On Sunday morning, 8 June 2025, the Wildlife Group from Bingley Camera Club had a visit to Rodley Nature Reserve. It was a good turn out and too many people to go around in one group.
When I got there I got myself strapped in. Camera and long lens on the right, tripod in straps on the left and binoculars in the middle. After walking along the path for just a few paces I spotted several little creepy crawlies so went back to my car and swapped the tripod for a camera with macro lens and flash. I think I made the right choice but there were times when I would have liked to have had my tripod, or at least something to support my camera.
It was great to wander around with other eyes and knowledge.
I have split the photos up into
As usual you can tap/touch/click on an image, not its caption, to see it in better quality in the gallery. And if you like what you see please click on one or more of the Share buttons at the bottom.
Little Egret
At one time there were three Little Egrets on the pond. Two of them were close enough together to get them in the frame.
As they walk along they sweep there feet back and forth presumably to disturb fish and other things they want to eat. Do they have yellow feet to make this act of disturbance more noticeable?
Other Birds
Several other birds were great to see. It looked like there were Whitethroat going back and forth which meant that they were feeding young tucked down in the nettles, long grass and brambles.
A couple of Little Ringed Plover were feeding along the edge of the water. Great to see.
Swallows were also flying in and out of some of the sheds, feeding young.
A Kestrel was flying around and hovering over the fields. I didn’t see what it had but it caught something and flew off with and I heard it either screaming to itself or it was young screaming over in a nest.
Several small Cygnets were going around the pond with their parents.I didn’t see it but others reported a Lapwing chick being seen. On a recent visit I had seen an Oystercatcher chick, read more here.
The Grey Heron photo was photo bombed by a Sand Martin. A lot of them were flying low over the water.
Bugs and Bees
Bees and Hoverflies were busy on the reserve. The Damselflies tended to be tucked down a bit and only a few were spotted flying. The quite large Exuvia of a Dragon fly was spotted but no Dragonflies seen.
Many leaves had ladybirds on them, many had Ladybird Larva on them and quite a few had Ladybird Pupa.
And Finally
To finish up here’s flowers and a photo of one of the Harvest Mice in their enclosure.
If you are using a phone the caption can take up most of the space of the thumbnail so you might find it easier to turn your phone to landscape to open the gallery. I am hoping to change that for the site.
You can also leave comments or subscribe to the site – leave your email address and you will get notified when I publish something new.
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.
Leave a Reply