Category Archives: Natural History

Natural History

In search of the Least Water Lily

Lochan Uvie

Well the tale began at Wakehurst Place, the country seat of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Their (splendid) open day showed off to perfection the many strands of their work, and their committed and enthusiastic staff.

One of the stands featured the rare Least Water Lily. Ok, I’d never heard of it.  It has one location left in Shropshire and is otherwise not found in England. But in Scotland, while it’s rare, small, and hard to find, not least because it hardly ever displays its yellow flowers, it has dozens of localities.

Curious, I nosed about the web. One good locality was Lochan Uvie. Since I was going right there…

Well, here it is. Beautiful, but surrounded by naturally wet meadow grading effortlessly into … swamp.

White Water Lilies in Lochan Uvie

So it’s hard to approach without getting very wet, and probably damaging the vegetation to boot. There are certainly plenty of White Water Lilies, but small yellow ones were not to be seen.

I’ll try again with gumboots and binoculars. Really, I’d need a boat.

Natural History

Bramshill Dragonflies

Small Red Damselfly, from the pond below
A pond at Bramshill. Reedmaces in foreground, water level well down in current drought. Succession (sere) from open water – floating pondweed – emergent plants e.g. rushes, then reed and reedmace, then willow bushes, finally birch-oak mixed forest
Black-Tailed Skimmer on his lookout perch
Common Darter: he too constantly returned to this perch
Brown Hawker female, ovipositing
The ‘beach’ on the Long Pond, Bramshill
Emperor Dragonfly on reedmaces at end of Long Pond, Bramshill. Zipping about were lots of blue/azure damselflies, common darters, and black-tailed skimmers, and a few bluetails.
The Long Pond, Bramshill – perfect dragonfly habitat. Open water with floating weed, bordered by beds of rushes, reeds, willow and alder bushes. Conifers in the background
Common Fleabane – a handsome yellow composite in forest ditch, Bramshill
Natural History

Aston Rowant butterflies of high summer

Aston Rowant, full of chalk grassland flowers and insects, the Cretaceous escarpment above the Oxford Clay (Jurassic) plain
Male Adonis Blue
Female
Silver-Spotted Skipper Hesperia comma
Sphecid digger wasp
Meadow Grasshopper, a fine insect
Harvestman cf Platybunus triangularis
Red Kite overhead … and a moment later, a Raven, calling loudly, too
Natural History

Drought, Baking Heat, Dragonflies … Thursley Common

Black Darters in wheeL The pools were very low from a month of drought, and many of the dragonflies correspondingly distant, but this pair came obligingly close.
Keeled Skimmer male sunbathing on boardwalk. Some definitely like it hot. Ask me about poikilothermy sometime, I’ll explain it to you.
Thursley Common boardwalk, bog, pools, pines, birch scrub, distant hills. A Hobby flew up, its back rather uniformly grey-brown. Seen soaring later from the side, its moustachial stripe was conspicuous.
Bordered Grey Moth, Selidosema brunnearia (a Geometrid)  in heather, its caterpillar’s favourite food
Beautiful Golden Y Moth, Autographa pulchrina (a Noctuid), hiding in heather
Robber fly on bell heather
Small Sand Wasp, Ammophila pubescens, continually in motion on a sandy path

Right at the end of the walk, a huge leaf-green Emperor Moth caterpillar (Saturnia pavonia), whorled with black tufts on each segment, walked briskly like a self-propelled cylindrical concertina across the boardwalk. Just as I grabbed my camera and leant up close, it fell down the gap between two planks and disappeared into the thick green grass below. It was a sight to behold, as long and thick as a finger.