Monday 5 July 2010

Guided Walk Event

A guided walk at the Isleham Local Nature Reserve was held on the Monday evening following the Isleham Gala. A good crowd attended, and were taken on a tour of the fauna and flora by Alastair Burn and Nigel Cooper. Nigel provided a wealth of knowledge on the botany of the site, and we all learned a lot about the habitat and the plants which are growing there. Alastair demonstrated the use of a sweep net to catch insects and we identified a number of beetles, moths and butterflies. This was particularly enjoyed by a number of children who came along, and were seen running through the long grass in the adjoining field with the sweep net having a great time. We also enjoyed the birdsong on a sunny July evening.

Plants:
We saw examples of 7 species of umbellifers growing on the reserve, including cow parsley, wild carrot & wild parsnip. (I'll try to remember the others and update this). (Read more about umbellifers ).
Flowering plants identified by Nigel included perforate St. Johns Wort, Scabious, Greater Knapweed, Tufted Vetch, Lady's Bedstraw & Bladder Campion.
We found 5 examples of Knapweed Broomrape. This parasitic plant contains no chlorophyll, and obtains it's water and nutrients from the host knapweed plant. Only the flower spike is visible above ground. 
We also learned how to distinguish between several types of grasses.
(This is a small sample of what Nigel actually showed us, based on what I can recall after the event).

Insects:
We identified the following butterflies: Ringlet, Small Skipper
Several micro-moths were found on flowers, and we identified a Shaded Broad-bar moth. We also saw some caterpillars of the Cinnabar moth.
We caught a lot of different beetles, including some metallic green ones. As we were walking back to the car park at the end of the walk we were visited by some really loud buzzing beetles which seemed particularly attracted to us in the dusk!
(Read more about British butterflies & moths ).