The whole of the wetland was sparkling with Emperor Dragonflies patrolling the pools: a few females laid eggs by Water-Lilies, the males occasionally chasing prey, or a rival. The margins were full of Azure Damselflies, nearly all males: I saw one pair in wheel formation.
The marshy areas bristled with Southern Marsh OrchidsRed-Eyed Damselfly
Several Red-Eyed Damselfly males displayed on lily-pads, chasing off rivals; occasionally an Azure came by too. Over one or two of the smaller pools, a Hairy Dragonfly patrolled; one of them had an aerial tussle with a similarly-sized red dragonfly, I think a Common Darter.
Yellow Rattle
Overhead, quite a few Sand Martins caught insects over the water (well, the Wetland Centre does sport West London’s only Sand Martin bank, an artificial river cliff), along with a few Swifts, and I think exactly one Swallow … it feels as if something terrible has happened to these populations. They have to migrate across the Sahel, the Sahara, the Mediterranean, and numerous populations of hungry village boys and keen shooters, so it’s something of a miracle there are any left: and that’s not even speaking about climate change.
Blue and yellow Vetches bringing colour to the tall grassland, with tendrils everywhere
A couple of Common Terns, presumably those breeding on the Wetland Centre’s lake islands, made their bright and cheery waterbird calls as they wheeled about, searching for glimpses of tiny fish to dive in and catch.
Common Spotted Orchid
There were only a few butterflies about – a Red Admiral, a Holly Blue, a couple of Speckled Wood, some Whites, a female Brimstone. For me, the bees and pollinators looked well down on normal, too. Amidst the warmth of the day, the beauty, the peace, and the brilliant colours, it is a sombre tale of decline.
Don’t eat me!Emperor moth caterpillar being eaten by ants
Thursley Common scene looking across bog with dead Pines, open lake with Canada geese, encroaching Birch scrub and Pine forest in the distance
Goldfinch atop Pine tree
Tailless Lizard on boardwalkHoney-scented banks of Bell Heather, Gorse, Birch on Thursley CommonBee-Wolf with Bee preySmall Ammophila Sand-wasp, scurrying about in the heather searching for preyThursley Common: managing the heather by mowing irregular stripsBlack-Tailed SkimmerKeeled SkimmerBlack Darter, a tiny dragonflyCommon DarterThursley Common – the sandy paths full of sand-wasps and bee-wolves, the heather full of bees and grasshoppers
Also saw Common Blue Damselfly, Southern Hawker, Emperor Dragonfly.
Meadow Grasshopper in Gunnersbury Triangle’s Anthill MeadowField Grasshopper, on a refugiumCommon Darter female on dried bramble in Picnic MeadowJersey Tiger by pond boardwalk with red underwing; yellow underwing specimens are also visible around the reserve. The underwing colour appears as a startling flash when the insect takes off, but unlike many other moths, grasshoppers and so on which have such deimatic coloration, the Jersey Tiger is conspicuous when it rests. There must be a reason for the polymorphism; perhaps the startle effect works better when a predator has not seen too many insects with a particular underwing colour.
Unloading wheelbarrows from roof of Land-Rover at Fray’s Farm, one of London Wildlife Trust’s numerous reserves on the western edge of London. All we needed to do was to find the logs!
We fanned out across the reserve looking for log-piles. On the way, I found this beautiful Oak in full autumnal splendour, as well as a buzzard, a red kite, and a common darter dragonfly (not bad for mid-November), and a brief glimpse of a roe deer. Jules found a handsome Carabid ground beetle.
Anna and Netty loading the spoils. The logs were covered in lichens and the ones which had lain a year or two with elegant curtain crust fungi as well.
Well, I might reasonably have expected to see Red Deer in Richmond Park in today’s beautiful sunshine, but Dragonflies for Hallowe’en? That was a bit of a surprise. I saw that magical sparkle about 7 times, twice consisting of an attached pair (“in cop”) of Common Darters. Most of the rest were certainly also darters, but once I caught a flash of blue, so perhaps that was a Migrant Hawker or more probably a Southern Hawker dashing into the distance on the breeze.
