Last weekend was supposed to be a relaxing long weekend with the girlfriend camping in the New Forest. Sadly the weather decided otherwise, so we stayed in Essex and went a on few day trips. One of these was to London, which included a walk through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. Just after we walked…
DetailsOn a recent visit to Thursley Common, which was sadly pretty unproductive for invertebrates, we found this wood mouse which was feeding on grass seeds near the picnic area. It seemed unfazed by the humans around it but wouldn’t quite come out enough to pose. We all waited for a good 20 or 30mins and…
DetailsOn Friday evening I spotted a spider in the bathroom. On closer inspection I realised it was a spitting spider. These are described as uncommon and this was only my second ever one, the first having been found in my house also. They are called spitting spiders because they catch their prey by spraying it…
DetailsAfter visiting Elmley Marshes last Saturday, we popped over to East Blean Woods, a Kent Wildlife Trust Reserve which is one of the best best sites for the rare heath fritillary butterfly. It took a while to find one as the sun had disappeared behind some thick cloud. But we looked around a promising spot…
DetailsA few years ago on my old blog I posted a diagram to show the emergence and flight times of all the British odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) and a seemed to be quite popular. Since then a number of new species have become established in Britain, or are at least well on their way to…
DetailsOn Saturday morning I headed reasonably early to Elmley Marshes. The drive in was pretty quiet except for a few yellow wagtails until I reached an area with a field that had much shorter vegetation. Here were a number of hares, which wherereachable with my Pentax 300mm and 1.7x convertor combo. One decided to have…
DetailsA few photos I took of red grouse on my way home from the Cairngorms back in March, the route for which just so happened to take us through a good spot for them.
Here’s a slightly different pond creature shot, with a white background. The backswimmer is also a bit different as its Notonecta maculata, rather than the usual N. glauca.
Today just before my lunch break ended (typical!) I spotted an emerald damselfly (Lestes sp.). I managed a few photos, trying to focus on the key ID features to separate the from the Scarce (Lestes dryas), ‘common’ (L. sponsa) and the Southern/ migrant (L. barbarus) emeralds, all recorded from Wat Tyler Country Park. It refused…
DetailsI paid a visit to Rainham Marshes today as the weather forecast seemed OK, if a bit windy. The wind pretty much ruled out any serious macro, except for larger stuff on the boardwalks and fences. Around the bird woodland boardwalk there were plenty of common or viviparous lizards. However this one was a bit…
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