Tag Archives: Lavernock Nature Reserve

NFY: Marbled white

20 Monday Jul 2026

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Amazingly, I didn’t see my first Marbled white (Melanargia galathea) of the year during my recent week on the south coast of Dorset, nor during any other recent jaunts away from home. Though this butterfly species is not resident locally, my first sighting this year was on 29 June just a couple of miles from home at Lavernock Nature Reserve. Even more surprisingly, I didn’t see just one, but rather two of these stunning butterflies, and a couple of local chaps I talked to had seen six (!) the previous day. As we had just experienced our second heatwave of the year, from the 22nd to the 25th of June, it’s likely that these butterflies had been blown across the Bristol Channel from England on the hot nor’easterly winds we experienced during those few days.

I love these stunningly patterned butterflies so I was very pleased to have timed my latest visit to Weymouth and the Isle of Portland with their peak flying time of mid June to mid July. Despite my visit also coinciding with our third heatwave of the year (I’d booked my travel several months earlier), by leaving my guesthouse before 7am, I still managed to spend many hours over several days wandering around the disused quarries on Portland, thrilled to be surrounded by these, and many other, butterfly species.

In his Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, Peter Eeles explains that the aposematic colouring of this black-and-white butterfly is thought to deter potential predators, the flavonoids from the food ingested by its larva making both larva and adult taste bad. Eeles also notes that these flavonoids ‘make the butterfly more visible to potential to potential mates thanks to the ultra-violet reflection from the flavonoid-rich white areas that contrast with the blacks on the wings’. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see what the butterflies see?

If you’re wondering why the Marbled whites in some of my photos have a brown hue that’s because the female of the species, though still having the black-and-white marbling on her upper wings, exhibits a pale brown tint on the undersides and on the leading edge of her forewings.

The Twayblades return

10 Sunday May 2026

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It’s been three years since I last spotted these beautiful little orchids, Common twayblades (Neottia ovata), at Lavernock Nature Reserve.

While the Wildlife Trust was busy renegotiating a new lease for the reserve with the local council, a process that seemed to take a very long time, the reserve was neglected and became very overgrown, so it was impossible to walk along some of the paths, let alone find these very small orchids amongst the vegetation.

And then, when the lease was finalised and the Wildlife Trust resumed its maintenance work, someone from their staff decided it would be a good idea to build a fence right through the area where the Common twayblades had been growing.

I had thought the habitat destruction involved in the fence building would have been the end of the orchids but it seems they’re tough little plants, and I was able to pick out at least a dozen just coming in to flower during last Tuesday’s visit to the reserve. Very good news!

NFY: Dingy skipper

06 Wednesday May 2026

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Monday week ago I had a lovely meander around Lavernock Nature Reserve, a local Wildlife Trust site perched on a cliff-top high above Lavernock Point and St Mary’s Well Bay on the edge of the Bristol Channel. It was a warm sunny day so I was hoping for lots of butterflies, and I was certainly not disappointed. In fact, I was thrilled when checking one of the places where I’d previously seen this particular butterfly species, to have my first Dingy skipper of the year pop up to defend its little piece of dirt. And, since then, I’ve also seen more – four one day, one the next – during walks around Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.

Lesser emperor

30 Tuesday Sep 2025

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Last Tuesday, though I didn’t realise it until later in the day, I finally saw a stationary Lesser emperor dragonfly (Anax parthenope). My previous encounters with this dragon have been when I’ve seen one, usually fleetingly and at distance, hawking over a body of water. These stunning (ha!) flight shots of the Lesser emperor were taken at Cosmeston’s west lake on 16 August 2023 and looking over the River Ely at Grangemoor Park on 25 July 2025, where I only just managed to catch the dragon before it exited, frame right.

The British Dragonfly Society website reports that this dragonfly was first reported in the UK, in Gloucestershire, in 1996, and first recorded breeding in Cornwall in 1999. I don’t know whether the specimens we see here in south Wales are dragons that have bred here or migrants but I suspect the Lesser emperor I saw last Tuesday was a migrant as I found it at Lavernock Nature Reserve, just a few metres from the sea cliff edge. And, though there is a pond at Lavernock, it routinely dries up during the summer – and certainly did in this year’s drought, so the dragonfly is unlikely to have bred at the reserve.