Willow Emerald or Spreadwing Damselfly, rainbow iridescent in the beautiful Indian Summer sunshine. The wings never quite close over the back as they do in other damselflies.
Southern Hawker ovipositing on boardwalk (in front of my boots)
Common Darters in Cop
Dog’s Vomit Slime Mould, Fuligo septica, on Birch log
Migrant Hawker hovering by lower Pen Pond. I was pleased to get this nice shot of one of these handsome dragonflies, one of the most delicate and shimmering of the hawkers. It was alongside Common Blue damselflies (low over the path) and a few Common Darters.
Great Crested Grebe in the warm water
Small Heath butterfly: one of many skittering low in the short heathy grassland, perching on the ground. We saw few other insects, barring a fast and wriggly Carabid Beetle.
A flock of some fifty Swallows twittered high above the sparkling blue lake among the bog pools. Dragonflies – the occasional Emperor, plenty of small red Common Darters and tiny Black Darters, some Migrant Hawkers – dashed about or sunned themselves on the boardwalks. A pair of Hobbies, those dashing, Swift-winged falcons, soared and watched the Swallows cunningly, waiting for a careless moment. One of the Hobbies swooped down, raced low, agile, among the reeds, up and switchback over a dead tree to snatch a dragonfly on the wing, powered right across the wide bog all the way to the pinewoods. Three pairs of Common Darters in cop, the males leading the females, their claspers about their females’ necks, flew in strict formation like so many Spitfires. A Hobby, high above the bog, accelerated in a long straight shallow dive, for all the world like a Junkers 88 bomber taking careful aim, racing down for a hundred yards at incredible speed to grab a dragonfly: it must have seen its prey all that distance away.
Birch Bog Bolete Leccinum rigidipes
Clusters of the light brown Birch Bog Bolete – yes, it grows under Birches in Sphagnum bogs – are dotted about, their large squarish pores quite unlike the little round holes of the true Cep. Phillips says they’re edible but not worthwhile. This isn’t stopping a pair of plump thirty-something Poles with a sports bag wandering along collecting them (National Nature Reserve? Really?). I greet them, establish their nationality, say my mother used to do the same in the Carpathians and that there aren’t many mushrooms here. The guy with the sports bag shows me a meagre haul of Birch Bog Boletes just about lining the bottom of his bag: he means, he hasn’t found much worth collecting. I try Natsional Natur Reservat and waggle my finger, we part smiling and he shuffles off sheepishly.
Phaeolus schweinitzii (giant polypore)
Under some Pine trees, a dead stump, killed by Phaeolus schweinitzii, three or four enormous dinner-plate sized yellow discs, thick and rough with orangey-brown branching tufts: they are overgrown Polypore bracket fungi, dangerous parasites of conifer tree roots. Nobody has given it an English name, which is a pity as the namers could really have fun with it: Yellow Pine Death? Giant Pine Polypore? A magnificent fungus, somewhat alarming if you’re a forester.
On the open sandy heath, some Ammophila sandwasps are still active, perching on the path. A few butterflies – a white, some Speckled Woods, probably a Red Admiral – are about; a very large brown butterfly with agile flight, dancing around a pine trunk and up high, is tantalisingly impossible to get binoculars on, was very probably a Fritillary, in which case it was likely the Silver-Washed Fritillary.
Robber Fly Machimus atricapillus on Thursley map
A couple of mean Robber Flies perched on a rather bleached map of the common: they had as Shakespeare said “a lean and hungry look”. They have a tuft of stiff bristles below their antennae to keep their prey from striking them in the head. They wait on a perch – a signboard will do if there’s nothing better – until an unsuspecting fly comes past, then they sally into the air and grab it.
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
