Hello!
The last month has seen a huge amount of activity at Bwlchcoediog Nature Reserve. The birds have been very busy nesting, incubating and now feeding their young. Twenty nine of our nestboxes have been used so far this year and we currently have a total of 143 chicks in them. One of them has even been used twice by different species! On the day after 7 baby nuthatches fledged from it, a pair of pied flycatchers moved in and the female pied flycatcher is currently sitting on 5 eggs. The nuthatch family can be seen on our feeders most days now.
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| Nuthatch chicks |
Most of our nestboxes are being used by pied flycatchers and blue tits. Many of the chicks will be fledging in the next few days.
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| Blue tit chicks |
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| Pied flycatcher chicks |
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| Female pied flycatcher |
The ponds are also heaving with activity. On sunny days (not the bank holiday unfortunately!) hundreds of large red damselflies can currently be seen mating and laying eggs. The four-spotted chasers have also been busy with aggressive males defending territories, mating and females laying eggs.
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| Large red damselflies |
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| Four-spotted chaser |
Bwlchcoediog will also be on TV this coming week! Last year Griff Rhys Jones and crew came here to film as part of his Britain's Lost Routes series currently being shown on BBC1. This episode is called Pilgrims and is being broadcast on Wednesday at 7pm. You may recognise our campfire area in the featured clip as well as our dog and quad bike!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jjr53
And finally here is a photo of our woods last month...
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