BBOWT

A trip out to two of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust reserve’s in glorious sunshine with partial cloud and 18c by mid-morning turned out to be very frustrating as insects were very thin on the ground. The fossil filled cliffs at Dry Sandford Pit dates from a distant time when the sea covered Oxfordshire and the sandy beaches exposed by quarrying are well worth a look in their own right especially with the marshy fen on the quarry floor fed by springs home to the rare Southern Damselfly. Although they were on the wing we had no luck in finding them even with the help of a survey worker monitoring there whereabouts. All we had were 2 Large Red Damselfly, Common Blue Damselfly, Dave's first Meadow Brown of the year and Green-veined White plus a few Common-spotted Orchids, many Solitary Bees, Reed Warbler, Nightingale and 3 Red Kite over. We moved on to the nearby Cothill Fen and the Parsonage Moor Nature reserve for another chance of Southern Damselfly. Again no SDs but did managed to see the nationally scarce Narrow Leaved Marsh Orchid. Unfortunately they were past there best and someway out in the bog so did not want to damage such a fragile eco system for the sake of a picture. More information on both reserves can be found on the useful pamphlets published by the BBOWT.