Hartslock

I finally made the trip to Hartslock after trying to make it there for a sunny May day 2 years in a row. It was definitely worth the wait. For such a relatively small site it has an absolute abundance of rare and interesting organisms upon it. I started out by walking by the railway sidings to the Thames and ended up stopping along the way to ID some plants I didn’t recognise. All fairly common stuff but ones I either hadn’t figured out before or hadn’t found yet. Sticky Mouse-ear, Field Madder, Field Pansy, even Common Storksbill and Field Forget-Me-Not were all new to me. In this one little area bordering the railway lines and with intensively farmed land to either side I still found 20ish species. While hunched down and looking at the ground and a flower key I must have been fairly inconspicuous (or looked like future carrion) as I heard a gentle woosh sound and looked up to see a Red Kite about 10 feet over my head. It circled about nearby and slowly rose up on a thermal until it presumably had enough height to track off wherever it was going.

Field Madder

Common Storksbill

Field Forget-me-not

Walking down the Thames, I didn’t see any of the Club-tailed Dragonflies or Beautiful Demoiselles I’d seen the year before. It was probably a bit early given the cold spring we’ve had but a few club-tails have been seen in the area already. The Thames-side path had the usual thick banks of vegetation with lots of broad-nosed weevils (species in the sub-family Entiminae), alderflies, 24-spot ladybird, a few mayflies and my  first cantharid of the year with Cantharis rustica (how this large soldier beetle with a heart shaped mark on the pronotum managed not to earn a common name I’ll never know). Running around on the muddy track was a ground beetle – Notiophilus biguttatus. These small (~5mm) beetles have enormous eyes on them much like the more charismatic tiger beetles and fill a similar niche as an active sight-and-chase predator. Also the most photogenic Lords n Ladies I’ve ever seen:

The Hartslock Nature Reserve sits up on one of the chalk hills that the Thames sidles by on its way out of Oxford. It consists of 5 small compartments of downland in different grades of scrubbiness. The presence of lady and monkey orchids draws in a lot of photographers and botanists in the spring so the warden and volunteers cordon off the most “orchidy” section of the hillside. There were quite a lot of people with cameras at the top as I came in so I took a more circuitous route, the long way around the cordon. Chris Raper, the site warden was there with his volunteers, mapping the orchids. He kindly pointed out one of the first flowering Monkey Orchids on the site which was quite diminutive and actually on the opposite side of the track from the cordon.

Monkey Orchid

Chris is also an entomologist specialising in Tachinid flies. He seemed quite proud of his site and rightfully so. They have both grizzled and dingy skippers on site as well as common blue, small heath, peacock and brimstone. They’ve got Bastard Toadflax growing on site (not in flower at the moment and not one I know vegetatively) and the Down Shieldbug, Canthophorus impressus – a quite rare species associated with this plant and only found in a few sites in southern England. There’s also Lady Orchid, hybrid Lady/Monkey orchids, Pasqueflower, Chalk and Common milkworts, Common Rock-rose, Salad Burnet and other chalk downland plants. This is also a site for the rare mining bee, Andrena hattorfiana.

Cryptocephalus aureolus

Up the hill I noticed an awful lot of distinctive orange and black bees, Osmia bicolor. This species will use snail shells to nest in and I even found one provisioning one of its cells. Two Dandelion-a-likes kept me confused for a little while. One of them was Lesser Hawkbit but the other was difficult to determine.

Osmia bicolor

Bee butt

At the very top I found out what had the photographers there in such numbers – the main patch of lady orchids and hybrid monkey/lady orchids.

Lady Orchid

Lady/Monkey Orchid hybrid

Garden Chafer

The rest of the reserve sees less foot traffic and is more open with a solitary large beech tree watching over the Thames as the reserve rounds into a dry valley tributary. This was a truly gorgeous spot for lunch. The first garden chafers of the year were in the beech tree alongside several arboreal carabids and a large entimine weevil species I’d been seeing everywhere (I have some microscope time ahead of me). In the short grass here I found my first ever (confusingly six-petalled) Common Rock-rose. Down in the dry valley, the very short sward was peppered with blues and purples of various hues with common and chalk milkworts, common green field speedwell, bugle, mauve depigmented common milkwort and in one small area: Pasqueflower!

