Local interest

I've been for a few weekend local wanders lately, mainly looking for insects.

Alexandra park currently has bees galore! Bombus terrestris, Andrena fulva, A. nitida and A. cineraria of those I could identify in the field. One area in particular with old ant nest mounds must have made a great nesting spot. When I approached it, several bee-flys took off together, Andrena cineraria males whisked about chasing each other and I even briefly saw a Nomada sp. which probably was Nomada lathburiana, the specific cuckoo bee of A. cineraria. As well as being bee central, the nursery-web spider, Pisaura mirabilis, was around in decent numbers and plenty of Chironomid and Bibionid flies were about.

Andrena fulva female

Andrena cineraria

Beefly, Bombylius major

This one I can't even place in a genus. Any suggestions? Osmia? Lasioglossum?

Birdwise, I finally clapped eyes on a Blackcap this spring and most of the other small passerines were singing loudly. Out the far end of Alexandra Palace and on to the Parkland Walk I found Oxford Ragwort (a new one for me!), Grape Hyacinth, Cow Parsley, White Dead-nettle and Honesty growing along the edges.

An Oxford ragwort with a view over London

I turned back to check out Coldfall Woods – another wood in the area that David Bevan had mentioned frequently while talking about Queens Wood last year. One thing that strikes you upon entering is the complete lack of ground flora, there’s not even any bramble, stinging nettle or saplings at ground level; it’s just leaf litter and logs. That wasn't particularly promising. The tit population seemed to like it for some reason thought as it was rammed with them. When a sparrowhawk flew over the wood, it was surprising how loud a 100+ tits making alarm calls can be. I decided to start log rolling in search of ground beetles. I turned up a feisty Abax parallelapipedus but it was too large and fast to use my normal catch, release and photograph technique. This other beetle, a Pterostichus sp. (I think) was much more obliging.

Walking home through Alexandra Park, I found the great crested grebe pair had returned to the tunnel res. Sadly their courtship efforts seemed rather half-hearted but they do tend to have repeated attempts at breeding throughout the spring and summer. A male kestrel also over the Tunnel Res had me crossing my fingers for another breeding attempt from them too.

Northward Hill

I went to Rainham yesterday but between daylight-savings and the ridiculous state of Sunday public transport (which before setting off I’d lazily assumed couldn’t possibly be so bad that it would add over an hour to the journey each way) I got very little time there before being hounded round and out the reserve by a volunteer (admittedly a very polite and well-meaning herdsman of the general public). So I saw sod all and instead you can have what I saw the week before out on the remote bits of Hoo which, by the way I wrote about it, obviously put me in a beatific and slightly pretentious mood (Simon Barnes eat your heart out!):

After the usual public transport rigmarole that forms the beginning of any trip to the Hoo, I arrived at RSPB Northward Hill.

Spring is definitely here.

Small passerines were chasing and singing on all sides. Green woodpeckers were yaffling from high in the trees and could be heard tapping on wood all over the place, not in the loud machine-gun staccato of great-spotted’s but the slower, quieter sound of hard wood being excavated into a nest hole.

A tiny bird caught my eye, doing a fluttering plummet alongside some ivy. It was a firecrest! A long-overdue lifer for me and possibly one of the most beautiful birds I’ve seen in the UK. While it hung around for excellent binocular views, photographing it was almost impossible. (see crappy record shot below).

In some areas the wood opens into small glades or slightly more open path. Young stinging nettle was dominating the mostly clayey ground but where the chalk came through a little more strongly other species managed to make an appearance – dog’s mercury, common chickweed (which turns out to be an incredibly variable plant!), hairy violet, lesser celandine, red dead-nettle etc. These warmer, more open areas brought with them some new invertebrates for the year - small bees (male Andrena sp. I think), a comma butterfly, common green shieldbug and a beefly!

