NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Blue-tailed Damselfly of the colour form rufescens A couple of days ago a wander along the banks of the River Mole, close to Westhumble, found me in close proximity to bank-side Odonata. Here are a few images from that encounter. There were many Banded Demoiselles perched up in the dull, muggy conditions, but still took to the air on approach. A single Beautiful Demoiselle was with them.

A fairly brief visit was made to Box Hill, primarily to go and see some Ground-pine that had come up on a small scrape (above). This is the sixth location that I have recorded this rare species from across the Uberpatch, the others sites being Langley Vale, Chipstead Bottom, Colley Hill, Juniper Hill and White Downs. There is just the one plant, but it is a good specimen, with plenty of Viper's-bugloss for company. I also went to take a look at a nearby slope that holds a good colony of Wild Liquorice (below). I last visited in 2018, and was disappointed to find that the area has scrubbed up since then, with fewer plants obvious, although one particular specimen was large and looked to be in rude health. I attempted to search (unsuccessfully) for Grapholita pallifrontana , a rare and decreasing micro moth that has Wild Liquorice as its food plant. Assumed to be extinct in Surrey, it was a long-shot anyway. The chalk downland was lively with butterflies, the dull and mu...

In 1666, Green Hound's-tongue was first described by Christopher Merrett at Norbury Park in Surrey, and ever since then it has been a place where botanists have gone to pay their respects to this rare plant. I visit every year, walking the dark footpaths that cross the beech, yew and ash dominated slopes  And it's been a good year for Green Hound's-tongue at Norbury Park... a very good year indeed! This morning I walked along the lower, easternmost footpath, that runs vaguely parallel with the River Mole. I expected to find a few plants of Green Hound's-tongue (which has now largely gone over) but was surprised to find so much of it, plants on view throughout most of the walk and some in sizeable clumps. Because of these numbers I dedicated the following three hours to searching the area on this easternmost slope, going no further west than Druid's Grove (at the top of the slope), starting at the Mickleham entrance and stopping at Nicol's Field. The numb...

A new month, a new challenge. As I am still not comfortable with travelling far from home, and prefer to travel on foot, I looked at the Ordnance Survey maps last night to identify a 2km square which would act as the focus of my natural history efforts for the month of June. Our house is bang on the southern edge of TQ2261, and within this 2km square can be found Priest and Howell Hills, both SWT reserves and good for plants and butterflies, if not so much birds. Given that spring is almost over, and my attention does tend to switch away from ornithology for the summer months, this seemed like a good square to bash, particularly as the farmland close to Howell Hill has been allowed to run wild in places, and so holds the potential for some surprising plants to pop up. After a morning of painting the garden fence, I walked from home and first of all checked the farm paddocks attached to NESCOT, as a flock of Starlings has been building here - after all, a few Rose-coloured versions...

Looking back eastwards from White Downs earlier this week and already this autumn's birding was on my mind. Set out before us are the three 'peaks' on the North Downs that are within my uber patch. I have vis-migged from all three, but not often enough to be able to have a firm idea as to where is best. Obviously the time of year and the weather conditions play a part in which one demands my attention. Last autumn I spent more time at Box Hill and had some success (with thrushes) whereas Colley Hill fared better for finches. Ranmore didn't perform well at all. I plotted the main flight lines at the time and repeat them below. October 2019 - Box Hill migrant flight lines (mainly thrushes) October 2019 - Colley Hill migrant flight lines  The questions that are really taxing me at the moment are these. Colley Hill is further east than Box Hill. Have all (or at least most) of the birds that pass Box Hill westwards along the scarp passed Colley Hill on the way? ...

Two identical images of a Corn Bunting appear below. Both have been loaded onto this post, with Blogger's automatic default settings imposed. The bottom picture has gone through a simple manual tweak which I hope you can see has improved the image greatly. This is how you can improve the quality of your images on Blogger. As you are composing your post, and have uploaded your image(s), click on the HTML tab (arrowed below). Now you will see the underlying HTML code (below). All of your written words still appear as you have typed them, but the pictures that you have uploaded appear as code. The code contains numbers that are instructions as to how large, and at what resolution, the picture will appear and where it sits on the page. I have highlighted each of the Corn Bunting pictures with a red box. Everything is identical bar one thing - which I have circled in purple - the 's' figure. Blogger will set this at a bog standard 640 or 400. All you need do is al...

My first Large Skipper of the year came courtesy of this male at Headley Heath two days ago. I was quite pleased with these images, capturing him basking in the sun. Today I added Meadow Brown to the year's butterfly list, a single at Canons Farm, my earliest ever by four days.