase each other around in the hope of impressing the females. You can see this in the school video library clips [...]
There has not been a lot activity on the reserve during the winter months. Why do you think this might be? Animals have different ways of coping with the severe winter weather. Some animals, especially birds, stay active during the winter and we have seen this through the bird cam. A few species of bird [...]
Even thought we have had very few days of ice and snow, many of the plants have still prepared them selves for winter. To survive the harsh conditions of winter, many of the plants on the nature reserve have died back to the ground or shed all their leaves and become dormant (resting). People are [...]
