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.

Pretty clouds of yellow and other lovely natural things

Recently a fair proportion of my time has been spent down at Oare Marshes for one Kent Wildlife Trust volunteer task or another. On Monday 5th August I joined in with some water vole monitoring as part of the Water for Wildlife project. We met at 8am and The project officer, Chloe, informed me of all the signs we were looking for to ascertain whether there were indeed water voles present. We used a map of all the dykes and ditches on the West flood and worked our way along. During the morning I stayed with one of the others until I felt confident I knew what I was looking for. It was a productive day, recording over 250 signs that the WVs were present! The things we were monitoring included feeding signs, droppings, latrines and burrows. Obviously, we were keeping an eye out for the elusive little critters, but the closest we got was a few large plops into the water and a 90% sure view of one. 

In addition to actually looking for signs of wildlife, we were completely surrounded by nature. Walking through the long grass towards the reed beds, we came across the brightly coloured wasp spider shown below. It was feasting on a moth of a similar size to itself and it looked so exotic. The stabilimentum is the prominent zigzag pattern in the web and although its function isn't completely clear, but there are a few ideas which if you are interested can be found on this website... Spiders: Argiope Bruennichi

We also had the privilege of watching dragonflies (some variety of hawker) emerge from their exuviae and hundreds of blue tailed damsleflies floating through the air, occasionally coming across a blade of grass and settling momentarily. Fabulous!

Wasp spider (Argiope bruennichi)

 

In the same afternoon I spent a little time watching the multitude of butterflies which were feeding on our buddleia. Small tortoiseshells, red admirals, peacocks and large whites all dancing around the beautiful purple source of nectar.

 

Large White

Peacock and a white-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) sharing a buddleia flower

The lilies in our garden opened up on the morning of the 7th and looked glorious over the next week or so.

Perfect Lily

I once again spent the day volunteering with KWT at Oare on Thursday 8th. Our task for the day - more ragwort clearing. Before we had donned our gloves and got to work, one of the other volunteers noticed a yellow butterfly flit past. At first it was thought to be a brimstone but quickly this identification was corrected and it was indeed a CLOUDED YELLOW! I had never seen one before and was delighted to see this wonderful butterfly! I followed it around for a bit, but it was fairly reluctant to sit still for a photo shoot. Eventually it settled on a beautifully contrasting thistle flower and allowed a couple of snaps before it set off again. We were very happy to see there were actually quite a few of them around. Other wonderful things seen included a garden spider, a common or viviparous lizard, a garden pebble moth, several silver Y moths, yellow wags, common gulls, herons, little egrets, avocets and huge numbers of godwits on the East flood. All in all, another wonderful day in the great outdoors, pulling ragwort and observing insects, birds and reptiles on this diverse reserve.
  

Star of the show... Clouded Yellow

I realise this is quite out of focus, but I like it anyway! I love its face!

Araneus diadematus

Common lizard (Zootoca vivipara)

Garden Pebble moth I think... CT??

After pushing the muscles in my back to their limit, I spent the evening with a few of my friends, chilling at the beach and cooking yummy food on a home made barbecue (by Laura and Noah), composed of an old satellite dish and some hand chopped wood. Top marks for inventiveness!

The sun setting over the beach huts at Tankerton

Still so behind, thank you for reading and hopefully I will catch up soon! :)

Next post.... A day trip to France!