Dragonflies, Rodent Debut, Woodland Walks and Other Autumnal Things

Back in August which now seem so so long ago, I joined the Kent dragonfly and damselfly recorders to see what was flying around in Blean woods. I had been trying to arrange to go along with the Blean Assistant Warden for a while to do some surveying but our free times never coincided. Luckily they did on the 29th August. There were a few other volunteers from different groups too, so it was nice to meet some new people and chat to them about the kind of tasks they do. The dragonfly experts were ever so knowledgeable, as you may expect. I think I learnt a fair bit whilst out surveying, but there was an awful lot to take in. After a morning of dragonflies, the Blean Assistant Warden and I walked a butterfly transect, with the hope that I would carry this on, due to her job finishing the next day! It was very interesting to learn how to scientifically record the number of each species of butterfly we saw. Unfortunately I haven't managed to get out and walk the transect due to being busy and also weather conditions. There is meant to be roughly 60% sunshine and no rain! Below are a few photos from the day.

Southern hawker

Furrow orbweaver spider - Larinoides cornutus (I think)

Emerald damselfly

Emerald damselfly

Common darter male and female in the copulation wheel

Exuviae - guessing a common darter came from this one due to it's size and the sheer number of them around!

Emerald damselfly - a particularly green specimen. Shame the photo isn't 100% in focus

Common darter on my car's aerial

The day after the dragonfly and butterfly day I was out water vole surveying once again. We were lucky with the weather but, for the first part of the day, not so lucky with water vole signs. It seems they aren't so keen on the dense reedbeds. Anyway we moved on to search the extension fields and the first ditch we surveyed, Chloe spotted a little vole critter swim to the other side of the reeds. We stood and watched for a while, saw it swim really quickly to another tunnel created by folded over reeds. I scanned the area using my camera and I came across two little beady eyes staring at me! The image below is my first photo of a water vole :) It isn't the best but I'm not too bothered. The cute little thing swam off once I had taken my photo.

My first ever water vole photo!! What a little cutie!!

Water vole latrine

Grasshopper of some species... common green? Meadow?

A rather pale Clouded yellow.... could it be an actual Pale Clouded yellow? Or just a faded normal one?

On the first day of Autumn (supposedly) we packed some snacks and a flask, took our OS map and went for a walk in the woods. We had to drive a bit first. To Chilham. Backpack, walking boots and dog at the ready off we trundled. Took me back to map reading whilst doing D of E! We had a great walk, lots of migrant hawkers around the coppiced woodland and a quite a bit of fungi around. A cross-over between summer and autumn!

Possibly coral-spot fungus - Nectria cinnabarina

Volunteering at South Swale Reserve on 2nd September we were repairing some fencing the cattle had pushed over and made unstable. Keeping us company was this nice grey plover, some distant seals, a few clouded yellows, some young meadow pipits and 5 or so wheatears!

Seen better and much more clearly through the Warden's scope

The house martins are still around which is lovely. The swifts left us a good few weeks ago now, so it is great to still have these amazing little birds chattering in their hundreds above the garden. Their white undersides catch the evening sun so beautifully. The youngsters from the nests on our house seem to have taken up residence in the HM box we put up! Maybe it was a bit of a squish in the mud nest and they wanted to get away from their siblings!

Numerous HMs in the evening - 2nd Sept

Just a fraction of the numbers that were in the sky!

HM chicks - 3rd Sept

Autumn is most definitely here. Dewy spiders webs are a sure sign!

Artichoke

Water vole trapping on Friday 6th September meant an early start. Well, early for me anyway. I was picked up at 6.45 and we arrived at our destination at half 7. We met R and P there and set to work. R is undertaking a PhD studying genetic differences between water voles in Sussex and Kent. Very interesting and very specialised. In order to track whether water voles stay in the same territories, individuals are captured in a trap, much like a big humane mouse trap. It is then determined if they have been captured before and if not, they are weighed, sexed and chipped. I was honoured to be able to help them out with this, and maybe a bit too happy to have been bitten by a cute little wv! Through gloves though, so maybe I wouldn't have been quite so pleased it it had drawn blood! R was particularly excited that a female had been recaptured from last year, and in the same trap! She hadn't moved at all. Obviously a nice safe section of reedbed with lots to munch on! Anyway, below are a few images from the very successful morning! 