What beauties! And so hairy! Well I’ll let them speak for themselves:

Pasqueflowers

These flowers are very picky about the kind of habitat they can use – the current issue of British Wildlife has a large article on the difficulties in conserving land suitable for this species. Hartslock truly is a special place.

Logging species from the logs at Bookham

Scaphidium quadrimaculatum

Woop! Finally we had some good weather at the weekend.

I joined the LNHS at Bookham Common to help with the ongoing surveying they’ve been doing there for 60-something years. Bookham is largely ancient woodland with a good patchwork of glades, a few large ponds with decent marsh beds and a small area planted with a few exotic tree species in an area called the Arboretum that has been largely subsumed into the main woods. Combine that with the well-used tracks creating a good amount of bare ground, horse-riding and cattle grazing contributing dung and a regular coppicing regime producing decent sized logs for deadwood and you have a good variety of niches available for wildlife.

I’ve been to this site before but I’d never seen it so wet. Much of the first meadow we entered was barely above the water table with each step making a disconcerting squelch noise. We started on our first log pile with gusto; sitting on a slightly raised area that had previously had a bonfire, it  represented an island of unflooded dead-wood on a soft substrate. Peeling bark off these old logs mostly revealed woodlice and the odd unidentifiable grub but this changed from one log to the next. Under one was some sort of Leistus sp. (I think it’s L. rufomarginatus) of ground beetle recognised by the heart-shaped pronotum and “cage” of bristles under the head used to trap springtails. Another had lots of Scaphidium quadrimaculatum under the bark. This is a beautiful rove beetle that looks quite unlike any I’ve seen before. The neat line of punctures along the back edge of the pronotum reminds me of the stitching on a smart shoe. Also found on these logs was an Uleiota sp. which is incredibly flat, a tiny Bembidion sp. with golden, almost translucent legs, Pyrochroa coccinea, a probable Harpalus sp., Polydrusus millipedes, a single Forget-Me-Not Shieldbug, the beautiful Mycetophagus quadripustulatus and a short-winged Xylocoris sp. All over the ash-strewn ground in this area was a mat of Bonfire Moss, Funaria hygrometrica, and running over some of that ash we also found a Notiophilus biguttatus.

Uleiota sp.

These are incredibly flat beetles!

In the woods themselves  we came across congregations of tiny moths in the Micropterix genus huddled together on Greater Stitchwort flowers. This group of moths are part of a primitive, mandibulate group of moths that have function mandibles rather than just a proboscis, allowing them to eat solid food such as pollen. Many of these flowers were also being fed upon by Byturus ochraceus. 

Byturus ochraceus - only 2 UK species in this family

The grasses were full of Bibio marci flies, Empis flies (probably E. tesselata), adult forms of Tachycixius pilosus, plenty of Phyllobius weevils, Malachius bipustulatus and a new click beetle for me: Dalopius marginatus. Sweeping a hazel brought out what looked a bit like a tiny Byctiscus weevil minus the shoulder spikes. This was Deporaus betulae; one of the leaf-rolling weevils. Over the course of the day we looped through the woods turning up amongst other things, a Grass Snake, Yellow Pimpernel, Wood Speedwell and a tortoise beetle (Cassida rubiginosa).

Cassida rubiginosa

 All in all a great day - good company, the sun on my skin and interesting critters.

Down by Denbies

Finally the field season is upon us again! But it wouldn’t be England if the weather didn’t change constantly and threaten awful conditions all the time.

I made a couple of trips out over the weekend in Surrey and south west London with the intention of finally getting to use my sweep net. Saturday was spent at Denbies hillside which was a bit of a wash-out considering the intention had been to look for butterflies. Still we retreated into the woods at first and did a bit of botany in the rain. There were some visually interesting patches of native bluebells and wild Yellow Archangel (definitely not the same story in many London woods I know). A local in our group putting us onto a patch of at least 100 Early Purple Orchids was really neat. They’re in top condition at the moment which is a bit late season but not unexpected with the cold spring. A large kind of bedstraw I had assumed before were large individuals of goosegrass was pointed out to be Sweet Woodruff. On the insect front, the only thing of note in the woods was a male Bibio sp. fly on a rotting stump.

