High Elms - few elms, many orchids

Just a few pics after the monstrous post before. I popped home that same weekend to visit my parents. My mum was quite keen to show me “the Orchid Bank” in High Elms while I was there so we duly popped over for a couple of hours. I understood why she was so keen shortly after stepping foot into the fenced-off clearing. Common Spotted Orchid and Common Twayblade was absolutely everywhere as well as large numbers of Pyramidal Orchid, a few Bee Orchids, Fly Orchid and apparently Man Orchid was in there somewhere too although we didn’t manage to find it. In amongst these we had other chalkland species like Fairy Flax and Bladder Campion. Roman Snails were also very abundant. Just a gorgeous site all round.

The Fly Orchid

I was also shown some Bird’s Nest Orchid growing under some Beech nearby. It had gone over a bit by now but I’m a bit of a sucker for this kind of alien-looking parasitic plant. Not a bit of green on it, looking more like a fungus than a plant!

Bird's Nest Orchid
Yes, it looks like a stick. It's still a nifty organism.

Esher Common

I popped down to Esher Common in Surrey on Saturday for an LNHS meet-up – looking for heathland invertebrates. The first port of call was the large bank of semi-bare ground just outside Oxshott station. Mottled Grasshopper and Bog Bush Cricket nymphs were found here as well as the usual piles of Kleidocerys of both species. Sarah found a Scarce 7-spot Ladybird in the heather. This is quite a difficult species to ID as it mainly differs from the common 7-spot on the colouration of segments under the legs. Tristan showed me a very small weevil swept off the heather that was something I’d read about before but had yet to see – Micrelus ericae – a small grey-green weevil with a yellowish sutural line. It’s a cutie but at c.2mm and with some grey weather my humble little flash-less camera wasn’t up to making a good photo of it. Also out of this general area came a couple of robber flies – Dioctria hyalipennis and Machimus atricapillus.

Rounding this bank onto a sandy gully we came across a lot of pretty, metallic Ruby-tailed Wasps (one of the Chrysis spp.) which the group enjoyed looking at. Off the nearby pines we found the prettily marked Chequered Click Beetle (Prosternon tessellatum), the 18-spot Ladybird and the slightly odd-looking Striped Ladybird. 

18-spot Ladybird

Chequered Click Beetle

A large red-bodied lacewing with clear wings was caught briefly but made a speedy exit. I think it’s Nothochrysa capitata (N. fulviceps is a possibility but is almost vanishingly rare and generally north westerly distributed). Growing along the track here were a few new species of plant for me – Cat’s Ear, Hare’s Foot Trefoil and Sand Spurrey. We progressed from here through woodland. The main group stopping to admire a Beautiful Demoiselle, a Pill Millipede and several large Volucella hoverflies, the only one of which we got a really good look at was Volucella pelluscens. At one point a tangled pair of relatively large insects tumbled through the air in front of me. This was a pair of large robberflies briefly in coitus before one flew off. I believe these were one of the Neoitamus spp., probably Neoitamus cyanurus. Another member of our group picked up a medium sized ground beetle – Pterostichus melanarius.

Sand Spurrey

Pterostichus melanarius

Neoitamus cyanurus

Neoitamus cyanurus again. A bit of a beast as flies go!

Swept off of nettle was the ever-common scourge of gardener’s hands - Anthocoris nemoratum. This small insect is one of a difficult genus, in the same family as bed bugs and not afraid to give an itchy bite once in a while. And off a small oak came a late instar nymph of the Red-Legged Shieldbug, Pentatoma rufipes. As the woodland track widened we reached a pond with Emperor Dragonflies, Common Newts and Common Blue Damselflies. Crested Dog’s Tail grew in spots around the edges and a few Evening Primroses were up on the tops of the banks. In a long dried up pool were great numbers (50-60ish?) of Common Spotted Orchids and quite a lot of St John’s Wort. We collected a few Chrysomelids here. One species appeared to be Chrysolina hyperici but the other was similar but significantly different in size and puncturation (maybe sexual dimorphism?). I’m still working on these at home.

We crossed over a motorway and onto a much larger and generally open heath. Here were patches of woody regeneration forming wind breaks and mini-coppices and a very sandy bridleway across it. Sweeping more grasses a couple of species of malachiid turned up: the very common Malachius bipustulatus and Anthocomus fasciatus a distinctive and easily recognised beetle in the UK but not one I’d seen/known I could ID so easily before. The birch saplings brought out a real stunner when a Birch Sawfly larva fell into my net. Sawfly larvae are a very common sight with their baby-like head capsules but typically the largest I see are no more than an inch long. This brute of a larva was around twice that length! The adults are really unusual looking things and I hear they’re rarely seen.

Birch Sawfly larva

Birch Sawfly larva with frankly dinky birch leaf

In the midst of all this heather and birch was a single relatively young looking oak with foliage from top to bottom allowing for easy sweeping. The diversity of beetles that came off of this tree was really impressive. Just from what I saw myself: Two click beetles – the very common (and unfortunately-named) Athous haemorrhoidalis and a very lively, black click beetle with golden hairs all over its body – Hemicrepidius hirtus. I also managed to sweep a jewel beetle from this tree; another Agrilus species and one I’m still working on IDing at home. Several species from this genus have been added to the UK list in recent years making keying Agrilus to species a little difficult. Weevils were also very well represented here. A small flea weevil keyed out to be Orchestes pilosus. Under the microscope this species turns out to be particularly beautiful with a patterned coat of orange, white and brown hair. Also found was a large chequer-board patterned weevil - Otiorhynchus singularis. 

Athous haemorrhoidalis

Otiorhynchus singularis

Finally we walked the sandy tracks for a bit and came across Wood Sage, a click beetle - Ampedus balteatus, a Green Tiger Beetle and a Pill Beetle (that’s an entire family I hadn’t seen before!) which I’ve since keyed out to Cytilus sericeus. On the route back I walked a little off-track and came across several ponds and was lucky enough to have a brief sighting of a Grass Snake. Sadly it’s two weeks later into July and I haven’t really had a sunny reasonably calm day like it since.

Green Tiger Beetle

Ampedus balteatus