I’m sure I’m not the only gardener who was grateful for the rain at the end of last week! And along with the mixed weather you’ve been recording a variety of species that you spotted in Derbyshire last week.

A array of our smaller birds were spotted near Chesterfield including Yellow Wagtails, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Greenfinchs, Bullfinchs, Chaffinchs, Goldfinchs, Dunnocks and Robins along with some our of bigger species including Blackbirds, Jays and Carrion Crows. To the west near Cromford one of our larger birds of prey, and a sightings blog favourite, a Red Kite was spotted and near Burbage members of two of our upland species Curlew and Golden Plover were seen.

Some of our other much smaller winged species were also spotted last week include a Wall butterfly near Burbage, near Ashborne a Broad Bodied Chaser, a member of the dragonfly family, and a Alder leaf beetle, which was once thought to be extinct in the UK but is now bouncing back, near Burton-upon-Trent.

Last week you sent in some sightings from our nature reserves too including a Southern Damselfly at Hoe Grange Quarry Nature Reserve and a Grass Snake, which can often be seen near or in water, at Cromford Canal.

We also received a few late sightings from the end of May from near Upper Padley including a Toad and a Slow Worm which is despite its name is not a worm and despite is appearance is not a snake either but is actually a legless lizard.

We’ve loved reading your sighings from our reserves and the rest of Derbyshire and are looking forward to receiving more of them. To submit your own sightings and be featured in a future blog go to www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife/record-sighting.

Thanks to Alan Johnson, Mark Pearce, Valerie Witton, Barry Thomas, Geoffrey Fisher, Jean Bennett, Lee Taylor and Keith for recording their sightings.