Well to be honest we should have been working in the garden, but .....
Lovely to see more than six large heaths down at Drumburgh and the most spectacular horse fly!
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| Four spot chaser. |
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| Female black darter. |
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| Large skipper. |
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| Large heath. |
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| Meadow grasshopper. |
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| Bog asphodel just coming into flower. |
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| The bright horsefly...Hybromitra distinguenda. |
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| Round leaved sundew ...coming into flower. |
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| Across the moss to Skiddaw. |
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| The introduced lily... |
Another highlight of my trip to Chobham Common were the large numbers of silver-studded blues- a localised heathland species, which we last saw at South Stack, Anglesey (-click here-), although these are different as the females are fully brown opposed to the Great Orme and South Stack populations which are brown-blue.
The blues were everywhere on the reserve, but best seen on the edge of the paths where the heath had been cut as a fire break.
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| The brown females. |
One of the highlights of Chobham Common is marsh clubmoss- there are a few populations including a few areas that are managed for the species. They're certainly looking a bit more colourful than their autumn colours (-click here-)!
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| Chobham Common. |
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| Sundew (Drosera intermedia) associate. |
More from Tom: In the west of Chobham common, next to Sunningdale Golf Course there are two small lakes that I visited last September for dragonflies (-click here-), so as it rises to peak summer, I returned to see what I could find. The total list was: beautiful damselfly, large red damselfly, common blue damselfly, emperor dragonfly, four-spotted chaser, black-tailed skimmer and common darter. Also, I saw two new species to me: small red damselfly and downy emerald, the latter of which decided to be incredibly uncooperative and didn't stop once for a decent photograph.
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| One of the two small lakes on the west of Chobham Common near Sunningdale Golf Club. |
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| Four-spotted chaser, black-tailed skimmer (female and males) and common darter. |
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| Downy emerald. |
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| Downy emerald. |
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| Red-eyed damselflies and common blue damselflies. |
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| Common blue damselfly reflections. |
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| Egg-laying emperor dragonfly with red-eyed damselfly. |
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| Small red damselfly. |
Taking advantage of Saturday's sunshine, Tom took a trip to Chobham Common:
A spectacular day with highlights of juvenile green woodpecker in a nest-hole, my first British grass-snake as well as silver-studded blues, marsh clubmoss and a variety of dragonflies and damselflies (that all deserve posts of their own).
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| Broad-leaved helleborine in bud at Longcross. |
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| Broad-leaved helleborine in bud at Longcross. |
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| The recovery from last summer's fires- the landscape is dominated by liverworts, algae, fungi and the first plants, mainly grasses and bracken, and small birch seedlings. |
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| Liverworts. |
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| Swimming grass snake. |
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| Swimming grass snake. |
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| Grass snake. Later on in the day I also had a nice view of an adder, as well as plenty of common lizards. |
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| Sharp-tailed bee sp. and four banded longhorn beetle. |
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| The first bog asphodel (with bumblebee). |
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| Green woodpecker juvenile in nest hole. |
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| Potential heath spotted x southern marsh orchid hybrid (Dactylorhiza x hallii) with hybrid vigour. Common spotted-orchid and heath spotted where also on the reserve. |
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| A rather large female toad in the path. |
After visiting Clints Quarry yesterday, we popped in to this little NNR. The hay meadow fields were at their best with lots of: ox-eye daisy, hawkbit, eye-bright, red clover and common-spotted orchids.
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| ...and a red necked footman - haven't seen one for ages. |
