Autumn activity at Tudeley

I parked up  by the RSPB car park, where there was a female Eristalis tenax (pictured below) and another Eristalis, possibly Eristalis arbustorum, working some of the last of the Common Fleabane, Pulicaria dysenterica. There was also a female Sphaerophoria sp.

I left quite quickly and walked down to the sandy ride towards the heathland walk. The heather was not being as actively worked as my last visit and for example I would say that I saw a few Helophilus pendulus today, rather than many.

The Eupeodes male wandered around the patch of Tormentil, Potentilla erecta, and seemed to be taking nectar from the convex receptacle of the flowers, between the many stamens. The Rose family is often characterised by producing huge numbers of stamens with prodigious quantities of pollen in their anthers, but the more "advanced" genera also produce nectar on the gynophore, and that is what I assume I am seeing here.

Birch bashing at Tudeley

Spent most of the morning moving the birch cut earlier in the year and piled in patches around the site to a roaring fire. we probably left enough to make a habitat pile or two.

After lunch, very pleasant, we had a bit of a go at clearing the birch seedlings and bracken to try to give the heather a bit of a chance to flower and thrive. That was slow and very hard work!

Highlight of the day was the appearance on several occasions of some very tame young wild boar that came up to us repeatedly, first as a group of about half a dozen, and then as individuals, presumably expecting food!