Things to Do

Butterflies

Our summer job of registering butterflies is drawing to a close. Each week one or more of us goes up the Mendips to count what butterflies are in the transacts or sections of the walk that we exactly tread . This year has been reasonable although alas we have not spotted the once common chalk hill blue or the always rare Adonis blue. It has been very rewarding however and last week I took this photo of a young Comma feeding. These are really colourful and gorgeous. I also saw an elderly pale one at the same time, and Les Cloutman told me this would have come from the first brood of the season and that the Comma has two broods,unusually for butterflies
Then I visited Chew Valley Lake and was rewarded with seeing 5 great egrets. Huge white stork like birds,
Next week is the last butterfly walk this year. We are always very fortunate indeed to go up with our specialist Pete Smith, now 90 years of age and amazingly tenacious and fit!
This year our blackberries are stunning,large and sweet also
Best Wishes
Lucy White

Things to Do and See 22 September 2017

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Wookey Hole Fete

Things to Do and See 17 July 2017

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Wookey Hole Wildlife Blog - September 2016

Wookey Hole Wildlife Blog for September. Les Cloutman

Hope you all enjoyed the summer break.

Global warming? Possibly but we seem to be getting more of the Hawk Moth family each year. Did you know we have elephants in our village – well OK the Elephant Hawk Moths, and their caterpillars.

The caterpillars feed on willow herb so are quite likely to turn up in your garden (the above were in my garden this year).

When fully grown the caterpillar will crawl about looking for loose soil to burrow into to change into a chrysalis and wait for the next spring.

If feels threatened it will rear up and pretend to be a snake. Hopefully fooling the bird or other predator into leaving it alone.

Although this summer presented us with a mixed bag of weather, August was good enough for our local farmers to bring in good harvest. Unfortunately one creature you won’t in the harvest fields is the Harvest Mouse. Modern harvest methods and machines eliminated them from the fields long ago – we do still have harvest mice locally, although they are now confined to areas of long grass and reed beds. They are the smallest of our mice and acrobatically climb and nest among the reeds and grasses on the Priddy Mineries reserve. If you are lucky you will find their perfectly woven cricket ball sized nests. Large fires started by careless people using those horrible ‘instant BBQs’ devastated the Mineries last the spring and many harvest mice and other creatures must have died, but the site is large enough, hopefully, for mice to repopulate the regrown areas next year.

Les C This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Things to Do and See 04 September 2016

Wildlife Blog - July 2016

In praise of our Little Brown Butterflies
Maybe there are not as many as we oldies remember but there are still lots of
butterflies in our countryside – some even visiting our gardens.
Some like the peacock and red admiral are as beautiful and showy as their names suggest but ‘brown’ butterflies at first glance look very uninteresting but take a closer look!
The ones you are most likely to see


Meadow Brown	Ringlet

Gatekeeper	Small heath

August is school holiday time – make it a wild month!
There is so much wildlife to see and things to do in Somerset.
With the Somerset Wildlife Trust (SWT) you can go to some of the very best parts.
Our local Wells Wildlife Group will be meeting at the Bishops Palace Moat (By the drawbridge)at 8.00pm on Tuesday the 23rd Aug joining bat experts with bat detectors. Other years we have seen- and heard- up to seven different species including dozens of Daubenton’s bats flying out from the drawbridge chains to skim low over the moat hunting for insects, tiny Pipistrelles , and nationally rare Greater Horseshoes who come out from caves on the Mendips.
For more information on this walk contact Amanda Millar 01458 741821 or David Coggan 01749 673155

It is fairly easy walking but be aware that we will finish well after dark, and it can get quite cool - even in summer.
Oh and bring an adult along - why should you have all the fun!

Natterer's Bat Nigel Milbourn 2011

There are events and organised walks on almost every day of the month
– just check out the SWT website: http://www.somersetwildlife.org/events.html

Les Cloutman This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Things to Do and See 11 July 2016

Wildlife Blog - June 2016

June is a very busy month for our wildlife and after such a cold slow start to the year everything is happening at once.

I had planned to mention all our fabulous flowers and wildlife and the glories of our wildlife Spring – instead a small common bird just won’t let me ignore it!.

Things to Do and See 12 June 2016