Football or insects?

Easy answer surely?  Insects win hands down, and where better to see the insects at Highgate Common in South Staffordshire?  The nature reserve is home to some of the UK's rarest creepy crawlies including oil beetles, bloody-nosed beetles, mining bees and glow worms.  The latter being the subject of tonight's expedition.

In previous years I've been lucky enough to see around 60 of these fantastic insects on the reserves.  Tonight the group found 12 glowing females and a male during the walk around, but more importantly were records from locations we'd not found them in for several years.

The group were also fortunate enough to see two tawny owl chicks in the woodland, both of which were calling loudly wanting to be fed.  A cuckoo was also calling as we arrived at the car park and at least 2 (probably 3) woodcock were rodding over the heathland as we waited for dark (see terrible video below).  All in all a brilliant evening!