Darters and Dartfords

I am lucky to have Chobham Common National Nature Reserve pretty much on my doorstep and perhaps a bit daft that I don’t visit this rich, heathland wonderland more often. The end of July isn’t what you would call peak birding time but this morning was very pleasant indeed. I left the car to the sound of a calling chiffchaff, wandered down the path to glimpse whitethroats and a little further along the main pathway, came across a family of willow warbler. Continuing the warbler theme, Chobham is a classic Dartford warbler site and I saw perhaps five today, including family party. Further off into the distance, two common buzzard circled over the woodland showing the classic upturned wings and closer to home, a kestrel glided by and even briefly settled in a nearby tree. Again, as you would expect from a heathland site, stonechat were present, in various states of sometimes rather ropey looking plumage and calling in classic ‘stone against stone’ fashion. Difficult to get to close to of course, this one is presented in its environment.

Stonechat

The main butterfly in evidence, as so often just now, was gatekeeper but also ringlet, large white, red admiral, both large and small skipper and grayling, one of which landed on my jeans and camera lens several times; they really are rather beautiful close up!

Grayling

A flash of blue inevitably caught my eye and this silver studded blue, somewhat passed its best to be fair, was the result. Now, I originally labelled this a common blue (as you will see from the comment below). After a bit of chat with my mate Dave, it turns out to be a silver studded. I made an assumption really and got it wrong (although worn butterflies are difficult) but it is worth repeating Dave's comments verbatim (I should say I also have a bad photograph of the underwings which are crucial)

• the black margins on the upperside of the forewing and hindwing is the patten of ssb whether it is faded or not.
• on the underside of the forewing, the 5th black spot is bigger than the rest in line - typical of ssb
• common blue should be fresh now as second broods are out, ssb are finishing.
• the question mark on the hindwing of ssb is more distinct, actually the underside black spots on both wings of ssb always look more busy than common
• even when faded, male common blue has white dashes on the horizontal black dash, ssb doesn’t
• the dash on ssb is more vibrant than on common
• also the last line of dots on the hindwing nearest the edge are more round on ssb, not so on common more like thick wedges

So now you know! Such things are great learning actually.

Silver Studded Blue

Dragons are a difficult group to get your head round. The next photo is of a classic looking common darter.

Common Darter

The following image is also a common darter, in this case an old female, described by a friend as looking like a ripening banana, which it does!

This next fellow is a black darter and a new one for me, sitting next to a shallow pool on the heath, a pool that also produced the male common darter above, a brown hawker (I think) and a broad bodied chaser.

Black Darter

Chobham can be, indeed is a bit of a draw for dog walkers. My route this morning was on the north side and started at the Monument car park, just a little quieter for those, like me, who like to wander these places in solitude, which makes me a bit anti-social; oh well!

A Hazeley Summer Day

Hazeley Heath is a perhaps little known RSPB reserve in deepest Hampshire, not a million miles from the slightly sleepy Hartley Wintney. Hazeley is a nice mix of heathland, looking gorgeous just now with the bell heather in full flower, oak wood, some pines and a few grassy areas. My guides for the day were Dave and Mary, long time friends, both of whom know the site well. Now Dave has a few idiosyncrasies (more than few actually) and one was on display today in that any circular route has to be done clockwise (counter clockwise obviously being the wrong way round).

Today was mostly about butterflies and dragons but let’s start with a bird, spotted flycatcher in this case, an attractive, sort of understated passerine which of course isn’t spotted so much as streaked. To be honest, this illustrates the difficulty of getting high quality photographs of small birds. This isn’t high quality truthfully but having crashed through the undergrowth (the flycatcher could have thought it was back in Africa with an elephant coming through the trees so much noise was I making!) this was as close as I could get. Perseverance required I guess and perhaps what I really need is more patience and a better stalking skills (so to speak). A nice bird just the same.

Spotted Flycatcher

When it comes to the butterflies, I managed to take some photos today of species that I have not previously managed to get on camera. The first was grayling, a common enough creature at the right time and one that is, as they say, cryptically marked and sometimes difficult to see depending on the background.

Grayling

Essex skipper is another butterfly that until today, I had not looked at down a camera lens. To tell these apart from small skipper, you need a close look at the underside of the antenna tips, brown in small skipper, black in Essex skipper as here. These two have other things on their minds I guess but at least it means we will get some more skippers.

Essex Skipper

Peacocks are of course beautiful, beautiful butterflies. I suspect I will take better images in the future than this one but actually, I quite like the slightly different angle here.

