A guided walk around College Lake

I went on a guided walk around College Lake, a BBOWT nature reserve, today. It's one of my favourite places, but I've only ever been with Bug Mad Girl (and sometimes Little Brother) in the past. Little legs don't like to walk too far, so we never get very far from the visitors centre and the pond dipping/bug hunting area, which is only about one fifth of the nature reserve. This was my chance to walk all the way around the edge of the lake/wetland area and hear a bit about the history and wildlife.

Walking along, listening to our guide talk about how the reserve came about and the work they do there, he would suddenly stop mid-sentence and point at a bird flying past or listen to a bird song and tell us what was there. We saw lots of things that I would have probably missed otherwise, including a family of Long Tailed Tits, Kestrels, Green Woodpeckers, a Willow Warbler and a Kingfisher. There were several Herons around and one flew directly over us. No fear of missing that one, as it was huge and looked like a dinosaur!

A Heron in the reeds

There were lots of Canada Geese on the lake, but they expect there to be lots more waterfowl arriving in the next month or so.

 

There were lots of dragonflies flying around and they've had Hobbies there for the last few days, eating the dragonflies. Unfortunately we didn't see any today.

There were lots of signs of foxes (fox poo on the paths), voles (little runs through the long grass) and badgers (runs through the grass and badger toilets).

A badger trail

A badger toilet!

We saw a lovely big fungus and spotted a gall growing on a rose bush called Robin's pincushion gall. It's made when a certain type of wasp lays eggs on the rose. The larva hatch and start eating the plant which causes it to grow in a strange way, producing cells around the larva and the moss like structure.



#100DaysOfNature Day 53 - Fungus

#100DaysOfNature Day 52 - Robin's pincushion gall

 There were lots of Teasels around. The Goldfinches love to eat them and I love to look at them!


Teasels