More news via the wildlife cameras.

Swallows.

The swallow family on camera at Kailzie now have three chicks hatched and the busy parents are swooping into the nest taking turns to deliver food for their brood.  The parents seem to have chosen a good location for the nest on a ledge at the back of the fishery building.

Pond Camera.

The pond camera is revealing good views of the diving beetles swimming about, with the characteristic air bubble on their backs to enable underwater breathing.  The newts have not been seen for a while, so perhaps the adults have left the pond now, and we are hopeful of seeing young newts (efts).

Efts resemble the adults only with dragon-like adornments to their heads - external gills for their underwater life cycle until they are ready to become truly amphibious adults with lungs for breathing out of the water.

Wildflowers

At Glentress the wildflowers are in full bloom all around the wildwatch room and car parks. There is an abundance of birdsfoot trefoil, yellow rattle, clovers, oxe-eye daisies, and vetches, all attracting plenty of butterflies, moths and bees. One of the cameras has been fixed on to the flowers to watch bee activity.

Kailzie Wildlife Festival and more from Tweed Valley

Visitors to the wildlife festival were left in no doubt that the Tweed Valley is indeed teeming with wildlife. Below is a summary of just some of the wildlife seen in absolute close-up, over the whole weekend event.

· Live mammal trapping caught two voles and two wood mice and these were safely returned back to their homes after greeting the public!

· Marathon Pond dipping with Anna Craigen from Borders Forest Trust caught lots of pond life mentioned above.

· Burn dipping caught – mayfly nymphs, cased caddis fly larvae, leeches, fresh water limpet, trout fry and lots of fresh water shrimps.

· Moth trapping with Reuben Singleton and moth group friends caught, angle shades, brimstone, prominents and many more but the star moth caught one of our volunteers Nigel Palmer! It hitched a lift on his sleeve for most of the afternoon! It was a magnificent hawk moth.

· Bird ringing with Stuart Craig was absolutely brilliant with visitors able to see birds in the hand such as great spotted woodpecker, blue tits, siskin, nuthatches, great tits, chaffinches, coal tits and swallow.

The pond dipping activities during the Kailzie Wildlife Festival proved to be one of the most enjoyable sessions and kids were enthralled by the myriad creatures lurking in the deep. Sticklebacks, diving beetles, leeches, water boatmen , tadpoles and water shrimp were just some of the fascinating pond life that was found. The pond camera back at the osprey and nature centre continues to reveal the life in the underwater world and we have witnessed the occasional diving beetle whizzing by but by far the star attractions are the palmate newts stalking prey on the pond bed.
We will be running the event again next year so we hope to meet even more visitors for an even bigger event.

Meanwhile.....

The heron chicks spend very little time at the nest now. The less than subtle hint from their parents to make the chicks hunt for themselves seems to have finally pressed home.

Our swallow has settled down to incubate her eggs on the nest, this can be viewed at the Kailzie Osprey and Nature Watch Centre which has a camera pointed into the nest and the images are relayed to a large screen in the centre. The adult bird is such a beautiful sight with dark blue wings, back and tail with a red face and cream under belly. These beautiful migrant birds are easily recognisable by their forked tails and long tail streamers.

Wildlife Cameras give us upclose views of the abundance of wildlife in the area



The centre at Kailzie Gardens

There are now more cameras trained on wildlife at the opsrey watch centres at Glentress Peel and at Kailzie Gardens, so it is not just all about ospreys anymore. We have the fondest regards for our ospreys but it is really fascinating to spy on the secret world of our other species live on camera too.

We have seen the blue tit turning her clutch of 10 eggs. most of which have now hatched. The pondcam has been superb to reveal the life of the tadpoles and today a common newt went stalking past the camera too, so perhaps we can expect some efts as spring progresses.

The river cam at Kailzie has a pan , zoom and tilt driver and we zoomed along the river and across the stone dyking and glimpsed a redstart which is exciting as the old dyking is possibly the site of the nest.

We can follow wildlife up the river and focus on a fallen willow which we are hoping may attract kingfisher as an observational perch from which, to dive into the water below to grab fish fry.