Early Purple Orchid in fine form

We peered out from the edge of the woodland onto the open chalk downland just as the rain started to die away. Lots of Common Milkwort in flower here already amongst the short grass. A smattering of Cowslip in bloom in the lush fields at the bottom. Wayfaring Tree (another new plant for me) in bloom in a few spots of scrub with dogwood growing around it. A single male longhorn moth - Adela reaumurella was found on low vegetation – a little disappointing as, on a sunny day, you can expect to see small clouds of these pretty moths dancing just over head height by the trees. Some rather damp sweep-netting in the scrubby bits brought out a single female Dilophus fly and a lot of small green Phyllobius weevils. I took one home and keyed it out to P. roboretanus which I think I may be able to ID in the field in future (I’ve left notes at the bottom if anyone’s interested). Roman Snails turned up a lot around the many rabbit holes on this hillside; I’m guessing the soil is looser here which aids the snail’s own burrowing. This was the first time I’d seen live individuals, they’ve got a an almost pebbly surface texture to them and seemed to react to relatively distant movement (perhaps a function of their larger eye in comparison to the rest of our very small species?).

Funny how these are a protected species here and food across the channel. Does this mean if we eat them there'll be more of them? Have I solved world hunger?

Some log-rolling turned up a couple of other snail species all of which was new stuff to me: Rounded Snail (Discus rotundatus – best Latin name ever!) and what I believe is Plaited Door Snail, Cochlodina laminata (it was a long, “left-handed” snail without any obvious surface striations, which I think makes it a Cochlodina sp. of which there’s only one that’s found in the UK). The birds also put in a good show with Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel and Yellowhammer flying through or over the valley.

Down the bottom of the hill we looked under a couple of tins and saw a Common Shrew, one Adder, 3 Slow-worms and several ground beetles. Around this much scrubbier area we also found a female Scorpionfly and I was shown yet another new plant, Glaucous Sedge, which I believe I should be able to ID in future. Breaking open a small piece of rotten wood revealed none of the hoped-for beetles but the tunnel of some sort of leaf-cutter bee. While fascinating to look at the individual cells wrapped up in leaf matter, I felt rather guilty for potentially ruining several future bees at once. I placed the two halves back together and propped a log on top to hold it in one piece. Hopefully they’ll make it through. Finally, before heading home to dry, I found a large Empid fly that I suspect is Empis tessellata but I'm going to have to plead ignorance on this one:

2 days later I headed off with some friends with a rough itinerary of Hounslow Heath (for adders), a bluebell wood on the North Downs and maybe Denbies again to show them the orchids.

Once again, the weather gods saw fit to tease us. The morning’s sunshine shifting to overcast then drizzle as we arrived at Hounslow. Despite this the insects were still about in good numbers although it did make looking for adders difficult. Nomada and Andrena bees were seen along the concrete track.

Andrena something. Bees are a really difficult group but I really should know better

Large male Bibio flies seemed to be everywhere on the vegetation and when the sun finally peeped out again, boy did they dance! Clouds of them went up; ridiculous, lazily dangling legs floating behind each fly. As it dried out a little under still-grey skies, the sweep net found more Phyllobius weevils, a Rhynchitid weevil - Neocoenorrhinus aequatus, an impressive looking Caloptilia moth in orange and gold, a 14-spot ladybird and an odd black moth which I think may have been Epichnopterix plumella (would be the first Psychid moth I’ve seen if true). Eventually the others also found an adder after a lot of staring carefully at gorse and bramble clumps.

The bluebell wood was, well, a wood full of bluebells. I don’t really understand the British obsession with it. It’s certainly pretty but once you’re over the initial spectacle of the sea-of-blue effect there’s often not a lot else to look at; especially in a wood like this one with an otherwise poor ground flora. I think the others had a similar feeling as, after taking the obligatory photos, the conversation turned to the poor weather and our empty bellies. Half an hour later we were in a country pub.

