Typical, isn’t it? After such glorious weather in July, our family activity days took place in dull, windy weather – though at least we missed the rain.
Despite the wind, we still welcomed about 300 children and their parents over the two days. Everyone learnt about how our world is changing, with activities about coastal change, recycling, albatrosses and much more. Our volunteers and staff are fantastic, as it takes a lot of time and effort to run these events.
For the children, the pond dipping and bird ringing demonstrations are always fun, but the other activities give more learning opportunities. For many families, completing an eco-footprint quiz was quite enlightening. We hope a few will change their lifestyles to reduce their scores. Our guest stars, Owlbert and Squeak, were popular too.
August has been generally wet, with many very heavy showers interspersed with lovely sunny spells. On our last pond dipping day, families continued pond dipping even during a torrential shower!
Despite the rain, there have been few birds on the Scrape, as it needs a few weeks for the invertebrates to breed and ‘restock’ food supplies for the wading birds and ducks.
As last month, insects have been one of the main attractions in August, especially hummingbird hawkmoths. Up to six of these fascinating moths have been feeding on the buddleias all month – even in the rain!
As their name suggests, hummingbird hawkmoths look and behave like hummingbirds, hovering close to flowers and probing their long tongues deep into the flower in search of nectar. They are scarce migrants, and this has been a good year. You may even have seen one in your garden.
As autumn approaches, we now have our winter events programme available. Copies are available from the reserve, and all events are listed on this website. We’d love to see you on the Suffolk coast this autumn.