Tuesday, 7 Apr 2026
A beautiful, cloudless sunny day with only a light breeze. Heading for over 20°C and the hottest day of the year so far, and the first day that I have ventured out in short sleeves without a jacket or sweater. These conditions have brought out the butterflies again after 12 days absence, not that there […]
Saturday, 4 Apr 2026
The first day for quite a while that I have not been able to find anything new to report. So, I will have to be satisfied with posting images of species already recorded on the Downs, hopefully better than the first time. I got the day off to a start with a male Tawny Mining […]
Wednesday, 1 Apr 2026
Warmer weather this morning, and only a light breeze, but annoyingly overcast, which would yet again restrict the insects on the wing. Several first sightings of the season today, including Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum) on Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens), Curled Rose Sawfly (Allantus cinctus) on Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) and Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) […]
Tuesday, 24 Mar 2026
A very windy and overcast day, so not much in the way of insects on the wing. No butterflies, 2 bumblebees and 1 hoverfly, although there were plenty of small flies around on the woodland paths. Most prominent of the insects now is the Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata), which I found on Cow Parsley (Anthriscus […]
Saturday, 21 Mar 2026
Another day of glorious sunshine, but the temperature yet another 1° cooler. While butterflies were all but absent again it was a good day for flies and bees. I had to look no further than the now fully developed catkins of the Goat Willow (Salix caprea). This was where I found the only butterfly of […]
Friday, 20 Mar 2026
Today marks the Vernal (Spring) Equinox, the official start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Having spent 40 years south of the Equator I still have to remind myself of that. A cooler morning with hazy sunshine and a touch of light frost in sheltered areas of the Downs. After two days of butterflies flitting […]
Wednesday, 18 Mar 2026
A cloudless, warm morning, with weather forecasters predicting the hottest day of the year so far. The insect population of the Downs has responded. The first Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) butterfly appeared during the warm spell in the last week of February and for a few days the weather coaxed a few more out of hibernation, […]
Wednesday, 11 Mar 2026
A nice, sunny but windy morning. Again, not too many insects on the wing, apart from queen Buff-tailed Bumblebees either collecting pollen from goat willow catkins or flying grass-top level over the open areas, occasionally hovering over a particular spot. The former have no doubt already found a suitable nest site to establish a new […]
Monday, 9 Mar 2026
Many trees and shrubs are now starting to show leaf buds opening. Most advanced seem to be honeysuckle vines, wild privet shrubs, cherry plum and common hawthorn. The larger trees generally have only a small proportion of their leaf buds ready to leaf. Noticeable, though, is that while established sycamore trees are still only at […]
Tuesday, 3 Mar 2026
Today the Goat Willow (Salix caprea) catkins were attracting the attention of three different bees, Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera), a few Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) queens and a single Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) queen. Another Buff-tailed Bumblebee was seen searching in a grassy area for a nest site to establish a new colony, potentially […]
Monday, 2 Mar 2026
Well spring starts officially at the Spring Equinox, which this year is on 20th March. ‘Meteorological Spring’ started yesterday. This is to make the use of data collected and grouped by calendar months easier to use for year-to-year comparisons. Whichever start date you prefer for spring the weather today and for the next few days […]
Thursday, 26 Feb 2026
A windy day so I kept mainly within the woodland and continued with my recent tactic of searching under loose bark on rotting trunks and branches. Very obvious on the outer surface of the bark on one rotting Silver Birch bough was the fungus Birch Woodwart (Jackrogersella multiformis). Under bark that had spalled off a […]
Wednesday, 25 Feb 2026
The warmer weather continues and has coaxed more insects into awakening from their winter slumber. After the first sighting of the year yesterday of a single Brimstone butterfly my tally today was 14. Also found were several active Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata), all on brambles. Turning over some of the bramble leaves I spotted what […]
Saturday, 21 Feb 2026
Found on an ash stump this morning were the early-stage fruiting bodies of a slime mould, possibly Badhamia utricularis. They will eventually mature and turn grey. This slime mould is fungivorous, growing and feeding on various types of fungus. Having recorded my first ever fungus gnat larva just yesterday, I found another in close proximity […]
Tuesday, 17 Feb 2026
The south-eastern corner of the Downs was where I headed this morning, where I found a flock of at least 20 Redwing (Turdus iliacus) foraging in the canopy of the woodland trees. In the woodland itself the English Yew (Taxus baccata) are beginning to bloom, the male trees producing short spikes of small yellowish cones. […]
Tuesday, 16 Dec 2025
A struggle to find anything new today. After locating some Common Striped Woodlouse (Philoscia muscorum) on a rotting branch, a fallen birch trunk did turn up a new fungus, which I believe is Wrinkled Crust (Phlebia radiata). Crawling over this fungus was an insect tentatively identified as a spider beetle (Family: Ptinidae), possibly a Gibbium sp. […]
Friday, 5 Dec 2025
It was a shorter walk than usual today as I wanted to get back to a spot where I had taken a photo 2 days ago to get better images of the subject of the photo, but more of that later. Along the way I discovered a Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) that looked as if […]
Friday, 21 Nov 2025
Over a week since my last visit and what a change! The unseasonal warm weather is a thing of the past. We’ve had rain, strong winds, snow flurries and frost. The wind is now from the north-east and it is definitely more wintry than autumnal. There are still fungi to be found and […]
Saturday, 11 Oct 2025
Still managing to see some new insects. Today it is the Birch Shieldbug (Elasmostethus interstinctus) and it is my first ever sighting of this species. Other insect photos were of yet another variation to the spot pattern on a Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis), a late Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum) on a still flowering Musk […]
Thursday, 9 Oct 2025
Common Banded Hoverfly (Syrphus ribesii) and Batman Hoverfly (Myathropa florea) are still the most numerous hoverflies, but I managed to pick out a Plain-faced Drone Fly (Eristalis arbustorum). Both Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) and Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) are about in good numbers, particularly on sycamore and dogwood leaves. I also found a Cucumber Green […]