Monthly Archives: July 2026

Environment, Natural History, Walks, Wildlife

Wildlife Walk in Osterley Park

A handsome landscaped lake, forested banks, open water, marginal vegetation … and a mass of algae indicating eutrophication (and a heatwave)

Reed Mace and Water Mint beside the lake

Branched Bur-Reed beside the lake

Small Red-eyed Damselfly; many Black-Tailed Skimmers raced above the water and around the marginal vegetation, with a few Emperor Dragonflies and some blue damselflies (Common Blue or Azure).

Cattle grazing on the dry grass of the pleasantly English parkland landscape, in a prolonged heatwave. (At the end of the month, the Met Office reported that July 2026 had been the driest month they had ever recorded, since 1836 when records began.)

Weld (Reseda luteola), a tall handsome forb even when past flowering.

Female Common Blue butterfly on Creeping Thistle

Meadow Brown, once so common I wouldn’t have thought to photograph it: now declining across Britain, but happily still thriving here at Osterley. Also around the meadow flowers were plenty of Gatekeepers.

Small Copper

Environment, Love of Nature, Natural History, Walks

A Wraysbury Walk

Wraysbury Lakes is an area of former gravel pits and secondary woodland where the Colne Brook flows across the Thames floodplain. One of the lakes is used for sailing; some are reservoirs. The land has a pleasantly reclaimed and scruffy feeling to it; a patch is a solar farm; another area is used for grazing ponies; and another is delightfully “weedy” with many colourful flowers of waste ground, and their pollinators.

Himalayan Balsam grows beside the Colne Brook here and there, but has not become seriously invasive.

A Water Shrew, if the silvery hairs along tail and feet are anything to go by. Given its small size this must be a young one. The species is known in the area.

This Buddleia near the road bridge over the Colne Brook has attracted both male (blue) and female (green) Banded Demoiselles, an interesting sight having both together.

Out in the sunshine in the wasteland area are many tall flowering forbs, including Teasel …

Burdock …

Fleabane …

… and Wild Carrot.

Beside the paths you can find lawns of Creeping Cinquefoil.

Natural History

A Hot Dragonfly Afternoon at Kew Gardens

The heat dome over Europe has made water bodies like Kew’s lake all the more special. In the 30 C heat of the afternoon, the dragonflies sparkle, shimmer, and flash across the water, hardly perching, diving at each other in lightning-rapid defences of territory. This male Ruddy Darter perched long enough between aerial sallies to be pictured.

Common Blue Damselflies skittered about, perching for a few seconds at a time.

Higher over the water, Emperor Dragonflies patrolled ceaselessly. Smaller species like Black-tailed Skimmers and Broad-bodied Chasers flashed low over the water.

Pairs of Small Red-eyed Damselflies settled on the Duckweed near the margin of the lake, the females repeatedly laying eggs while the males clasped their necks.

An extremely tame fox panted in the heat, hoping for dainty morsels of food from nearby picnickers.

Environment, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Wild Delights of Thursley Common

(28 June) Thursley Common is special, from the moment of arriving at Moat Pond with its sparkling white Water-lilies.

The flat boggy area is full of rare and exotic-seeming plants, like the beautiful Bog Asphodel that demands a wet acidic soil, growing lotus-like from the black mud.

The common is a wide area of forest, bog, and little hills covered in heathland with boardwalks across the bog and dry sandy paths across the heath.

Among the delights of Thursley is the glorious Marsh Orchid.

Molinia, the bog cotton, is a plant totally characteristic of wild (Northern) moorland. It’s marvellous to see it down here in the South of England.

The bog pools are the home of dragonflies like the Black Darter, which can be seen only in this sort of habitat.

Other species like this Keeled Skimmer can be found in lowland streams as well as around bog pools.

In the forested areas, handsome lichens like these long branching strands of Ramalina indicate the purity of the air. Leafy Parmelia-type lichens are growing in the background.

A large and handsome parasitic wasp takes nectar from a bramble flower.