Callington Road nature reserve

It's a gorgeous day here today so I decided to go and explore Callington Road nature reserve in preparation for a new project starting in a couple of weeks with Ilminster Avenue E-ACT Academy. This project is part of Bristol city council's Wild City project and will provide field trips for students at the nature reserve so that they can discover all the amazing wildlife on their doorstep. Even before I got to the reserve I saw this little creature. Do you know what kind of caterpillar it is? I saw lots of these on my cherry tree at home last week too. If you think you know the answer leave a comment below.I'll post the answer on tomorrows blog so come back and check to see if you were right.

The sun was shining brightly and the first thing I noticed when I arrived at the reserve was the lovely red damselflies flying around the pond. Lots of insects were making the most of the late warmth of the bright sunshine. 

I saw this too, it's a type of hoverfly called a helophilus pendulus but it has a much more fun common name - see if you can find it out. It has brilliant patterns on it's back and was basking in the sun not far from the pond.

The reserve itself was full of berries and fruit which are really important for the birds and mammals who live here. At this time of year the hawthorn berries, plums and blackberries provide much needed energy as animals start to work harder to keep themselves warm. Today though, the birds were in full song, chatting to each other across the crisp, autumnal air of the reserve.

 If you fancy taking a look yourself, why not download our nature journal, made specifically for the Callington Road nature reserve. You can find it on our wildschools website here  and keep an eye out form more news of our project, we will keep our website updated with news and events.

Come back tomorrow to find out what sort of caterpillar it is and the common name for the hover fly!