A visit to the heronry and rookery didn’t result in much but took up the time for the tide to head back out. I made my way in a big hilly question mark back around the hill and down onto the marsh, heading towards St. Mary’s Bay. A dense cloud of starlings shape-shifted back and forth on the horizon before draping itself over the sea wall. Then, seemingly without cue, they got up together, spread into a broad line and glided overhead in silence with just a gentle whooshing sound. Not long after, the raptors that had presumably been harassing them into flying so often appeared: first a buzzard being mobbed by gulls, then a close-by female sparrowhawk with the yellow eyes that suggest she was only a young’un. A peregrine was perched on the top of the dyke as I neared the bay. This is the first time I've seen one on the ground and the first time I've spotted one for myself. It gave me a great view for a few seconds before being unsettled by my stopping. Too late for the camera :(

At the edge of the St Mary's Bay I carefully crested the dyke and found the Thames now lay quite a long way out, the nearest birds being about 60m away and clearly not fussed by my presence at that distance. This was also a good opportunity to really try out my new scope (a Nikon ED50 with 27x wide-angle eyepiece). The ED50 is bleedin' awesome. A flock of dunlin went by that on my old Aldiscope would have been a smeary bunch of LBJs; now I could inspect their plumage without a problem! It was just like a fog had been lifted. I easily picked out grey plover and distant avocet that I would never have noticed before. And with the scope weighing so little too, it's definitely going to be a frequent companion!

The long trudge back went straight between two favoured fields for the lapwing which were doing their radio-tuning sound-effects and rolling flights. Reed bunting would make showy flights over the path before skulking in the reedbeds and a snipe surprised me as it exploded out of the trackside ditch from only a couple of feet away. All in all one of my best days out birding!

Thursley!

After a wet Saturday, I took a trip out to Thursley Common with the girlfriend for hobbies, lizards, and interesting invertebrates. Thursley Common is one of the largest continuous segments of lowland heath in the UK, thanks in large part to the MoD frog-marching cadets and trainees across it on a regular basis. After a slightly confusing journey through the woodland around Bagmoor we popped out into Thursley’s main plain. It’s beautiful in a way you infrequently see in the south of this country: unbroken land without roads or buildings for about as far as the eye can see. In the northern parts of the UK the uplands offer something similar but there it’s so windswept and cold it doesn’t seem quite so alive. Here the land was singing with grasshoppers and crickets, buzzing with bees and whining with hoverflies. A quick sit down and equipment faff turned into an impromptu study of a small area. In no time we’d caught our first Roesel’s bush-cricket of the day. What’s more it was a macropterous specimen. Most of the species are brachypterous (short-winged) but a minority grow full length wings allowing them to fly and presumably aid the dispersal of the species. Supposedly warmer summers due to global warming have brought on an increasing incidence of this development; it’s certainly rapidly expanded the range of this species which is still listed as nationally notable in the British Red Databook despite being very common throughout South East England.



A high-pitched buzz meandered through the heather around us and after a brief chase I caught what I’d hoped it was: Anthophora bimaculata. A small flower bee with pale blue patterned eyes that my photo didn’t manage to capture very well. I bought “Bees of Surrey” by David Baldock just a couple of weeks ago and it has some amazing photos of this species. Well worth checking any small high-pitched bees in July/August as they’re likely to be this one apparently.


We got up and carried on moving; a Mexican wave of grasshoppers leaping out of the grass in front of each foot. After a brief stop for lizards and what sounded an awful lot like a Dartford Warbler we decided to wander around a tucked out of the way more scrubby area looking for reptile refugia. We didn’t have much luck although we were surprised by a loud hissing from some heather at one point, we couldn’t actually see the adder and we respectfully backed away.
Further on we reached a pond with lots of black-tailed and keeled skimmers and sundews lining the edges. A hobby flew over, snap-rolling back and forth to catch insects on the wing.
Some more sweeping pulled up some interesting shieldbug nymphs including a tortoise shieldbug and a negro bug; a scarce footman moth which should be quite common to the area and a funky looking red crab spider.

Another evening sweep round Alexandra Park

I met up with a new-found friend at Alexandra Park this evening to see if the kestrels would return and also to show his niece some of the insect life in the park. They'd already had a good time; finding common blue damselfly, comma butterfly, small copper butterfly and a few other things.

