Lunt Meadows

Four spotted chaser dragonfly

Two of our regular reserve visitors shared these close-up, detailed images of a four spotted chaser dragonfly on our Lunt Meadows reserve.Four-spotted chasers are on the wing from May to September, sometimes into October. Commonly found on heathland, moorland, around ponds, lakes and in woods, they are ative dragonflies. They can be seen hawking over the water searching for insects to eat, or to mark out their territories for mating. They also mate on the wing!

Mere Sands Wood

Green-veined white butterfly

Whilst exploring Mere Sands Wood, Michaela Moville also took this gorgeous photo of an often mis-identified or overlooked common butterfly. The green-veined white is white with black wingtips and one or two black spots on the forewing. Smaller than the large white, it has less black in the wing. It can be distinguished from the very similar Small white by the thick, grey-green stripes along the veins on the undersides of its wings. It also tends to be found in damper habitats. 

Chat Moss

Meadow Pipit

Kevin Bradshaw shared this lovely photo of a meadow pipit at Chat Moss in Irlam.Unfortunately, meadow pipits are the most common 'foster parents' of young cuckoos. The adult cuckoo will lay a single egg in a meadow pipit's nest. After hatching, the cuckoo chick will push the other eggs or young birds out of the nest, giving its foster parents more time to concentrate on feeding their new, oversized chick.

Hobbies...catching dragonflies

Kevin was also keen eyed enough to capture a hobby chasing dragonflies in flight!Hobbies are small falcons, even smaller than a kestrel. Their streamlined build makes them the ideal acrobat to catch dragonflies and small birds like swifts and house martins in this way. 

Heysham Moss

Cotton Grass

Regular visitor and wildlife photographer Janet shared these beautiful images of the swathes of cotton grass adorning Heysham Moss. Historically, common cotton-grass was used to stuff pillows in Sussex. It was also collected and used in Scotland to dress wounds during the First World War.Seeing them waving along our reserves is a beautiful and not-so-common sight.