Dawn Chorus and Marsh Fritillary

A great early morning trip to Cotswold Waterpark to listen to Nightingales.

#GlosBirds Dawn walk at CWP at least 5 nightingales singing - here's an iPhone recording of the most vocal https://t.co/vzN0LkCvrR

— Simon Ashley (@MilouTheBrave) May 16, 2015

Sedge Warbler

Reed Bunting

@gloswildlife A new butterfly for me today, and a stunner, Marsh Fritillary everywhere at Strawberry Banks. pic.twitter.com/3xpOLCS1gr

— Simon Ashley (@MilouTheBrave) May 16, 2015

Moth Trapping - May (1)

An attempt at being a little more systematic in my approach to moth recording this year - it was all a bit overwhelming last time with sometimes well over two hundred moths in the trap.

So I started early in the season and set the trap up on Saturday night.

The result may have been only four moths but they were all different - and I had a go at identifying them all.

Garden Carpet

Hebrew Character

Puss Moth

Shuttle-Shaped Dart

Tadpole Diary - Part 2

I've checked the everyday but it was a while before anything seemed to happen!! The eggs' black centres remained stubbornly round.   Then eventually some two weeks after we got them home - we finally noticed the classic comma shape.

Something is happening

Tadpole Diary - Part 1

As a bit of an educational experiment to engage the whole family in more nature things, we decided to try and raise some froglets from frogspawn and follow this part of the lifecycle.

I know we're not really encouraged to do this kind of thing anymore and the risk of spreading disease is always there, but we took care to check that the ponds weren't infected.  we also made a promise to ourselves return the froglets to the same place we got them from.

We found some pretty easily in a local pond and took just a few from the carpet of spawn that was present.

Our Frogspawn