Sunday 14 June 2026 I decided to take my camera for a walk along Baildon Bank, Midgeley Wood and Walker Wood – all parts of the Bradford Pennine Gateway Nature Reserve. It also took in a walk around the market in Roberts Park and along the river Aire, hunting out wildlife and wild flowers.
The header image is of two Male Swollen-thighed beetles, Oedemera nobilis, that had just been tussling with each other. One of them has decided it has had enough and flies off.
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Baildon Peace Garden
To get to the paths of Baildon Bank, Midgeley Wood I went through the Baildon Peace Garden. This area is where the old WWII gas decontamination centre used to be. The building was used as Baildon Community Link until the new carbon-neutral community centre was built at the other end of the Cliffe Avenue Park in 2011.
The Peace Garden is a small area arranged with trees and four wild flower areas. I stop off there several times a year to see what is growing or flying around and have taken a few photos, some of which can be seen here:-
Baildon Bank, Midgeley Wood, Walker Wood
After looking around the Peace Garden I walked across Green Road to Baildon Bank/Midgeley Wood, part of our Bradford Pennine Gateway Nature Reserve, and one of the first things I spotted were two Swollen-thighed beetles, Oedemera nobilis, I assumed that they would be male and female mating but on closer look they were both male with the characteristic swollen thighs. As they tumbled about a brown leaf beetle of some kind kept scurrying to another part of the flower to keep out of their way. After a few seconds one of the flew off – see the header image.
Up behind B H Woodworking at Baildon Green Mills I was pleased to spot the Horvathiolus superbus seed bug. Next time I need to make a note of what plants are growing there because Horvathiolus superbus tends to feed on the toxic seeds of the likes of Common Foxglove or Ragwort.
I also spent some time looking at the small holes on the edge of the path. In one of the holes I could see a small yellow shape but it wasn’t until I looked at the photo at home that I saw the head and shoulders of an Ornate-tailed digger wasp Cerceris rybyensis. It is not surprising to see one there because they prey on bees and several mining bees are in the area like the Ashy Mining Bee that was pushing sandy soil out of its hole.
Last year I spent some time reading up about Galls, in particular Galls on Oak trees. The different Galls are as a reult of different wasps laying their eggs in specific spots on an Oak tree. As Baildon Banl blends into Midgeley Wood there are lots of Oak trees so I spent some time looking at Oak leaves. There were lots of tiny flying insects but I have no idea if any were the small wasps that aare responsible for the Galls. On one leaf I did spot a Yellow-legged Robber Fly, Dioctria linearis though.
Even though I have no confidence in any ID I still took some photos of Fungi.
- A cluster of Hairy Curtain Crust, Stereum hirsutum
- Wolf’s Milk, Lycogala epidendrum, a Slime Mold not a fungus, but they are often grouped together.
- and a decent sized set of Dryad’s Saddle, Cerioporus squamosus. One of them a good 30cm, 12inch, across.
On the bird front I could hear quite a few. Blue Tits, Robins, Wren, Blackbird, Great Tit, Jay, Magpie, Jackdaw, Pheasant, Wood Pigeon, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Chiffchaff (I spent a few minutes waiting near ant hills but no Green Woodpecker.)
There seemed to be families of birds around with small shapes following each other around hoping to be fed. The fluffy look of the Long Tailed Tit suggests it is a juvenile but it has quite a bit of pink so it has probably been out of the nest a while. I have labelled the Blackcap as juvenile but now when I look at it it could well be an adult female. I first thought that the gape was too evident but now when I look I can’t see it.
Roberts Park
Roberts Park was busy with a market, an electric train, various activities and a cricket match.
In the playground the graffiti wall has had some more work done on it. I need to add several photos to the Graffiti Wall section on BaildonWiki. It has had quite a few incarnations.
I keep wondering about taking photos of sports, setting myself up properly at the pavilion or at Baildon Rugby & Cricket Club. Though several spectators were seated on the benches there only seemed to be two at the cafe that looked as though they might be watching. The batter and wicket keeper looked as though they were both watching the ball.
I spotted a Banded Demoiselle along the river, a lot less than I was expecting.
One thing I did not expect to see was a Beryl e-bike in the river.
Track
The squiggles show where I wandered taking the photos, approx 7Km. You can move around the map by dragging, you can also zoom in or out, or make the map full screen.
I have included the Bradford Pennine Gateway Nature Reserve area. You can turn it on or off using the check box.
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Bradford Pennine Gateway areas
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The images are published under the Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA license. Feel free to share them, edit them, but please keep my name in the credits. And if I have got the ID of anything wrong please let me know, I don’t consider myself an expert but I have write something. It is often a best guess and it would take up too much room to say It could be this, or it could be… or perhaps.
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