As I admitted in my opening sentence, I didn’t initially recognise this dragon. ‘It’s just another Migrant hawker’, I thought to myself, and, as it was perched in some scrub and partially obscured by the vegetation, it was difficult to see and photograph. Now, I’m just glad I did take photos or I’d never have realised what I’d seen, nor been able to prove it.

Blooming Spurge-laurel

09 Sunday Mar 2025

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The highlight of my first visit of the year to Lavernock Nature Reserve was seeing, and smelling, the Spurge-laurel (Daphne laureola) in bloom.

This beautiful plant is one of only two Daphnes that are native to Britain; the other is Mezereon (Daphne mezereum), a plant I’ve never seen and which has only been recorded once in the wider Cardiff area, and that was 25 years ago.

Though its flowers are lovely and emit a scent like honey, they are quite understated, and it is the glossy evergreen of this shrub’s fleshy leaves that make Spurge-laurel stand out.

Frog spawn, at last

06 Thursday Mar 2025

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When I bumped in to a fellow birder / amateur naturalist at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park ten days ago, we were both wondering why there was no frog or toad spawn in the dipping pond, where it’s usually a regular occurrence. Yesterday, after another chance meeting with some fellow nature enthusiasts, I learned the reasons for the absence: they had witnessed a woman and her daughter scooping up as much as possible to take home – an act both selfish and illegal in a public park; and they’d also seen a man throw a ball in to the pond for his dog to fetch, another incredibly selfish and stupid act. Sometimes I despair of people, their selfishness and their ignorance of the natural world around them.

So, you can probably imagine my delight today when I spotted this large clump of frog spawn at a local nature reserve, though, sadly, many dog owners also allow their dogs to splash about in this pond so I’m not sure how long these tadpoles-in-the-making will endure. I’ll be checking back again soon.

Magical Marsh fritillaries

23 Thursday May 2024

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As I reported last year (The illegals, 30 May 2023), some person or persons unknown have illegally introduced Marsh fritillary butterflies to Lavernock Nature Reserve.

240523 marsh fritillary (1)

Judging by the number of butterflies that have emerged there over the past week, the illegal fiddling continues – the amount of Devil’s-bit scabious growing in their field could not have supported the larvae necessary to produce the number of butterflies now being seen so it seems likely that more larvae or pupae have been planted.

240523 marsh fritillary (4)

Regardless of their provenance, the butterflies themselves are as magical and magnificent as ever, and it’s an absolute joy to watch them.

240523 marsh fritillary (3)

Carrot mining bee

05 Saturday Aug 2023

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In August 2020, local entomologist Liam Olds made the amazing discovery of the first Carrot mining bees (Andrena nitidiuscula) for Wales at Lavernock Nature Reserve, and Liam later went on to find a population of the bees at nearby Cosmeston Lakes Country Park. Despite these parks both being relatively near where I live, it’s taken me three years to find my own Carrot mining bee, at Cosmeston on Thursday.

230805 Carrot mining bee (1)

As you might have guessed from the bee’s name, it can usually be found collecting pollen from the flowers of Wild carrot (Daucus carota). And therein lies one of the problem’s for this bee’s future, the preservation of the right habitat to ensure the bee’s conservation. Earlier this year, despite protests against what was happening, the Vale of Glamorgan Council, which operates Cosmeston, went ahead with planting trees across large areas of a wildflower meadow where the bee had previously been found by Liam Olds. Yes, the planet needs more trees, but those trees need to be planted in the right place. When they’re not, they risk destroying important local flora and fauna. Let’s hope the Carrot mining bee can survive the local council’s actions!

230805 Carrot mining bee (2)

274/366 Another extra brood

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

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This year I saw my first Brown argus butterfly (Aricia agestis) on 11 July and thought I’d seen my last on 26 August, a short but very sweet season of sightings. Then, to my astonishment and absolute delight, I discovered two more on the same day, 16 September, one at Lavernock Nature Reserve and the other at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.

200930 brown argus (1)

These had to be the product of the first brood of butterflies breeding and so were a second brood, not something I’d seen before with this butterfly. As the local populations of Dingy skippers have also produced a second brood and the Small coppers a third brood this year and nothing has changed in their environments, I can only assume this has been caused by the warmer climate.

200930 brown argus (2)

I haven’t managed to find the Lavernock Brown argus again but the Cosmeston butterfly was still in the same spot last week. A late summer-early Autumn treat!