The Bourne circuit

Very pleased to see a Painted Lady on the first bramble patch from the Victoria Road entrance. Its the first record for me in the parish that I know of. I think I probably also saw the same individual on the track below the reservoir at the end of the walk - quite a big coincidence otherwise! Such a wonderful subtle-yet-gorgeous underside pattern.

Chiff-chaff on the ash on the other side of the road. Chiff-chaffing and then a series of little brrtt sounds, repeating all several times. Heard a similar track on Xeno-canto.

Best bramble patch is the one by  the Victoria Road bridge.

Swallows and Martins over the willow bridge bend.

Wandering down to East Lock

As I got down to the Environment Agency's "Wildflower sowing patch" by East Lock the area looked to be better for damselflies than the whole of the rest of the walk so far.

The first one identified was the blue homochrome form of the Azure Damselfly, Coenagrion puella, with this one having a moderate amount of blue on its abdomen. This could be compared with a darker variant that I have also seen. The thorax is still green. Less than 10% of the females are reputed to be the blue "homochrome" form, while over 90% are supposed to be the typical female "heterochrome" form (no reference).

I was pleased to see the White-legged Damselflies, Platycnemis pennipes, here as I don't recall them from previous years. Here is an immature female, known as the "lactea" phase. Note the buffy pterostigmas. The second photo might be of a different animal, I'm not sure.

and here is the male,

Damselflies at Grove Ferry, Stodmarsh

My first sightings of the Variable Damselfly were an absolute delight!

This is a female dark form, showing the typical light almost white markings on the thorax, the white bands on the legs, the light bar between the eyes and the thistle mark on S2, but coupled with the almost entirely black markings along S3 to S9.

Park Palace Wood

This is newly planted small woodland area planted over a field and hedge boundary pattertn associated with the old Otford (Archbishop's) Palace.

Male Beautiful Demoiselle.

Lots of Small Heath and Common Blue butterflies on the old fields further to the east, the soil of which looked drier and more impoverished - lots of Grass Vetchling for example.

Scoping the trees at the back of the garden!

The large Common Ash on the other side of the footpath. Rather an interesting close-up view through the telescope, showing relatively little shoot extension I think (nothing to match it against though), terminal buds beginning to form a mid-brown in colour. Could a possible early slowdown be due to the continuing prevailing dry conditions? Last year's twigs don't seem to have grown much either, again most are very short really, with many small tight black auxillary buds along their sides.

The Woodpigeons do quite a lot of damage to the young leaves and one was still having a bit of a go this evening. The leaves are otherwise quite new and fresh.

Saw a weevil high on a terminal bud, fascinating to pick it out so far away.

Half a dozen leaflets scattered throughout the canopy were showing signs of the marginal leaf gall "bubbly" rolling with (normally) claret veining probably caused by the common jumping psyllid bug, Psyllopsis fraxini. There is another, apparently much rarer in the UK, psyllid, Psyllopsis discrepens, that causes exactly the same galling, and the two causative agents can only be distinguished by examining the larvae closely, but the balance of probability is obviously heavily in favour of Psyllopsis fraxini. Perhaps we should actually refer to Psyllopsis fraxini agg., an aggregate of three very similar species feeding on Fraxinus in Europe: Psyllopsis fraxini, P. discrepans and P. distinguenda. A good reference is http://www.dorsetnature.co.uk/pages-gall/g-39.html.

From Wikipedia, eggs are laid in the autumn on dormant buds and the nymphs hatch in the spring and feed on the leaves. The host plant reacts by producing extra cells and the affected areas becomes swollen and rolls downwards and encloses the wax covered nymphs. Each gall may contain two or three generations and by the end of summer contain all stages of the insect.

The hedgerow Hawthorns. A very few old fruits, one or two mummified. Some of the flowers were capped and failed to open, persisting until now. There are huge numbers of fruitlets forming.

Sycamore on the other side of the footpath. Plenty of aphids. Are there male flowers on the end of the inflorescence tassels?

Quick trot around the Bourne walk

Plenty of Blackcap, Whitethroat and Song Thrush song. Blue Tits collecting insects.

Variable amounts of Chalara, some tricky trees along the path. A Buzzard being mobbed by two crows. Still no sign of the Grey Wagtails on the weir, I think they must have moved on.

Large amounts of leaf gall mites on the Elm leaves again.

A yellow-flowered crucifer, unidentified once again!

Laurel bashing at Dene

Hard work this morning, clearing and burning laurel, lots of interest in whether the burning of laurel is dangerous to people. And then a nice Comma Butterfly to reward me as I left.

Had a good go at Laurel pulling in the afternoon while walking Toby.