Date: 25th July 2025
Time: from 9 a.m.
Weather: dry, sunny, light wind, 20°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.
On entering the northern section of the site, it immediately became evident that the whole grassland area had been cut back including the wild flowers that were providing a food source for butterflies. However, it also quickly became apparent that, either by design or laziness, the field edges had not been cut and that abundant Knapweed (in particular) was still fortunately attracting large numbers of feeding butterflies.
It proved to be another very successful visit and I recorded 2 new species for the site for 2025:
– Migrant Hawker (at least 2)
– Common Darter (1 male)
On my last visit on 9th July 2025, I was able to at last positively identify and record Ruddy
Darter and this morning I was able to do the same for Common Darter
with a male seen hawking and perched up at the pond.
On my last visit on 9th July 2025, I was also able to record my first sighting of Southern Migrant Hawker for 2025 and this morning I was able to do the same for Migrant Hawker with 2 seen perched in the hedges between the oak tree and the pond. I also saw several other hawkers in flight and these may have been either Migrant Hawker or Southern Migrant Hawker or both.
My sightings of Migrant Hawker and Common Darter took my number of dragonfly and damselfly species recorded in 2025 to 11 species, exactly the same as that in 2024.
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).
Sightings of birds were generally few, as expected during the summer months, but I did see Common Buzzard for the second successive visit with 2 soaring birds watched for several minutes on 2 separate occasions.
The other highlights during my visit were as follows:
Common Whitethroat: 1 heard alarm calling in bushes surrounding the pond
Chiffchaff: 1 briefly singing male plus 3 calling birds in the northern section of the site
Blackcap: male seen in the scrub adjacent to the access track from Larkins Tyres and another heard singing briefly in the northern section of the site
Stock Dove: 1 heard calling in the northern section of the site
Green Woodpecker: 1 heard calling from the access track from Larkins Tyres and another heard calling in the northern section of the site
Great Spotted Woodpecker: 1 seen flying over the access track from Larkins Tyres and 1 heard calling in the northern section of the site
Butterflies:
– Common Blue (7 males)
– Small Heath (1)
– Essex Skipper (1)
– Gatekeeper (at least 100)
– Meadow Brown (at least 20)
– Speckled Wood (2)
– Large White (at least 30)
– Small White (at least 1)
Dragonflies and damselflies (in addition to Migrant Hawker and Common Darter):
– Emperor Dragonfly (1)
– Azure Damselfly (at least 1)
– Unidentified “hawker” species (c.5)
– Unidentified “blue” species (c.5)
Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):
Common Whitethroat
Common Blue
Migrant Hawker
Here are some photos from my visit:
Photo: male Common Darter
Photo: male Common Darter
Photo: Migrant Hawker
Photo: Migrant Hawker
Photo: male Common Blue
Photo: male Common Blue
Photo: male Common Blue
Photo: male Common Blue
Photo: Common Buzzard
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
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you feel like commenting on my blog, you can contact me by completing the comment form below. I will respond to all comments and enquiries and constructive criticism will always be welcomed.