To the Pheasantry and back.

Eristalis arbustorum and Eristalis pertinax, bug, Carder bee, white/buff tailed bee, honey bee, Volucella pellucens,  Episyrphus balteatus, Small White, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria, Holly Blue, Common Carpet, seven spot ladybird, spider.


Spearmint, meadow vetchling, vetches, water mint, water parsnip, common centaury, ragwort, yellow loosestrife, woody nightshade, yarrow, common knapweed, black horehound,                  

Back to Dene Park

I found a nice moth on the grassy meadow which I think must be a species of Epirrhoe, perhaps the Common Carpet, Epirrhoe alternata.

Interesting to see the greyish tuft of hairs on the side of the thorax of this female Episyrphus balteatus. She seems to have a swollen abdomen (full of eggs?) and to be taking pollen directly from the anther. Note also the small facial bump, the whitish frons with the small dark Y above the antennae and the longitudinal stripes on the top of the thorax.

I photographed two Eristalis and both of those turned out to be male Eristalis pertinax.

Damp meadow

A short walk down to the damp meadow by the River Bourne demonstrated once again the great diversity of flowers there, with plenty of Hawkweed, Bristly Oxtongue, Fleabane, Ragwort,  Mayweed, Birds-Foot Trefoil, Meadowsweet, Mint, Knotgrass and a small yellow trefoil of some sort, all in full flower. Last year there were plenty of Common Blue butterflies, but I didn't see any today. There was however a minute skipper, possibly an Essex Skipper, although I could not get around to looking at the underside of its antennae tips.

The other Lepidopteran seen - apart from the usual grass plumes - was a Shaded Broad Bar, Scotopteryx chenopodiata (confirmed almost instantly on ispot).

There was also this odd fly, plunging its proboscis deep into the flower throats of this mint head

Not much variety in the hoverflies, but particularly good for Sphaerophoria scripta, 

together with some Episyrphus balteatus

and a couple of Eristalis tenax.

and there was one of the very common (this year at least) Myathropa florea.

On the way down by the side of the footpath beside the large OSR field, I found a nice Syritta pipiens, so recognisable by its size, shape and jizz. you can see the rear tibiae colour pattern slightly more clearly in the second photo.

Hunting for a needle in the haystack

The crops are struggling towards harvest at the moment, with the wheat to the North of East Lock drying off nicely:

The field on the South side of the River had already been harvested, and the straw "rolled", under a violent sky:

On the path on the way down all the hogweed was swarming with Rhagonycha fulva,

but also attracted this Volucella pellucens:

Failed to find ANY sign AT ALL of the Shepherds Needle in the crop margin

White Hill

Wonderful Chalkhill Blue butterflies, and great flowers

Pembury Heath walk

Nice walk up from the water treatment works with plenty of flowers in the damp valley leading up to the conifers and heathland. Greater Birds Foot Trefoil, Lesser Medick, Tufted Vetch, Creeping Thistle, Spear Thistle and Marsh Thistle, Cut-leaved Geranium, Willowherb, Creeping Buttercup, Perforate St Johns Wort, Selfheal, Hogweed, a little Wild Angelica, Yarrow, Nettle, Bramble, Teasel, Agrimony, Pale Persicaria, Sedges and Rushes, Daisy, Cats Ear, Hawkweed, Ragwort, White Clover, Tormentil,

On the heathland I found the trailing St Johns Wort, Hypericum humifusum, as well as heather and the cross-leaved heath. By the cottage the clump of silverwed was still there. In amongst the pines there was little, but in other areas there was sweet chestnut coppice, some rhododendron, and birch absolutely everwhere. 

Southern Hawker and my first glimpse?

Might have seen one Purple Emperor flying high over the Knights Park Corner Oak for about half a second, but couldn't really tell!

Turning to the commoner woodland butterflies, here is a Comma, being very leaf-like indeed.

Here is a Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria, also trying to look like a leaf:

and a rather brighter butterfly, a Gatekeeper,

and a very worn Meadow Brown, probably a male from the uniformity of the hind wing.

This is a male Southern Hawker, posing nicely for its photo, and confirmed on ispot. However it did look to me as though the light coloured patterning on the abdominal sections is all sky blue - which is supposed to be the rarer form.

This is a male Eristalis pertinax with its yellow front and mid tarsi, and a yellow basal section to the rear tibiae. It has also got a very clearly tapered abdomen, and a little bit of shading on the wing, all of which fits.

This one, another male, cannot be pertinax as it has dark front tarsi. However it should not really be arbustorum either, as it has a fairly clear face stripe, and no clearly swollen hind tarsi, although rubbed arbustorum can show dark on the face as well, and the swelling of the hind tarsi can be ambiguous. These two features are well seen in the next picture.

Difficult to get a good ID though, because the pictures aren't good enough. Does look like a small quadrate stigma perhaps, so one possibility is Eristalis interruptus, but this could never be a reliable ID at all.

Myathropa florea was also present in fairly good numbers, certainly better than I remember last year.