Monday, June 27, 2011
A still, warm evening had brought out clouds of flies along the Jubilee River; and small birds were squabbling in a dead (and impossible to get close to) tree on the far bank of the Roundmoor Ditch.
The quarrels mostly involved chaffinches and lesser whitethroats. At least one adult lesser whitethroat was present in spick-and-span plumage, but I think these pics may be of two fledglings.
This one seems intent on running up the tree, although it's probably scrabbling at the wood to get at insects.
A yellow wagtail was in the hedgerow near the car park.
There were loads of reed warblers feeding fledged young; and there were loads of kids playing on the weir. There's a great need around here for designated places for people to have a dip safely in hot weather. It's scandalous that with all the gravel pits there are locally, not even one corner of one of them has been set aside for swimming. (Apart from Taplow Lake, and that's a pricey affair for triathletes and the like for which you must wear a wetsuit.)
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Yesterday
Up on the downs we paused to scan the dung heap, which was being picked over by chaffinches, linnets, yellow wagtails....well, the birds you'd expect to find there. Then this pair appeared on the skyline.
A corn bunting was sharing a tree with two fledgling swallows, which didn't appear over the moon about being out in the big wide world; but then it was pretty windy.
Blackcaps, chiffchaffs and willow warblers were in song, and an unseen lesser whitethroat warbled away quietly and then broke into a strong rattle. Quail were heard singing in four locations; they and a curlew flying past calling were the highlights of the walk.Today I was walking up the garden path when this large and beautiful moth fluttered down onto the lawn. I thought it was a scrap of paper.
It's a Swallow-tailed Moth - apparently a common species but usually nocturnal. I was lucky to see it, and lucky that it stayed still long enough to get a picture; so I won't complain about it being half in the sun and half in the shade. Wednesday, June 22, 2011
I paid a quick visit to the Beeches this afternoon after a prolonged rainstorm. The sun had brought out other walkers, but for a short while I had the boardwalk to myself. An adder was coiled up at the far end of a log in the Mire, and I was able to look at it through the bins for some time.
I couldn't tell where the head and tail were; and when I clicked off a shot it must have heard because it slowly uncoiled and slid away.Tuesday, June 21, 2011
"A little bit of scruffiness goes a long way."
So said Liz Bonnin on Springwatch, referring to the diversity of life at Pitsea Landfill, Essex. Or in our garden, of course.
The variety continues to surprise me, although most of the insects I manage to identify turn out to be common species. This muscular gent is a Thick-legged Flower Beetle, and he's new this year.
The delicate insect below is some sort of ichneumon wasp. It could be Amblyetes armatorius - or it could be something entirely different. There are a couple of thousand of these in the UK, and many of them look so similar that it's impossible to identify them from a photo. And what about that tiddly beetle above-left of the wasp? I can hardly even see it, let alone identify it. 
Another miniscule individual is a Froghopper. I've deduced their presence over the years from the "cuckoo spit" (the froth that protects their larvae) on the stems of various plants, but I finally managed to see one of the adults recently. To make sure it wasn't just a seed or something, I put my fingertip gently under the leaf it was on and was amazed to feel this tiny creature push down as it leapt away.Hoverflies can also be a bother to ID, but several excellent websites confirm that this is a Myathropa florea - the grey bars on the thoracic dorsum (just below the head) and the yellow body hairs being diagnostic.
So that's a definite then, although it doesn't seem to have a common name. I wondered why male entomologists often have beards; they just don't get time to shave. And they seem mostly short-sighted, which is an advantage. It makes you wonder how Noah was supposed to have found all these critturs to put them on his ark, and how he would have recognised the dimorphic ones (distinct forms for male and female) of the same species; or, come to that, how he recognised the male and female when they're alike. Sometimes even experts can't tell until they've put them under a microscope.
And the sheer numbers are enough to defeat anyone. There are at least 700,000 known insect species on the planet so you've got to find room for 1,400,000 of the little blighters, and all of them mating, or fighting, or eating each other all the time; then there are 4,000 mammal species, 9,000 birds.....
As Chief of Police Martin Brody of Amity Island might have said "We're gonna need a bigger boat!"
Saturday, June 18, 2011
A nightjar churred at noon
Well, to be exact, it was 12.30. We were eating our lunch on the edge of a clearing, and just had time to say "Nightjar!" to each other before the rain began. We retreated into the relative shelter of the trees while the wind blew and the rain poured down. Ten minutes later the sun came out and dried us off.
In the woods "tsee-chup" calls made me stop and look around, as this was a sound I didn't know; and I traced it to what I thought were spotted flycatchers. This bird settled for a while and we both viewed it through the bins, but it was really too dark for a useful photo.
We saw stonechats, tree pipits, treecreepers and one woodlark; and had some pretty good views of a pair of Dartford warblers. Chiffchaffs, willow warblers and blackcaps were singing in several locations. Making our way along the side of the danger area, I called out to Greger when a handsome male redstart alighted on the fence; but just as he turned round it flew off into a birch tree. He had only distant views of a female redstart, further along the fence.Several new species have recently been noted in the garden; this is, I believe, a Potter Wasp (Ancistrocerus trifasciatus) which predates the larvae of butterflies and moths.
I don't know if that includes this hairy beast, which is probably a caterpillar of the Knot Grass Moth, feeding here on Marjoram.
On Tuesday we went down to Hut Hill, ate our annual cheeseburger and then walked out into the forest with its burnt understorey. It wasn't dark but things started to happen almost at once, with a woodcock roding past uttering its sharp, squeaking whistle. A nightjar began to churr, and then I heard the clapping of wings as it displayed. Two birds came into view, flying right over us twice. We walked to another spot and heard at least two birds churring. The woodcock/s roded over squeaking several times. It grew rapidly darker; and walking back to the car park, Greger did well to spot a toad crawling across the track just ahead of us. This made me tread more carefully!
I learned about Hut Hill from Berks birders, and we've found it more rewarding than Chobham Common which was the first place we ever tried for nightjars. It makes an enjoyable dusk outing with nosh thrown in; although I always get the feeling that the Muzzy's chaps look down on their customers with a certain amount of disdain: "These English - why can't they cook their own blooming dinners?"
Sunday, June 12, 2011
"That's another fine mess you've gotten me into, Greger!"
"Let's go a different way back," he said as we emerged from Caesar's Camp in Swinley Forest yesterday. I expressed my doubts about the path but dutifully followed. In no time at all we were hemmed in by the frighteningly fast Nine Mile Ride, a high wire fence, an ankle-thick bog and impenetrable thickets of rhododendron. Nothing for it but to retreat!
The most frustrating sighting of the day was of a brown bird that flew across the track and disappeared over young conifers in the direction of Hut Hill. It was always facing away from us, and we both initially thought it was a sparrowhawk, although it didn't look quite right to me. Maybe a nightjar relocating.
Today: In miserable conditions in Burnham Beeches, I found a spotted flycatcher.
And not much else as the rain sent me back to my car.
And not much else as the rain sent me back to my car.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
From the wet, windy, rocky heights of a Scottish hill to the dry, chalky (but also windy) heights of the English downs!
And if these tended sweeps of country seemed relatively tame a feel of the wild came from the thrilling music of curlews, which at one point seemed all around us.
Elsewhere, a Montagu's harrier followed the skyline, a brilliant yellow wagtail flew "swee"-ing into the crop and a quail sang unseen from barley. An 11-mile walk that left us quite exhausted. 