Early morning sun on the reserve

Cutie in a pringles tube!

Released from the tube after being chipped

4 spot orb weaver - Araneus quadratus

After a very long post, I shall thank you for reading :) Hope you are all enjoying the turn of the seasons as much as I am!

Some more August photos and Bracken turns 1!

A visit to Sevenoaks Nature reserve 

On Sunday 25th August - we met my Auntie here and spent a few hours exploring the reserve before we had to head back so I could get to work on time.

We ate our picnic, accompanied by many wasps and therefore the few people that were around, were treated to my wasp dance! They have a lovely wild flower garden with a small pond and some nice wooden seats. This reserve is also home to the worlds largest insect hotel - in the Guinness book of records! There were certainly plenty of bees, butterflies, dragonflies and spiddy spiders!

Bumble on marjoram

Gatekeeper on heather

An odd alien looking fly thing - possibly Tachina fera

Common darter in the first of a few poses...if you flick through them quickly it kind of makes the wings look like a child's arms when pretending to be an aeroplane!

Going...

Going...

Almost gone!

We walked down to this lake and almost as soon as we arrived at this tranquil scene, a flash of iridescent blue was spotted by mum. I caught a brief glimpse too!

A lone pond skater, its delicate legs making a slight impression on the waters surface

It was a great reserve and definitely one which we would like to return to!

A bank holiday walk

We used to go on a lovely walk when we lived in Teynham, past the village church, through orchards and down to a small river - the River Lyn (which I once did a primary school project on - very interesting history if I remember rightly). We hadn't been down there in a good few years so decided we would take a picnic and go and spend an afternoon reminiscing!

Huge tree at the Church

When we got to the little jetty and the rope swing by the river, we were rather irritated to find a couple of hooligan type lads hanging out down here. We were hoping for a peaceful, relaxing lunch stop, remembering how I used to jump on the rope swing and drag my wellie boot clad feet in the freezing cold river, my mum hoping I wasn't going to fall in. Instead we had to listen to the idiot guys messing around, being, well idiots. Bracken was also not impressed. He gave a somewhat protective bark. He hadn't done this before, so maybe he sensed our annoyance at them.

We moved on and walked through the orchards of apples, pears, cherries, damsons and plums, of which, some were past it, some were unripe and some were just right. We picked up some of the windfalls and carried on our way.

Common darter. Amazing variation in their colours, from quite a rusty red (as in the earlier picture) to this yellowy green

Damson laden trees

Some unexpected garden visitors!

We have never had a speckled wood butterfly in our garden before... I was very surprised to see this little beauty fluttering around in the shade!

You can imagine how excited I was at our next unusual visitor. I saw it briefly with closed wings and went to get my camera. Initially I thought it was a female common blue which in itself would have been wonderful but it had fluttered away before I got my camera. I stood and waited for 15 minutes or so and it returned to the hydrangea! Opened its small wings and instantly I realised it was a brown argus!!! Then a few days later I questioned whether it was indeed a female common blue, because they are very similar. The identification is really only separated by a few spots on the underneath of the wing. I can confirm that this is indeed an argus :)
The bottom of this web page - Uk butterflies is very helpful!

I found this lovely little moth critter on our highly contrasting recycling bin. I'm astonished it's little fury head wasn't squished by a bin collector's unknowing hands! 

Female orange swift? Or is it a female gold swift? Or neither?

Today, well it was today when I started writing this, but as per it has taken me longer and the event which I am writing about was in fact yesterday. Anyway, Bracken turned the grand old age of 1 yesterday. When we got him as a wee little 2 month old nipper (and boy did he nip) this is what he looked like...

Podgey little pup on his puppy toilet training pad the night we got him. Cute ey!

And now look at him! He is nearly as big as me! Well sort of!

Expect more August photos and maybe some of September's snaps in the next post!

50th post - Day trip to France and other bits and bobs

September is upon us, but I will probably still be blogging about August for another few months! Maybe it will encourage the weather to stay as lovely as it has been for a bit longer!

Garden pebble on our wall the evening of the 11th

On Tuesday 13th August, we (my mum, auntie, cousin and I) had planned a day trip to France. We used to go a fair bit when we were younger, with my other cousin too, and thought it would be nice to have a little explore! Our ferry was at 9.25 so we were on French shores just before midday their time. My auntie drove us down to Montreuil which is a walled town with cobbled streets and magnificent ramparts. We had lunch which consisted of wine and an omelette in a little cafe before exploring this quaint little place.