Denbies was also looking dreary as we arrived; Leith Hill across the Mole valley was lost in cloud. I led our small group into the woods and showed them the orchids to much oohing and aahing. Out onto the open hillside again we found crows mobbing something. “Very dark for a buzzard.” “Surely it shouldn’t be that silhouetted?” “It’s a raven!”. And there was the closest to London I’ve ever seen a wild raven. Apparently there are two in the area, and although we only ever saw the same one with a missing primary on one wing each time, it was certainly showing some loyalty to the site, coming back again and again. Fingers crossed for some breeding attempts. The sun started to break through and many more insects began to make themselves known including two lifers: Dingy Skipper and Lesser Bloody-nosed Beetle (They looked almost exactly the same as T. tenebricosa but about 2/3rds the size and with a metallic blue sheen –reasonably abundant across the hillside). At a pond at the bottom of the valley we found plenty of Bugle and Cuckoo Flower. Orange-tip and Speckled Wood butterflies flew by, the first Large Red Damselfly I’ve seen this year and the pond itself was chocka with tadpoles.

Lesser Bloody Nosed Beetle being a generally awesome creature. Check out those feet!

We’re forecasts sunny weather this weekend so hopefully I’ll have more and better photos to share soon!

Ever notice how permanently sad slow-worms look?

Beetling nerdcore:
antennal insertion visible from above (separating Phyllobius from Polydrusus) and no teeth on any of the femora (this reduces your list of Phyllobius sp. to just 3 – P. viridicollis, P. virideaeris & P. roboretanus). P. viridicollis is a generally northern species and almost bald of scales so easily eliminated. P. virideaeris and P. roboretanus are separated on several features which can seem a bit vague at first. P. roboretanus is meant to have a “hatchback” profile to its abdomen with the elytra whereas virideaeris has a gentler slope to the tip of the elytra. More details can be found here: http://www.thewcg.org.uk/idaids/roboretanusvirideaeris.htm although a feature I found useful in the key I used (Morris, 1997) was down to the degree to which the distal end of the front tibia flares before meeting the tarsal segments.

Blood-suckers and bonkers bonking beetles at Bookham

I’m not dead! But it is flippin' cold outside and I don’t really have any good recent natural history stuff for you. So here’s a bit of some stuff I did last summer (partially written up at the time and partially cobbled together from memory more than 6 months on):

Another LNHS outing, this time to Bookham Common, a patch of land just outside London in Surrey that’s been subject to study by the LNHS for over 50 years. This was meant to be a dragonfly study day with Neil (a man whose knowledge of plants, birds, butterflies and dragonflies always astounds me), but the odonates had other ideas about flying that day. Fortunately there were butterflies a-plenty. We passed by some bramble patches before opening out into an excellent wildflower meadow full of Agrimony, Selfheal, Germander Speedwell, Ragwort and Perforate St John’s Wort. Annoyingly I got bitten by a cleg fly which buzzed me for a good ten minutes after swatting it. It’s impressive, in a way, that it can crawl across the palm of your hand undetected, underneath a book and settle in to munch on the skin between thumb and forefinger. I was less impressed with the way my hand ballooned in reaction over the next day!

Sweeping the area brought out both the orthopterans (speckled bush-cricket, meadow grasshopper and Roesel’s) and a tick (presumably Ixodes ricinus) which suitably disgusted the others. By this point in the summer, nearly all the beetles appeared to have transformed into the very common "bonking beetle", Rhagonycha fulva. I also saw some new plants for me being shown Meadowsweet and discovering Marsh Woundwort for myself.

Wandering back into woodland, we came across the small, green Dock Leaf Beetle, Gastrophysa viridula (a species I was unaware lasted as an adult so long into the summer – I’ve found it before in March!). Here I came across another new plant for me (new in that I can now put a name to it) - a Marsh Thistle (that the Francis Rose book listed as growing up to 150cm) growing significantly taller than a lanky humanoid specimen such as myself. A couple of individuals with more access to light were at least 2.5m tall!