Peacock

Other butterflies seen during the morning included silver washed fritillary, dark green fritillary, red admiral, meadow brown, ringlet, large skipper, marbled white, small white, a lovely male brimstone and a number of silver studded blues; I make that thirteen or so species, not bad at all!

So what about dragons? Starting with one we saw but with no photograph, brown hawker. Now I am very much in the learner class when it comes to dragonflies but there seems to be a certain rock solid quality to hawkers; strong flyers and quite large, certainly larger than the darters we saw today. The brown hawker does certainly look brown in flight although it is also shot through with bits of yellow and blue. Talking of darters, I took lots of photos of common darters today. I have picked on this one for no better reason than because of the shiny highlights picked out in the wing.

Common Darter

Ruddy darter were also present and whilst the background isn’t the best, it is quite a colour (sort of not British somehow!)

Ruddy Darter

Few dragonflies are more stunning than golden ringed. This particular example flew into view and landed right in front of us just after Dave stated 'this can be a good area for interesting

dragonflies',

Golden Ringed 

By way of a change of pace , this is the caterpillar of the cinnabar moth; the moth itself is rather beautiful, the caterpillar no less so.

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar

Finishing where I started with the birds, which were on the quiet side today, I have to mention the swallows, one of my favourite twittery noises and lovely to see them whizzing around both at low level and high in the blue, blue sky. All very poetic.

Humbug

Last week, I spent some time at Bookham Common and the results from that can be seen from the last blog. One image I couldn’t include in that blog was this blackcap. This one led me something of a dance, singing well, singing loudly, singing close to me but very difficult to get on camera! I was pleased enough with this picture to include it today, in spite of that thin branch across the bird (I suppose it has to sit on something!).

Blackcap

Having realised a week or so ago, that the great crested grebes on Goldsworth Park had successfully produced three chicks, I thought to wander down today to see if I could obtain a photo or two. The lake isn’t that big but big enough when you want to get close to a few grebes! This shot of one of the chicks was my best result today so clearly I will need to revisit in due course.

Humbug

Whilst I was chasing grebes, other common birds presented the occasional photo op including this rather splendid mute swan (they too have three chicks).

Mute Swan

My favourite photograph of the day is this one. Canada geese are hardly rare but there is just something pleasing about this image.

Canada Geese

Another common bird, a carrion crow in this case, pretty impressive, chunky bill showing well.

Carrion Crow

Tomorrow, I am on butterfly duty, watch this space.

Another Bookham Wander

After a break in Spain (beach, swimming pool, cerveza, no birds to speak of) it was back to more familiar territory and a few hours exploring Bookham Common. At this time of year, Bookham is more about butterflies than birds but the feathered flyers are still very much in evidence of course. I remember in my youth (some time back clearly!) being told and indeed reading that birdsong was largely done by the first of week of June. No-one told the birds I guess with blackcap in particular in good voice, a few chiffs and chaffs split the air plus the odd trill on the end of wren song. As so often, the birdlife came up with a surprise in the shape of a small group of marsh tits, not astonishingly rare perhaps but still quite hard to find.

I spent an interesting twenty minutes talking to the Bookham warden, a man clearly committed to Bookham albeit there is I think, much more that he would like to do than he is able to do.

I came looking for three species of butterfly in particular and whilst I managed to see all three, only two were caught on camera. The Silver Washed Fritillary (love some of these butterfly names) is not uncommon in the right habitat but they are fantastic to see, swooping around sun lit glades, seemingly coming to rest very infrequently. One decided to take up residence inside one of Bookhams open bird hides (the head on shot), spending quite a lot of time exploring a large bird ID chart (it seemed rather fond of the kingfisher picture and why not).

Silver Washed Fritillary

Silver Washed Fritillary

White Admiral were present in small numbers and very illusive. There is nonetheless a certain simple elegance about their markings which I really like.

White Admiral

White Admiral

The last of the three was purple emperor and one look at the Lewington guide will tell you what a fabulous butterfly this is. I caught one brief glimpse high up in the oak canopy (a not untypical view I understand) but did get some help from the warden for a future visit so I will be back.

One surprise for me was purple hairstreak, a delightful, small butterfly with the classic streak underwing marking. The photograph isn’t great but it is the only one I managed and the butterfly is worth it.

Dragons were represented with emporerors, the males with sky blue thorax and bright green abdomens. This however, is I believe an immature male Southern Hawker and if so, a new dragon for me! Any differing opinions would of course be welcome. Any confirming opinions would be even more welcome!

Southern Hawker

Southern Hawker

Just to include at least one bird photograph, here is the much maligned black billed magpie, a creature doing only what its nature demands. Adios.

Black Billed Magpie