Honeyguide Wildlife Blog

Honeyguide’s conservation donations in 2023 totalled £4515. This blog is mostly to give news on the most recent donations, in autumn 2023, as well as the running total. Cove at Binidali, Menorca, October 2023 (Chris Gibson). Our October holiday on Menorca – as for all our Menorca holidays over nearly 30 years – supported The Grup Balear d'Ornitologia i Defensa de la Naturalesa (the Balearic Ornithological Group) – GOB Menorca for short. Our donation was £610, which includes Gift Aid and an additional donation. A nice element while we are on Menorca is direct contact with GOB Menorca. I saw this at first hand in October 2023, and it was the same for the group with Chris Gibson in October 2023. Carlos Coll, President of GOB Menorca, came to our base Matxani Gran along with Charlotte from GOB’s Farm Stewardship p rogramme. Carlos wrote to me to say: “We had a wonderful evening with a really interesting group of Honeyguiders. Charlotte spoke about the team she forms part of and

This is an account of a personal visit to La Brenne, in mid-France. The tourist information about the ‘ parc naturel régional’ says it is the 'land of a thousand lakes' and ‘1001 surprises’. Most accounts say there are closer to 2,000 lakes, fish ponds created from the Middle Ages and since. These and the quiet country lanes and tracks are very attractive for wildlife, walking and cycling. La Brenne, land of 1000 lakes. Our trip was by train, car hired locally, and bike. Here is the outline itinerary: 20 September: train Norwich to London, Eurostar St Pancras to Lille, overnight Lille. 21 September: trains TGV to Paris Gare du Nord, transfer to Paris Austerlitz, Austerlitz to Chateauroux; hire car to a g î te in Mézières-en-Brenne. 22 September: car to l a réserve naturelle nationale de Chérine (several hides). Circular walk from Mézières-en-Brenne following route collected from tourist information centre. 23 September: hired bikes for route 5, a 43kilometre circuit. T

Today's outing took a slightly different format in that it was an evening outing especially timed to see the high tide wader roost at the RSPB's Snettisham nature reserve on the Norfolk side of The Wash. Because it was a big group Rob was joined by Steve Cale, an experienced guide and accomplished artist.   Half of the group met mid-afternoon for a walk from the RSPB car park to Snettisham Coastal Park. The first surprise of the day was a juvenile little tern we saw feeding in a freshwater pool alongside the entrance road to the car park. Large flocks of hirundines were feeding over the trees, a mix of swallows and house martins and at least eight buzzards circled on the thermals. We started out along the inner sea bank at Snettisham Coastal Park and saw a young whitethroat in a hedge with a group of house sparrows. Daphne spotted a speciality of the area - a turtle dove sitting on the overhead wires. In the distance we could see the first flocks of waders swirling in the d

A curiosity of today’s visit to NWT’s Hickling Broad and Marshes nature reserve was that two of the most interesting sightings were in the long grass in the open picnic area by the visitor centre. The first of these was the day-flying moth latticed heath. Rachel in the visitor centre checked it out and it’s not the first for the reserve, but far from an everyday species. (More information on Norfolk Moths .) For the second good find, scroll down to lunchtime! Latticed heath moth. On this warm and sunny day, dragonflies were out on good numbers, with common and ruddy darters particularly common and confiding. A black-tailed skimmer landed on pallets in the first field, and migrant hawkers were numerous. Later a female emperor dragonfly hunted around us, and we saw a couple of brown hawkers. Mosquitos were also numerous, as two of us in shorts found, especially between the visitor centre and the first hide, though Ann’s insect repellent helped. A brown shield bug on a bramble stem was

The fine, hot weather was true to the forecast – about time after a mixed few weeks – as eight of us gathered to visit NWT’s Thompson Common nature reserve centre, ready for our 10 o’clock start. Though some distance from water, our first dragonflies were in the car park: a flying emperor, a ‘hanging’ female migrant hawker and a pair of common darters in tandem. Common darters 'in tandem' (digiscoped). We took the winding path through open woodland, where a speckled wood was flying around, and were soon where the common is a mix of long grass and wild flowers, along with accessible pingos. On the first of these was a common emerald damselfly, with lots of powder-blue pruinescence. Ruddy darters were everywhere: not only were several pairs flying in tandem, we could also see the female flicking her tail end, shooting eggs into the grass around the wetland edge. At one point, Ann’s arm was in the way of this process and two eggs stuck to her wrist. Notable flowers in the water in

  Guest blog by Sarah Scott, Friends of Eaton Park Walk arranged by   Friends of Eaton Park,  with Chris Durdin,  Thursday 13  July 2023 6pm. We were lucky again with the weather: a few spits and spots of rain at the start, but clear and dry for the rest of the walk.   Twelve of us set off from the Rotunda and first stop was the wildflower area between the two model railway enclosures.   This area was originally planted with heathers, but they deteriorated some years ago and the Friends of Eaton Park - in collaboration with the City Council - replaced them with an area of seeded wildflowers.   The beds were a riot of colour for our visit, and we identified: Musk Mallow, Betony, Clary, Greater Knapweed, Ladies Bedstraw (an exceptionally tall version), Wild Carrot and Restharrow.   There was also some bright pink Broad-leaved Everlasting Pea, and Chris used one of the flowers to show us the characteristic structure of pea flowers – the upper petal (the standard), two side petals (wings