Blogs

September weekend for some can be a bit depressing, the end of September is a signal to many that the summer is over and winter is almost here. I, on the other hand, see it in a completely different light. By this point, autumn - my favourite season - is in full swing, and at the reserve this weekend we celebrated that with our visitors by holding an 'Amazing Autumn' event. This involved fungus hunts, creation of habitat piles for mammals and insect to hibernate in, looking at the spectacular autumn colours and thinking ahead about all of the wonderful things that the winter can bring.

The fungus hunts are always my favourite, this year we found about 20 species, and of those about 15 were new to me. The visitors loved them, especially the kids, who enjoyed the opportunity to explore parts of the reserve that they had never seen before without being told to 'stick to the path'. Some of the highlights were The Miller, Glistening Ink Cap, Sulphur Tuft, Common Earthball and a giant Birch Polypore. At one point we convinced ourselves that one of the species we found could be the Destroying Angel - one of the most poisonous toadstools in the UK - however, after the initial panic had subsided and after careful examination, it turned out to be a Common White Inocybe (still very poisonous, but not quite Destroying Angel level!)

The reserve was also featured on BBC Radio Scotland on Saturday morning, on their 'Out of Doors' programme, and Mark Stephen and I were talking about autumn, migration and the subtle changes that can be seen on the reserve during this wonderful season. If you missed this and would like to listen again, you can do so by visiting: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074hjr and selecting the programme from 27th September.

To finish i would like to say make the most of this wonderful season, get out, look for mushrooms, do something to help wildlife over the winter, take in the amazing colours of the leaves and berries and above all, have fun!

 Paula

Hello!

My apologies for not posting a blog last week, time sort of ran away from me with the preparations for the second-hand booksale, and Zul's (reserve manager) departure for his South African sabbatical. Anyway, enough of that and on to this week, and what a great week it has been!

Last week we had several sightings of an Osprey and today a Kingfisher flitted past the feeding station, (whilst people were actually around to see it - it normally only seems to come when the visitor centre is empty), but by far my highlight of this week was my close encounter with a family of wood mice.

On Friday, after some hectic book-sale preparations, one of our volunteers came in the the visitor centre and said to me, "You have to come and see this". As you can imagine, I was immediately intrigued so followed her to the picnic area. What I saw amazed me. A family of about 6 very young wood mice were crawling all around the vegetated edge of the picnic area, totally oblivious to human presence. The adult, I was told, had already scarpered, knowing better than to hang around near such large, aggresive predators as us humans, but the youngsters had not yet learnt to avoid our noisy, clumsy ways and were quite happy to continue foraging for food.

I immediately ran to get my camera, convinced they would be gone by the time I got back - I was wrong. I knelt down, slowly moving the camera closer and closer to one mouse in particular, but I needn't have worried as it proceeded to scuttle underneath my camera and started sniffing my camera strap to see if it was worth eating. Quickly realsing that it wasn't, it scurried back to the vegetation and began climbing up a very small branch to look for something more appetising. Although agile, it still didn't quite have its balance, and kept plopping off the branch on to the leaves below, to cries of "how cute!" and "awwww".

Its other brothers and sister were less curious, but still very visible and one sat in the same spot and ate something obviously very tasty for about 5 minutes.

One of the regular Friday volunteer team got a small handful of seed, and sat very patiently with his hand next to the area in which the family seemed to be congregating, and at one point we all gasped as a curious mouse put its tiny paw on his hand, but there must have been something more interesting to nibble as that was as close as it got.

 We could have sat there all day, but duty called and we left the family to it. I checked yesterday and today to see if there was any sign of them, but they had moved on to pastures new.

I personally have never seen any wild creature behave in this way, always assuming that it was instinctual to avoid predators - nature, not nurture - but this experience would suggest otherwise. I would be fascinated to hear of anyone else's encounters with mammals of any kind, so please do let me know!

As always:

If you would like to subscribe to the Lochwinnoch Blog, use the RSS feed http://blogs.rspb.org.uk/lochwinnoch/rss.aspx and you will be alerted every time there is a new post. We also welcome any feedback, so please do feel free to leave comments.

Contact the reserve in two ways:

Email: Lochwinnoch@rspb.org.uk or ring 01505842663

Paula

The votes are in, they have been counted and verified and the winning entries from each category are as follows:

Category: BIRDS

1st Place: Heron in Flight by Robert Beattie

2nd Place: Goldfinch by Marie Crum

3rd Place: Thirsty Duck by Raymond Watson

Category: WILDLIFE

1st Place: Grey Squirrel by William Blair

2nd Place: Common Blue Damselfly by John Alexander

3rd Place: Looking for Lunch Too by Shirley Adamson

Category: PEOPLE

1st Place: Toddler and Tiddler by Catherine Frew

2nd Place: I Spy by Raymond Watson

3rd Place: Enjoying Art by Zul Bhatia

Category: LANDSCAPE

1st Place: After the Rain by Robert Beattie

2nd Place: Barr Loch from Path by Daniel Ferguson

3rd Place: Pond View by Douglas McKnight

Category: UNDER 15'S

1st Place: Grasshopper in Grass

2nd Place: Swan Drying Wings

3rd Place: Blue tit and Friend

Congratulations to the winners and many thanks to all of this years participants. A full list of each participants placing in the competition is available on request. Prizes were awarded for first and second place with certificates for 3rd placed entries.

Paula

So, we've noticed at the reserve over the last few weeks a big increase in the number of house sparrows at the feeding station, which is fantastic for us as the house sparrow is not really seen at our feeders very often. However, it did make us wonder why? We have had up to 40, which certainly is a big increase from the one or two we've had all summer. So we got to researching to find out more about these underrated birds and came across Dominic Couzens book 'The Secret Life of Garden Birds' and it turns out that house sparrows take holidays! Yes, every August house sparrows will leave the territory that they stay very faithful to for the rest of the year and will venture anything up to a few kilometres to find the best spots with the ripest seeds, usually farmland crops but in our case our well stocked feeding station is appearing to be very attractive to them. As Dominic suggests "If sparrows ever let their hair down, August is the time, next month they will return, well fed and refreshed, and settle down to their sedentary lives once more." Who'd have thought it?

Later this week i will announce the results of the Lochwinnoch Photography Comnpetition, so watch this space.

Happy Monday!

Paula

Dominic Couzen's book 'The Secret Lives of Garden Birds' is available from www.rspb.org.uk/mall/rspb for £14.99

If you would like to subscribe to the Lochwinnoch Blog, use the RSS feed http://blogs.rspb.org.uk/lochwinnoch/rss.aspx and you will be alerted every time there is a new post. We also welcome any feedback, so please do feel free to leave comments.

Contact the reserve in two ways:

Email: Lochwinnoch@rspb.org.uk or ring 01505842663