We came across this brilliant buddleia! 
 

How many butterflies can you count?

....and in this one

These were the beautiful views seen from the ramparts.

This area was alive with colourful wild flowers which attracted an abundance of butterflies and bees!

Is this wild carrot?

The first brown argus I'd ever seen!

Brown argus with the sun shining on it

While I was admiring this little gem, mum declared she had seen a swallowtail! I rushed over and it was settled on a dead plant on the edge of the wall. I crouched down ever so slowly and with only my 18-55mm lens on my camera tried to edge closer for a photo. I was just  ready to click when it disappeared. I wasn't prepared to jump the 20 foot drop in order to chase this magnificent butterfly. I was happy just to have seen one!

From montreuil we carried on driving towards Le Crotoy which is on the estuary of the river Somme. We parked, had a stroll, bought an ice cream and wandered a while longer.

An expanse of water the other side of the wall revealed many gulls, a few grebes and this shag opening its wings, sunning itself.

In close proximity to Le Crotoy we had seen signs to Le Parc du Marquenterre and found it fairly easily. We weren't too sure what it would be like, and when we got there we found it was more like a french version of the wildfowl and wetlands trust reserves we have in our country - i.e. you pay to get in and can't enter after a certain time. That will be a day trip in the future then. After this little detour we had to head back to Calais to catch our ferry home, but we got stuck in a lot of traffic and missed our allotted ferry. We also nearly ran out of petrol so more delay, but luckily when we arrived at the port the woman at the kiosk type thing happily let us board the next one. Not such a disaster after all! An enjoyable day indeed!

Back to British soil...
I have been volunteering quite a bit more the last few weeks. I heard a "plop" whilst out water vole monitoring and got excited thinking it was a fury critter. However I noticed this lovely common frog and realised it was the culprit of the plop!

Common frog

The first small copper I had seen this year.

Barge sails in the background

On Sunday 18th, mum and I drove to Tyland Barn which is where the head office is for Kent Wildlife Trust. It is more of an educational reserve, with a miniature meadow, wood piles, insect hotels and a pond. We saw good numbers of butterflies, hoverflies and some little micro-moths too.  

Female common blue

My first views of a chalkhill blue

Pyrausta purpuralis blends in beautifully with the wild marjoram

Incoming!!!

2 male common blues sharing this pretty marjoram

Chalkhill blue practically doing the splits between flowers

I had work in the evening but we had time to stop off at Oare Marshes briefly to see if we could find any clouded yellows. Mum hadn't seen one before so I was quite eager to spot one or two. No luck, then in the distance I spotted one, almost like a large buttercup had been swept off it's stalk and just carried on floating in the gentle breeze.

Once home I popped out to see how the caterpillars were getting on with our kale. They had certainly munched through a fair amount of it. I couldn't see any chrysalises from the earlier batch of eggs. Do they trundle off to find a branch nearby, a little more concealed?! Or did they all just get eaten by some bird or other predator?

Large white caterpillar

Younger batch of L white caterpillars

More garden butterflies and moths....

Well camouflaged meadow brown (20/08)

Meadow brown (20/08)

Silver Y moth (20/08)

Garden carpet I think (21/08)

Green-veined white (22/08)

We had a much needed downpour of rain on Saturday 24th. I do love watching an almighty rainfall sitting inside, cosy and warm. Made me look forward to autumn and winter! A very silly thing to suggest I'm sure, but that is one of the aspects that I love about our country - the seasons! Each has something unique and wonderful to bring. Summer brings butterflies and bees and we celebrate it with Pimms and beer. Then autumn welcomes dew and birds heading back here for winter, crossing the paths of those returning to sunnier climes to avoid our cold spells ahead. Winter... the ducks and geese and other watery birds arrive upon our shores. Hoare frosts and snowy trees make for the perfect winter wonderland photos. Then spring again and all the birds are singing their songs and showing off, ready to start the breeding season once more. Some people say they wish it was summer all the time. That would just be plain boring though! You would never appreciate it! Maybe talk of autumn is a little premature, maybe we will see a bit more sunshine and encounter an Indian summer.