We popped out the woods onto a main track leading to the warden’s house. We then had a bit of a herp-tastic 10 minutes. First a couple of the guys went to roll a stone for ground beetles but instead found Great Crested Newts underneath. Four presumably juvenile ones in terrestrial form; we moved them gently to the side so we could roll the stone back and let them crawl back under. In the same area I found a froglet clambering up a tree stump. Rolling another log revealed a juvenile slow worm and then just 5 minutes later I pulled a toadlet from the lawn at the warden’s house! Later on some of the others also came across a small grass snake.



After lunch and comparing finds, we did a bit of log-rolling and came across the always spectacular Carabus violaceus (one of the violet ground beetles, pictured above). I also spent way too long on my backside IDing what turned out to be non-flowering Verbena officinalis. The group headed on a loop that took us past one of the larger ponds, along the way we saw our first (and only) dragonfly of the day: a Ruddy Darter. Treading out onto the marshy edges amongst the Watermint and Sparganium we found plenty of leaf beetles happily munching away on the plants – mainly Chrysolina polita and Chrysolina menthastri.

C. menthastri (aka the Common Mint Beetle) is a particularly smart-looking creature, resembling a large green metallic raindrop on the surface of reed and mint leaves.

Further on we came upon spotted wood and ringlet butterflies under the trees amongst the stinging nettle. As we came down on the home straight towards the warden’s house again we passed a mixed hedge and wildflower border with plenty of umbellifers in it. Much of it was Hogweed but I also found some Upright Hedge-Parsley which was a new one for me. On top of one of the umbellifers was an unfortunate Rutpela maculata (pretty wasp-mimicking longhorn beetle) that had been mistakenly pounced upon by an overly amorous Rhagonycha fulva. The poor thing blundered about, trying to shake it off, while the little orange beetle on top tried in vain to mate with it. After an epic minute long struggle, the larger longhorn beetle managed to shove itself free and fly off to find somewhere presumably a little less rapey.

I eagerly await similar amazing scenes of nature in the next David Attenborough series
Around this point I hung back to chat and catch up with some friends who were going to split and head to the “arboretum”. In the process I also lost track of the main group, and decided on doing my own bit of wandering. As I walked down one of the tracks to the west I heard the same buzzard cry I’d been hearing all day come closer and closer. Now I’m used to seeing buzzards now and then but they’re usually circling up high or perched on a tree on the other side of a field. This juvenile flew low over the trees and directly over my head. An absolutely beautiful creature and the closest I've ever been to one!

I wandered into a recently cleared meadow (mown the year before) and found it already being colonised by thousands of willow shoots. Sweeping around brought out a decent insect load with a nice tortoise bug (I think this was E. testudinaria) and an interesting leaf beetle that reminded me of a pale yellowy-brown Galeruca tanaceti. I took this little fellow home and IDed it down to Lochmaea caprea using the provisional seed beetle key (This key is awesome and it's not even finished yet!). It’s a common seed beetle in the sub-family Galerucinae that feeds on goat willow which was presumably the species of willow shoots I’d been bashing there.

Lochmaea caprea

Completing my looping wander, I discovered another plant I didn’t recognise which I found was Yellow Balsam – a native species but presumably a garden escape here in the south-east. Nosing around another recently coppiced section also netted me one of those Conopid flies in the Sicus genus. Their larvae are parasitoids that prey on bumblebees and the adult females are equipped with a curled-under abdomen for the risky task of grappling and laying eggs on live prey.

Sicus sp.

