Date: 9th July 2025
Time: from 9 a.m.
Weather: dry, sunny, light wind, 19°C to 22°C
Again prompted by the success of recent visits and the very warm early morning weather, I had another visit to the site with butterflies and dragonflies and damselflies in the grassland area and the pond in the northern section of the site being my main targets.
It proved to be another very successful visit and I recorded 2 new species for the site for 2025:
– Southern Migrant Hawker (1)
– Ruddy Darter (2)
During my visit, I recorded 8 butterfly species. The number of butterfly species that I have recorded in 2025 (21) is already well in excess of that recorded in 2024 (17).
During my previous 2 visits, I saw a female darter species (either Common Darter or Ruddy Darter) but was unable to successfully record an identification. This visit enabled a positive identification of Ruddy Darter and this, together with Southern Migrant Hawker, took my number of dragonfly and damselfly species recorded in 2025 to 9 species (11 species in 2024).
Bird records were generally few, as expected during the summer months, but I did have my first Common Buzzard sighting since 23rd February 2025, a single bird heard calling on several occasions before seen flying out of the tall trees at the edge of the site and soaring overhead for several minutes
The other highlights during my visit were as follows:
Chiffchaff: 2 unseen singing males plus a presumed juvenile
Blackcap: 2 unseen singing males
Green Woodpecker: continuously calling birds (possibly juveniles begging for food from an adult) with a single bird eventually seen
Butterflies:
– Marbled White (at least 15)
– Common Blue (6)
– Small Skipper (at least 3)
– Essex Skipper (at least 2)
– Unidentified “golden skipper” species (at least 50)
– Gatekeeper (at least 50)
– Meadow Brown (at least 20)
– Speckled Wood (2)
– Large White (at least 3)
– Unidentified “white” species (at least 50)
Dragonflies and damselflies (in addition to Ruddy Darter):
– Emperor Dragonfly (1)
– Azure Damselfly (c.10)
– Unidentified female darter species (1)
Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):
Blackcap
Southern Migrant Hawker
Here are some photos
from my visit:
Photo: Southern Migrant Hawker
Photo: Azure Damselfly
Photo: Common Blue
Photo: Common Blue
Photo: Marbled White
Photo: Marbled White
Photo: Marbled White
Photo: Marbled White
Photo: Marbled White
Photo: Marbled White
Photo: Marbled White
Photo: Small Skipper
Photo: Small Skipper
Photo: Large White
Photo: Large White
Photo: Large White
Photo: Large White
Photo: Gatekeeper
Photo: Meadow Brown
Photo: Six-spot Burnet
Photo: Common Buzzard
Site totals for 2025 to date (2024 totals in brackets):
Birds = 43 (49)
Total species list for the site
Birds = 69
Love nature .... act now
