A lovely sunny day today so it was a good day to catch up with practical habitat management at Walsey, mainly strimming! Walsey is a lovely place in the spring with Blackthorn blossom and the Gorse blooming.

It was a beautiful Spring day with the first Blackcap singing. Lots of Chiffchaff, Chaffinch and Cetti’s Warbler were also singing. There were good numbers of Greenfinch and Goldfinch using the feeder throughout the day. The Lizards were doing their usual habit of either basking on the wooden sleepers or keeping a close eye from the safety of their little holes.

We had a lovely female Tawny Mining Bee in the gorse and 2 Comma butterflies were also quartering. There were lots of Narrow-edged Bee-flies around, a classic early spring insect. They look a bit like a Bumblebee with a long, straight proboscis that it uses to feed on flowers. They could be seen in sunny patches around the bunker. They are parasites of ground nesting and solitary bees (they deposit their eggs inside the entrance holes of solitary bees, which then hatch and feed on the bee grubs), so it makes sense that they like hanging around the bunker as we have lots of solitary bees busy making nest holes.

Shannon Clifford

Assistant Warden