Moving over to the "bulrushy bit" we got to a decent patch of long-grasses, umbellifers, bramble, nettle and willow-herb. I pulled out a green shieldbug, Palomena prasina, quite rapidly and followed it up with an adult Dock bug, Coreus marginatus. Further sweeping of the area revealed there were also lots of nymphs of this species in different instars in the area. The others swept up a nice male speckled bush-cricket and a blood vein moth for which I really wish I'd brought my camera. Nothing particularly special, but having laypeople asking me questions was interesting and I realise now how much I need to learn my mirid bugs; there's loads of them out at the moment and they're all quite distinctively marked. We returned to the kestrel area and still nothing. The others had been watching the area for 4 hours with no sign of them.

I found a few more groundhoppers and ladybirds which entertained the others but I think I've gone over the same spots a little too much now. Perhaps I'll start taking the northbound train straight after work with my net!

Obligatory end post photo:

Coriomerus denticulatus (Like the dock bug but hairier)
It feeds on black medick which I have found locally so I'm still hoping to find it here in London

It's been a while, baby

Since I last posted I've moved to north London, been on a trip to Portugal and more. I've shifted concentration back in to entomology as the warm weather has finally taken hold. I might post some recap posts later with the nicer photos but for now, here's today's stuff:

I went for a post-work wander to Alexandra Park today (my new local patch!) to watch the kestrels and do a bit of bug sweeping. A local birder was there near the nest box already and eventually one bird returned (juvenile?) with a mouse or vole and rewarded us with technicolour views of the insides of a rodent. The previous day I was lucky to watch one of these birds dust-bathe on the path from only a few feet away. My friend was a bit concerned that only one bird had turned up and consumed the animal on its own, he's been watching them a while and the last few days it's always been the adult feeding two juvies. We'll have to wait and see if they're all still alive.

Amongst the inverts there was the usual damselflies, Roesel's bush-cricket, Ragonycha fulva (everywhere) and 7 spot ladybirds. Of most interest were the groundhoppers (fairly sure they were Common Groundhoppers, Tetrix undulata) which turned up over one particular patch of grass next to some bramble with no special discerning features.

Finally, I guess I'd better include a photo, so here's an Anthophora bimaculata bee from the weekend:

The pale green eyes are awesome and my photo doesn't do it justice

Ooops

Ah crap. I've neglected the blog again.

During my hiatus I took a trip to Norfolk, had some job interviews, made my resignation, went on holiday and started a brand spanking new job with a massive commute and loads of learning to do. I'm now an IT support specialist for a telecomms tech company and I've come into it without any experience with networks or Linux beyond being an end user. I have a pile of reading almost 2 feet thick and I'm not even kidding.

Once I've settled in more I might be able to make more regular updates. In the meantime here's my best pic yet of a Kestrel from Norfolk. Presumably it was flying this low due to inbreeding induced myopia or summat.

Rainham blows

What a pile of poo. I blame the met office entirely. Rain-predicted days were clear and vice-versa.

Spent Friday and Saturday largely cooped up anticipating the bad weather. Saturday having originally been a trip to Orford Ness had now become a day-in; sorting out a bank account and tidying the house. I got up early on Sunday to go walking with my bro which was great as I don't get to see him much these days and we covered quite a bit of ground going from Ightham Mote to Toys Hill on the Greensand way. As a warning to any one else taking this track: be aware that it splits in three in several places with 3-4 mile spurs that go absolutely nowhere yet are marked the same as the main track! We came out the wrong side of Knoll Park in Sevenoaks town centre thanks to this.
For Monday I agreed to wake up early once again for a trip to Rainham with Ben. Lured in by the great day we had last week and the possibility of hoopoe, I took the bait. It was bitterly cold with a strong wind blowing in across the Thames. Bugger-all was about and the most exciting thing I saw was probably Linnet. Rainham seems to switch between amazing and god-awful with no middle ground. After ~8 hrs out and about Rainham getting wind-blown, we called it a day. Back to a pub in London and three drinks on top of the tiredness and dehydration had amusingly rapid effects. And I've now heard that perhaps 15 minutes after we left, an Alpine Swift was seen at Rainham. BAH!