I regrouped with what was left of the LNHS sojourners and was shown a few of the other finds of the day. A fairly elongate and weird looking weevil called Rhinocyllus conicus being one that I remember. I then bumped into my friends in the arboretum area and joined up with them again. This part of the woods has had several different species of tree planted here and my leaf-hopper specialising friend was hoping to find some species new to the site. He introduced me to some of the more distinctive species such as Idiocerus ustulatus (“Assoc. with grey and white poplar. Pale with brown scutellum and mucky brown suture/central line” according to my notes) and Pediopsis tiliae (“Assoc. with lime tree. Very short blunt head, barely visible from above as obscured by pronotum. Head is bright yellow and generally unmarked. Brown wings”). While poking around these trees we also came across a dead Grey Dagger Moth caterpillar that I can only assume had been parasitised by one of those entomophagous fungi. The network of hyphae(?) that held this caterpillar to the leaf were quite impressive.

Dead Grey Dagger Moth caterpillar

We also spotted a certain Max Barclay out collecting from some Lindgren funnel traps hanging from some of the trees as part of a NHM survey. He was kind enough to show me some Diaperis boleti beetles which previously were considered particularly rare. They’re very round black beetles with a broad pair of red zig–zags across the elytra; very distinctive The word on t’interwebs amongst coleopterists seemed to be that they were becoming increasingly easy to find by breaking up some Birch bolete fungus. Considering how common a species of fungus this is I’d hazard a guess that this has more to do with being overlooked than a population explosion but I really don’t have any facts to back that up.

Diaperis boleti

Overall an interesting day with plenty of new stuff to figure out. A relatively large barkfly I took home turned out to be Metylophorus nebulosus (I used the key at the National Barkfly Recording Scheme)

P.S. - Apologies for the awful title. I just can't help it.

Bad-ass Badister

A rained out Sunday has kept me indoors and with the free time to write to this blog once again.

Abbie and I went to Rye Meads yesterday as she hadn't seen a tern yet this summer and the nesting rafts there seemed like a good bet. After a lazy morning expecting fairly poor weather, Saturday turned into a mini-scorcher. I hadn't expected a warm still day and regrettably I'd left my net behind. Believe me, this post would have been even more invert-heavy otherwise!

At the first hide we found the usual mallard, coots, gadwall, tuftie, dabchicks etc plus little ringed plover, Cetti's warbler singing somewhere in the distance and common tern preening on one of the islands. One mallard attended to an impressive 14 ducklings to much cooing from those in the hide.

Back outside, we found a narrow-bordered five-spot burnet which Abbie hadn't seen before. She was really taken by the bright red hindwing colours in flight. At further hides we got to see a solitary cormorant, lots of nesting black-headed gulls ("Cute, it vomited!"), a single pair of breeding common tern and a quick flypast from a kingfisher to cheer us up. Back out on the in-between bits I found Tall Melilot (a new species of plant for me).

Now I have an embarrassing confession to make. Until yesterday, I could not say for certain that I had ever clapped eyes on a reed warbler although I was certain I had. Nearly every bird singing like a reed/sedgie that I'd managed to see, had the strong supercilium of a sedge warbler. I'd seen LBJ warblers in similar habitats but not been too sure. After hearing lots of that agitated, angry-sounding song, I managed to take a good look at one at close quarters through the reeds and it was basically about as vague and nondescript as expected. Boring. Amazing!

What really grabbed my attention was something Abbie spotted over the brambles: a large wasp-looking insect that flew quite badly and scuttled around on the flowers. This was Rutpela maculata a large (and actually fairly common) longhorn beetle and one I was hoping to see sometime in the next couple of weeks.

There were a few hopeful photographers at the kingfisher hide but as they'd fledged brood 1 and were incubating brood 2 they weren't particularly showy.

There was nothing particularly spectacular on the way back either - a kestrel being mobbed by crows, Devil's Coach-horse Beetle on the path near the visitor centre, a Cinnabar moth and some kind of Donacia sp. beetle on the reeds being of note. I'd also picked up a couple of ground beetles with the intention of IDing them once I got home.

I've used the wet weather to sit down with the books and hand lens (I really need to start looking at microscopes!). The first beetle here:

is Badister bullatus, one actually possible to ID by hand lens. Most members of the genus are associated with wet ground or still water.

Beetle #2, which was found in the gardened grounds by the visitor centre:

I think is Harpalus affinis which is a very common ground beetle typically found in gardens and lawns.

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!