SS15 wildlife watching: Visit to St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas

Date: 19th July 2024

Time: from 8 a.m.

Weather: dry, sunny, light wind, 18°C to 24°C

Despite a relatively early start, it was very warm and turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far. The main purpose of my visit was to again record and photograph butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies.

Although initially slow going, I eventually had a very successful visit with a new site record, namely Brown Hawker, and a further 2 new site records for 2024, namely Small Skipper and Gatekeeper.

This morning, I only visited the northern section of the site including the grassland and pond. However, on reaching this area, I was extremely disappointed to see that all the wild grasses, flowers and other plants had been completely cut back to ground level. Result …. a complete desert with none of the butterflies, bees or other insects that are usually present. Whoever made the decision to undertake this “maintenance” should be ashamed of themselves!

Fortunately, the perimeter hedges and the pond still held some butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies and I recorded the following during my visit:

Dragonflies and damselflies: Brown Hawker (1), Emperor Dragonfly (2), Ruddy Darter (2), Azure Damselfly (at least 10), unidentified “blue” damselflies (at least 30 but probably most or all were Azure Damselflies given that I had no photos of Common Blue Damselfly), Blue-tailed Damselfly (at least 2), Emerald Damselfly (4)

Butterflies: Marbled White (1), Small Skipper (1), unidentified “golden” skipper species (at least 5), Comma (1), Red Admiral (1), Large White (at least 5), Small White (1), Gatekeeper (at least 20), Meadow Brown (at least 20)

The pond very quickly produced 2 Emperor Dragonflies which were eventually joined by my first ever sighting of a Brown Hawker for the site. Unfortunately, like the Emperor Dragonflies, the Brown Hawker was extremely active and did not settle at all to enable any photos.

Generally, but as expected during the summer months, birds were more difficult to see and hear.

Up until my last visit on 29th June 2024, singing male Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps were still very evident across the site. However, on this visit, I only heard a distantly calling Chiffchaff.

I saw 3 Green Woodpeckers during my visit, a presumed pair together in the wooded clearing area at the end of the Larkins Tyres access track and another in the northern section of the site. I also heard a single calling Great Spotted Woodpecker in the northern section of the site.

Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):

Chiffchaff

Blue Tit

Long-tailed Tit

Robin

Dunnock

Blackbird

Song Thrush

Pied Wagtail

Green Woodpecker

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Jay