As temperatures rise again, the insect life has responded. Many moth species are now on the wing, and some of you may have even spotted the scarlet tiger, a species expanding its range, and seen on nature reserves and in gardens this summer.

During our main 'June' moth survey, and we also recorded ruby tigers and many garden tigers. The latter is a declining species, sadly, but is doing very well at the Great Fen.

Another declining species is the enigmatic goat moth, one with a caterpillar that may live for three or more years inside tree trunks. The Great Fen is in one of the Country's strongholds for this moth, and we recorded both males and females (5 moths) this week.

Elephant hawk-moths seem to be doing very well, or at least they are very numerous in light traps this year. Be in on a nature reserve or a garden, these insects are numerous on our moth surveys at the moment. These elephants and the tigers, will be one of the wildlife highlights of this year.

If you don't moth-trap in your own back garden, check out some of the events at the Great Fen, for the chance to get an exciting insect encounter. What is coming up now, are the ultimate 'high-lights' of the Great Fen night-life themselves, the glow-worms! Don't miss your chance to see them.

Now that things have warmed up a bit, more species of dragonfly are on the wing, 'summer' species joining those 'spring' species. Darters and hawkers are out and about, I've seem my first southern hawker and brown hawker, as well as quite a few emperors (which seem to be numerous this year).

What has been noticeable this year, especially on the dragonfly Wildlife Training Workshop, was the great success of the restoration work at Ramsey Heights Nature Reserve over the winter.

Clearing out some of the ponds, deepening them, but also creating shallow margins, has diversified the habitats available for wildlife on the reserve, and the dragonflies have responded. Broad-bodied chasers, a species of dragonfly that favours open (i.e. newly created) ponds with little vegetation, were very noticeable this year, with males holding territory, and females seen laying eggs. As a result, it was great to observe this species as well as the more common four-spotted chaser and the scarce chasers on the reserve, all on the same day.

With the creation of new ditches, scrapes, ponds and meres taking place at the Great Fen this year, thanks to projects such as Peatland Progress, dragonflies are already colonising these habitats; laying eggs into the first rain water to appear in them.

Now is the time to watch out for such insects, and see what species you can spot; your Great Fen wildlife records would make a welcome addition to the other data gathered as part of our monitoring programme.

Henry Stanier (Great Fen Monitoring & Research Officer)