Southwater Country Park - New Seasonal Warden

Hello Blogland!

My name is Tom Simon and I am the current Seasonal Assistant Countryside Warden at Southwater Country Park. I am there at weekends and this past weekend, apart from being exhaustively hot (on Saturday I drank 3 litres of water!), had some nice wildlife highlights.

In most areas of the park there Ringlets, Speckled Woods and Meadow Browns are getting numerous. On Saturday I had what was most likely a Comma fly over Lennoxwood Lake and a Clouded Yellow flying through Station Road Car Park was a nice finish to the day!

The main highlight was a Purple Emperor at the south eastern part of Quarry Lake on Sunday! Specifically, I had just walked over the little footbridge and saw a butterfly disappear up and over the ash trees the boarder the path. I waited for a moment and then, like a purple/black/white stained glass window, the Purple Emperor soared over me! It wasn’t around or still enough to attempt a photo, unfortunately.

Later, I returned with Jake to find it again but it was not to be seen. In the meadow a bit further from that spot Marbled Whites (5+) and many Six-spot Burnet Moths were flying about.

A few Skippers were around too, including this Essex Skipper



Essex Skipper

A bit of moth interest was first thing on Saturday morning when I was doing my first litter pick of the day around the Visitor Centre and this Large Emerald was very lucky I realised it wasn’t a piece of rubbish just in time!

Large Emerald

Large Emerald

Dragonfly wise, I am still getting to know my damselflies but there were several White-legged Damselfly around the Quarry Lake and in Ben's Field too. There was an Emperor Dragonfly harrying over Lennoxwood Lake almost every time I went over there and I saw about 4-6 Brown Hawkers throughout the weekend throughout the park.

Bird news: the Black-headed Gull count is going up day by day with a total of 18 on Cripplegate Lake. Swifts are continuing to be a presence over the park with flocks of on average 7 quite regular. I am told by Jake that the first 3 Common Tern chicks at Warnham are beginning to get more adventurous so it may not be long before they journey to Southwater.

That’s it from me for this week but I shall attempt to post weekly updates,

Tom