We decided this afternoon as it was a rather lovely September day to take a walk around Sandwell Valley Nature Reserve. I was also I think feeling some withdrawal symptoms from walking along the banks of the River Dart in Devon where I was working at the beginning of the week for a couple of days, which is the previous entry and the latest audio on Local Life & Little Histories ... Wanderings on the Dart.
The variety of bird life on the reserve seems to be pretty low at the moment and on a day when I had equipped myself camera lens wise for talking photographs of birds I found myself looking more at insect life and with totally the wrong lens for taking photographs.
However I did manage to get a couple of semi decent shots. The fist a Common Darter which was shot from some distance with a 50-500mm zoom lenser rather then a Macro. The Common Darter is one of the shorter species of dragonfly and one of the most common to be found in the UK and they are seen between July to October often basking on warm surfaces. They breed in still ponds and sheltered lakes with eggs laid in the mud in shallow waters or on the surface of deeper water where they sink to the bottom quite quickly. While the eggs are being laid the male will stay near to fend off any other males.
The adults migrate over large areas and are often to be seem in meadows and gardens some considerable distance from water. They hunt from a high vantage point and then return to preferred look out points, either to look for new prey or to feed on whatever they have caught. The Common Darter reaches a length of around 42 - 45mm with a wingspan of around 55 - 65mm.
The second a Cinnabar Moth Caterpillar which was taken with a S7000 on macro. Cinnabar moth caterpillars can turn cannibalistic sometimes due to lack of food and sometimes for no apparent reason. The caterpillars are voracious eaters stripping entire patches of ragwort clean, due to their large numbers often hundreds in a small area and also because of low predation. The caterpillars are bitter tasting due to the ragwort and this is the reason for their low predation. The bright colours act as a warning to possible predators and as such they avoid predation.
The Caterpillars are normally seen in July and August so seeing as we are now in mid September this is a rather late sighting.
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