Here are some photographs of the Vertebrates, Insects, Plants, Fungi and Landscapes of the Surrey Heaths. All are from Thursley Common unless otherwise stated. The county of Surrey was once largely covered with heathland, with heather, birch and pine, and acid bog in the wettest places. Today most of the heath has been lost, with important remnants at Thursley and Chobham Common national nature reserves, among others.
The images are all copyright and may be used only with written permission. Click on the thumbnails to see the full images (which are often a different shape).
Vertebrates
Grass Snake swimming
Tree Pipit in song flight
Viviparous Lizard, Lacerta vivipara
Insects
Thursley Common is an exceptional place to see dragonflies.
Black Darters Wheel on thin stalk
Four Wings Good, Eight Wings Better – Keeled Skimmers in cop
Keeled Skimmer male perched on Rush
Four-Spotted Chaser
Small Red Damselfly, Ceriagrion tenellum, in cop
Male Emerald Damselfly on rush
Emperor Dragonfly patrolling its pond at waist height
Keeled Skimmer pair in cop
Common Emerald female broken wing
Wood Tiger Beetle Cicindela sylvatica
3-horned Minotaur (dung) Beetle
Small Sand Wasp, Ammophila pubescens
Plants
Lowland sandy heath and acid bog, once common habitats, are now scarce, along with the plants that flourish in them. Here are some of them.
Bog Asphodel
Round-Leaved Sundew Drosera rotundifolia in flower
Southern Marsh Orchid Dactylorhiza praetermissa in Mire
Cross-Leaved Heath, Erica tetralix
Potamogeton pondweed with oily scum
The unretouched colour of Bog Asphodel in fruit
Gorse and Heather – yellow-purple harmonies
Alder Buckthorn, a characteristic shrub of acid bogs, in fruit
Tormentil, the common flower of acid moorland, rather special in the southeast of England
Fungi
Ghost Bolete, Leccinum holopus (with sphagnum under Birch, rare)
Fire-blackened Pine trunk with white Bracket Fungi
Larch Bolete, Suillus grevillei
Landscapes
At first sight, heathland may seem bleak, even featureless; William Cobbett famously excoriated the landscape between London and Bath as full of “rascally heaths”. But to our eyes it has a particular beauty. Perhaps these images may suggest what that is.
Thursley Common Bog Panorama May 2013
Chobham Common
Gently peeling Birch Bark. Chobham Common
Burnt Pine on Thursley Common
Rippled scum in acid iron-stained peat bog outflow. Chobham Common
Greeny-white symphony of Birch Trunks. Chobham Common
Pond scum patterns
Natural oily surface of peat bog pool resembling arctic ice
Pine bored by bark beetles
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
