On Friday night (7th May) I met up with Gill Smart, the reserve manager at Gailes Marsh, to set up 2 heath traps to survey moth species on the reserve. It was quite a chilly night, but as we walked round the reserve a few brave moths were spotted dashing past. Grasshopper warblers were calling until it was pretty dark.
The next morning (Saturday 8th May) I picked up 2 keen volunteers from Glasgow and we drove down to Irvine for the wildflower planting day at Gailes Marsh. We were lucky once more with the weather. Sunshine and beautiful blue skies with clear views across to Arran! 16 volunteers arrived for the planting event, which was really great and we had a few extra supporters arrive later too!
The first task of the day was to check the moth traps that had been ran overnight. We had a number of species including Hebrew Characters, Clouded Drabs and a fantastic Red Sword-Grass (see photo below) which were new records for the site.
Spot the Moth?We then visited the scrapes of bare soil and banks that had been sown with KV seed during the March volunteer day. The surviving seedlings (that hadn't been munched by weevils) were doing well, although they were much smaller than the van-load of plants grown by Owen Figgis that he'd brought up from Castle
Douglas that morning.
After a brief introduction to the project, everyone took a tray of kidney vetch seedlings and set off to plant them in wee groups throughout the reserve.
The planting didn't take too long, and after watering in the plants we sat down for chat and lunch in the sunshine.
After lunch we met Harry, one of the regular SWT volunteers that help with the butterfly transect at Gailes Marsh. He was doing his weekly count while we were there. Butterflies seen by the volunteers included Green-Veined Whites, Orange tips, Peacocks, Small Coppers and a single Large White (that may have come up from Castle Douglas with the trays of kidney vetch). We then set off for a nature foray around the reserve which was a lot of fun. Highlights included the fantastically busy sandmartin nest site, finding a bird-of prey pellet and guessing the identity of the wee bones, frogs and hundreds of tadpoles in the loch, Drinker moth and Garden Tiger moth caterpillars, a whole range of beetles, hoverflies, bees (possibly including a very rare solitary bee), spiders and quite a few species of birds (including Wheatears, curlews, oyster catchers and willow warblers in abundance). All in all it was a fantastic day and I really enjoyed meeting lots of enthusiastic volunteers. Thanks to everyone who came along!
