Category Archives: Natural History

Natural History

Wakehurst Wonders

Water Gardens and foliage of many shapes and colours at Wakehurst Place
A grassy dell on the side of the main valley, with Oaks and Rhododendrons
Azure Damselflies in cop, well seen from the handsome boardwalk at the far end of the gardens. The blue male has a U-shaped mark at the front of his abdomen; the green female has a thistle-shaped mark in the same place. Unlike the Common Blue damselfly, she does not have a spine sticking down out of the second-from-last ‘tail’ segment.
Emperor Dragonfly habitat: the beautiful main pond by the Wakehurst Place lawns. Yellow and White Waterlilies are in full bloom.

Well, I was hoping to see some colourful dragonflies on this hot and sunny day in early June, and they exceeded expectations. On the main pond just behind the Wakehurst Place mansion, the bulky shape of an Emperor Dragonfly, with its big apple-green thorax and downcurved blue abdomen, patrolled up and down over the Yellow and White Waterlilies, both gloriously in bloom. A single Broad-Bodied Chaser unmistakably whizzed low over the water.

The Water Gardens glittered in the sunshine, the little waterfalls tinkled pleasingly, and a few damselflies busied themselves among the vegetation.

Traditional Sussex Craftsmanship: Boardwalk, with green-oak posts and rails (cloven not sawn, making them elegant, rugged, and strong as the grain runs unbroken the whole length of each rail) at the water gardens.

Down at the reedbed, the broad and elegantly-fenced boardwalk with its traditional green-oak posts and rails let us get as close as possible to the dragonflies down there. A Large Red Damselfly perched for a moment beside my hand on the rail. Azure Damselflies skittered about, some in cop, some ovipositing. A solitary Banded Demoiselle male, unmistakable with his big indigo wing-patches, fluttered back and forth.

The other side of the boardwalk, a male dragonfly hovered over open water in the dazzling sunlight. I did my best to focus on the shimmering target. An Emerald! The Downy Emerald has been recorded here at Wakehurst Place, but this is also within the very narrow territory of the Brilliant Emerald in England, basically a bit of inland Sussex and Surrey, with another haunt in northwest Scotland. There is no sign of a downy thorax here, I don’t think; nor is the abdomen bronze-green, but rather a rich deep, iridescent, green; and it has the smooth spatulate outline of a Brilliant Emerald. Exciting!

Well this looks to me like a Brilliant Emerald Dragonfly! Sorry about the blurry photo – such things are never easy, but this one is rather interesting.
The meadows, too, were glorious in their early summer best, full of red clover, buttercups, and plenty of stalks of Common Spotted Orchid among the slender grass stems.
Spotted leaf of Common Spotted Orchid, in case you aren’t familiar with it!
Natural History

Contrasting May Landscapes at Wraysbury Lakes

Well, where can you see swamps, meadows, wild flowers, scrub, woodland, lakes, riverside, rough grassland, and even a Victorian monument, all in an hour’s walk, and in easy reach of London? Wraysbury is the answer.

Comfrey by the lake
Ring-necked Parakeet in its nest hole
Move over, Alabama Swamps, this is Wraysbury!
Sheep and Jackdaws on the banks of the reservoir. The Jackdaws devour insect grubs in the grass, especially in sheep droppings.
Colne Brook, May blossom, Lombardy poplars
Cowslips, Bugle
Daisy lawn, Whitethroat scrub habitat
Mute Swan drinking – the scene may look peaceful, but his wings and tail are raised threateningly even though no other birds were about! Such is the mating season.
Complicated, or what? In August 1832 it must have seemed well worth setting in stone the rights to not being flooded by anyone deliberately raising the water level above the limit defined here …

I don’t know if I’d set this in stone, but I heard 5 warblers singing, and caught a typical glimpse of a Cetti’s warbler diving from a bush beside the lake – big, dark brown, it really wasn’t any other bird. Still, I didn’t hear it call, which would have decided the matter beyond reasonable doubt. So, a 5-and-a-half warbler walk, I guess.

Butterflies: Large white, Small white, Brimstone, Holly blue, Peacock, Speckled Wood.

Odonata: Banded Demoiselle, Common blue (teneral, i.e. just emerged).

Other insects: Mayfly, Alder fly.

On the way home, I went round Heathrow airport, and a Skylark sang to me through the open car window from the grassy areas beside the runways.

Natural History

A Five-Warbler Walk at Wraysbury Lakes

A heraldic pair of Greylag Geese

Well, I guess the point of a walk in nature in May is to see what is in flower, what birds are singing, and which insects have emerged (in other words, it’s all about sex). The first warbler to make itself heard was the Blackcap, with many singing males trying out different brief songs. They were mixed in with Garden Warblers, which have a distinctly longer and more even song. A Cetti’s Warbler or two sang their loud abrupt call chwitipitit, chwitipitit: once heard, never forgotten. I couldn’t find any Sedge or Reed Warblers by the river for some reason. In the thorny scrub, a couple of Chiffchaffs sang their names, and many Whitethroats rasped out their short scratchy song, flying up to the tops of Hawthorn bushes and hopping about for the optimal perch.

A Little Egret flapped slowly across the lake: it would once have been thought a wonderful sighting, but the species has happily spread northwards and is now quite common on British coasts and lakes.

I was however delighted to hear the wheezing spring call of a male Greenfinch. It was until recently a common bird around towns and villages, but the population was halved by the Trichomonas parasite in the 2000s. Here in London it almost completely disappeared, and it is only slowly recovering.

I glimpsed one damselfly, probably a Common Blue.

Chicken of the Woods fungus on a fallen Poplar. Some find it delicious, others terrifying!
A handsome parasitic wasp, on the hunt for caterpillars
Bugle in flower in the woods
A Whitethroat on his singing perch

Natural History

Winching a Lodged Tree-Trunk after the winter storms

Storm Eunice snapped three or four trees in the reserve, and left many others leaning a bit. A few days later, Storm Franklin blew in, and dumped a lot of water on the trees. Some trees fell. Then over the next week, the trees with roots no longer securely fastened to the ground, or already leaning over, started to sag on the wet ground, and one after another, big old birches fell, crashing to the forest floor, or lodging on other trees. One of the biggest cherry trees in the reserve fell, bringing down several other trees and giving us quite a problem with the tangle it left behind. The winch enabled us to pull a lodged birch trunk down, but not before we’d pulled a bit in one direction, then another to dislodge it, then back to the first direction … and suddenly it started to slide. I thought it had jammed again, but one more pull and it fell.

Environment, Love of Nature, Natural History, Walks

Winter mist at wraysbury lakes

Morning sun through the mist over the Colne Brook
Goldeneyes, winter ducks here, down from the far north where they breed. The two black-and-white males in the centre are bobbing their heads (and throwing them over their backs, not shown), a small echo of their courtship display.

Among the wonderful moments on this walk: a heron gave its cronking call and flapped slow over the water; a plane passed behind three cormorants drying their wings, perched on the branches of a dead tree; a group of goldeneyes panicked and pattered across the lake, gaining speed for takeoff, giving their high-pitched call, the waves sparkling in the slanting sunshine; a song thrush tentatively singing its repeated music; a solitary fieldfare.

Teasels and wet thornbushes glistening in the low sun