Walking Festival comes to Foxglove

Today we were happy to host a guided walk as part of the Richmond Walking and Book Festival which is running until the 28th of September. We walked round the majority of the site over a couple of hours and explained amongst other things; how Foxglove came to exist, how the reserve is managed, the diverse range of habitats on site and some of the flora and fauna.

After explaining how Kingfishers have regularly been seen feeding on the lake of late we walked across the bridge and Matt caught a glimpse of a blue flash that we had startled from a perch. Presuming that we had now scarred away the Kingfisher we went into the hide and settled into the seats for a few minutes to see if we would be lucky and it would return.  We were then treated to a master class of how to catch small fish. The Kingfisher was using the railing in front of the hide as a perch and was dropping into the water and coming out every time with a fish, quite an incredible display!

We finished the walk through the scrapes where we spotted a number of dragonflies (like the Common Darter below), continued over the heath and along Risedale Beck. Everyone enjoyed the walk and we look forward to welcoming back the participants anytime.

On Friday we had our second group from Hipswell Primary School and thoroughly enjoyed showing them many minibeasts, habitats and pond dwellers that we have at Foxglove. We will be having all the year groups from the school this term and are looking forward to hosting our third group this Thursday.

Finally a note to the Tuesday volunteers; tomorrow we will be attempting some pond clearance on the wetland so wellies and clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and wet are a must. If anyone has any waders and fancies joining Matt in the middle of the ponds your company would be more than welcome!