NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

My month at Dungeness is almost complete. I have gathered a wealth of memories thanks to the people I have met (including many old friends), the wildlife on show and the special place that this shingle peninsula is to me. So, if you can be bothered to wait a few more days I can promise you umpteen posts on a variety of subjects that may just last for a further month or more. Enjoy the sunshine!

It's been a while since I posted. The reason being, my mid-life crisis - a cry for help, call it what you will. Back in february I fancied taking the whole of July off and 'doing' natural history. My boss - aka my wife - said yes, (how Katrina puts up with me I don't know) so selecting anywhere in the world to go I settled on... Dungeness! I know, I could be watching hummingbirds in the Amazon or gorillas in Rwanda, but instead I have elected to stay on the shingle of my youth. So far, a week in, it has been a good choice. Cheap accommodation and marvellous weather while everyone else seems to be getting wet. Because of the wet spring and even wetter early summer the shingle has flowered like never before. There are literally millions of blooms colouring the peninsula, like a grand desert extravaganza. Nottingham Catchfly, a local species, is abundant. Sheep's-bit is strewn across the pebbles. Viper's-bugloss is vibrant. I have managed to photograph quite a fe...

A few days ago I was on Reigate Heath, walking across a boggy area littered with the stumps of recently felled coniferous trees. A black insect flew into view, at first I thought that it was a melanic damselfly. It landed close by and I was confronted with something that I had not seen before - a large ichneumon fly exhibiting a preposterously long ovipositor. It didn't settle for long, but I was sure that I could nail the identification. Back home my trawl through the literature matched it, I think, to a species of Lissonota - but which one? The popular field guides suggest setosa , or fundator , or 'many similar species'. The world wide web threw up many images of supposed Lissonata , some of which were clearly not, being dragonflies and even shieldbugs! (I came across another at Thursley Common this week (image below) which looked a lot smaller than my Reigate specimen. It didn't stay still for long). This neatly illustrates a problem that the 'official...

I cannot make my mind up about this weather. Yes, it's been cool, wet and at times windy. Agreed, it isn't good for moth catches, butterfly numbers or overshooting bird rarities. But botanically everything is lush. By now we can usually expect all of the late spring stuff to be burnt off, shrivelled up and beyond identification. Perhaps this is good for a number of invertebrate groups? I don't know whether or not those that study flies are rolling around in ecstacy due to a brilliant year, or arachnid botherers have never had it so good. I would like a bit more warmth and sun though - it makes a poor day in the field all the more tolerable.

This poor, snatched photograph is, I'm suggesting, that of a Bryony Ladybird. I was wandering the border of Norbury Park and Bocketts Farm in north-west Surrey when I came across it. Not being an expert in beetles (or anything else for that matter) I was none the less struck by the washed out browny-red colouration of the wing cases and the carefully spaced out spots. It is found in the general area, having started its history in the UK as recently as the late 1990s.

This morning, when the postman handed me a small brown parcel, I wondered whether or not I had forgotten about some strange natural history equipment that I had ordered - a gnat's nether region detector box or possibly an electric shock depth charger for water beetles. When I turned the package over my sender was revealed - 'Haig, Seaton, Devon'. This could mean only one thing - Chocolate Buttons! For a while now, that Londoner/Devonian has owed me Chocolate Buttons big time. World Wars have been fought over lesser instances of debt. As I feverishly ripped open the brown paper, licking my salivating lips, I had already started to imagine lying on the grass, tipping the whole of the bags contents into my wide open mouth in a homage to Homer Simpson. Not only was there a bag of buttons - GIANT buttons - but a card addressed to 'Tick Ticker'. It read, 'Please find enclosed well-known cure for Lyme disease. Correct dose is 2 tablets, 4 times a day, but latest ...

The hoverfly Eristalis pertinax A day spent 'pottering' about (what a great middle-aged word 'pottering' is). The upshot of it was I found 10 pan list ticks for myself, all of them common. I spent a fruitful half hour checking the flowering heads of Hogweed that had attracted a fair number of insects. If you can spot any schoolboy errors, please let me know. New pan-list total is now 3092. Diaea dorsata in the garden  Pamene aurana, up to six of these micro moths