Gaywood Valley: Osier Marsh and Reffley Wood: 16th

The last time that I updated the list of all species that have been recorded for my patch, it stood at around 450 species. I was reminded recently that I had arrived at the 500 species in the middle of June 2015 and that I have added an average of 10 species a month when I reached 600 species. I have updated the list since that conversation and the Patch List Total now stands at 634, with a month still to go until the 500 anniversary. This now makes my average additions to the Patch List to just over 12 a month.

The fact that I finally got my moth trap working has given me the greatest number of additions. I bought the trap in 2013, but it had stopped working by the third time of use. I had tried a new light bulb and then a new battery, but neither of these worked. In the end, I decided that I had damaged the electrics when I accidentally attached the battery leads the wrong way round and so had to wait until 2015 and could afford to buy new electronics. This worked a treat and I managed to get the trap out on 5 occasions through the year.

Since 2014, I have been busy trying to identify hoverflies, which have probably been the second biggest number of species to be added to the overall list. A good fungi season provided another batch of new records and a small number of spiders have also been added. The end of last year saw the first publication of a book to ID bees for over a hundred years, and I have been eagerly been using it since march, adding a good number of bees.

This week has been the first week of a fortnights holiday and the weather has been relatively kind, enabling surveys to be undertaken each day bar the wet and windy Wednesday. I have even been able to find the time to buckle down to surveying the grasses and sedges of the area and have added a small number of these to the list. I have also added further numbers of bees and some more hoverflies.

In addition to the glut of new species, there have also been plenty of first for the year this week. This includes the first flowering cock's-foot grass and large-leaved timothy grass, the first cardinal beetle and small yellow underwing moth, the first fledged hedge accentors, the first Cercopis vulnerata, sand martin, flowering yellow iris, tree bumblebee worker, early bumblebee and flowering bird's-foot trefoil.

The mute swan nest that is on the Reffley Reservoir has seen some drama this week. I noticed the swan that had been sitting when I had passed by earlier was now standing to one side of the nest. Expecting to see one of the eggs hatching, I stopped to have a closer look through my binoculars. I could only see four of the seven eggs that I know are there, but I could also see something just to one side of the eggs. It was too dark to be a chick and I couldn't work out what it was. It didn't help that it wasn't moving and I struggled to work out what it actually was. Then, all of a sudden, I was shocked to realise what it was - an adder!

Up until this moment, I never knew that adders do occasionally swim. There was no other way it could have got into the nest, which is a good distance from the edge of the reservoir and any kind of dry passage. I have no idea why the adder was there and can only assume it was looking for chicks. A mute swan egg is surely to big for an adder to tackle? I was unable to stay and watch what would happen next, but the snake had gone and the swan was back sitting on the eggs the next day.

On Friday 20th, I noticed that both swans were now on the nest and that the sitting bird was fidgeting a lot. So I sat down to pour myself of cup of tea and wait to see I could confirm my suspicions. It wasn't very long before I had my answer when the swan stood up and I could see a newly hatched chick that was still wet from the egg.