Saturday, 31 Jan 2026
A lovely sunny afternoon. The first thing that attracted my attention today was a foraging flock of Redwing (Turdus iliacus) in the tree canopy of the woodland adjacent to Downs Road. This is our smallest member of the thrush family (Turdidae) and a winter visitor. Crossing Sutton Road and entering the clearing there I encountered […]
Tuesday, 20 Jan 2026
Jelly-ear fungus and Hart’s-tongue Fern were my reward for visiting the south-western corner of Banstead Downs this morning. My walk began with a train ride. Bit of a cheat, but I wanted to get down to that south-western corner, a part of the Downs that I don’t visit too often. So, I hopped onto the […]
Thursday, 1 Jan 2026
A Happy New Year to you all! And a frosty one on Banstead Downs, although by the time I got out for a walk the frost was lingering only in a few shady spots, but I managed to get shots of frost encrusting the leaves of a young Red Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum) and covering a […]
Tuesday, 30 Dec 2025
I was surprised by a Roe Deer doe and her fawn as I started my walk this morning, heading towards Sutton Lane up the track parallel to Downs Road. They dashed across the path no more than 20 m ahead of me. Gone in a flash, so no opportunity for a photo. Could this be […]
Saturday, 20 Dec 2025
A heavy dew, a patchy light ground frost and some early short-lived mist made for a very damp start to the day on the Downs. Dewdrops dripped from everything …….. hawthorn, holly and even the fungus on rotting logs. With that amount of dew around I decided to spend some time looking under […]
Friday, 19 Dec 2025
In the past week I have come across many small groups of Birch Catkin Bugs (Kleidocerys resedae) huddled together overwintering on either large leaf buds of sycamore or on holly and ivy. They seem more numerous on the latter two, as these evergreen plants must provide more protection for them. I know of only […]
Saturday, 13 Dec 2025
Lovely sunshine again, but much colder this morning. The temperature firmly in wintry single digit territory. I tried peeling back a piece of bark on a dead birch tree and was rewarded with mixed age group of variably coloured Common Rough Woodlouse (Porcellio scaber) and my first ever sighting on the downs of a Common […]
Thursday, 11 Dec 2025
Lovely sunshine but a windy day. Both a Kestrel and a Buzzard were cruising over the main grassland area, the latter being harried occasionally by a pair of crows. An interesting find was a cluster of pupal cocoons, probably of an ermine moth (family Yponomeutidae), on the underside of a large holly leaf. Unusual, as […]
Saturday, 6 Dec 2025
Leaf litter and dead branches and twigs seem to be the place to find things now. So, I found a fallen tree with a large piece of loose bark and gently prised it off wondering what I might find (I did put the bark back afterwards as carefully as possible). There was an immediate frenzied […]
Tuesday, 2 Dec 2025
After the very wet weather of the past few days, the ground on the Downs is saturated and there are puddles of water on many of the paths, something not seen too often during the summer. I had decided to retire my trainers and break out my sturdy hiking boots, which given the squelchy underfoot […]
Friday, 28 Nov 2025
A different route to yesterday, but some of the images I took were of things I saw yesterday. First was yet more overwintering Birch Catkin Bugs, this time clustered on sycamore leaf buds. More flower buds too on a Holly (Ilex aquifolium) bush. What was unusual was the presence of a pollen-bearing male […]
Thursday, 27 Nov 2025
First seen on 21st October I came across more Himalayan Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster simonsii) this morning. A quick glance at the red ‘berries’ as you walk past and you might simply dismiss them as ‘rosehips’. Stop and look carefully, though, and you will realise that the fruits are smaller than their Rosa counterparts, the leaves although […]
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 […]
Wednesday, 12 Nov 2025
I mentioned unseasonal warm spells in my last post and that is exactly what we had today. Glorious sunshine and a maximum temperature of around 16°C. This brought out huge numbers of Common Wasp again, swarming all over any ivy that still had flowers. Speaking of flowers, surprisingly there are still a few Common Rock […]
Wednesday, 5 Nov 2025
Having seen my first Birch Catkin Bug (Kleidocerys resedae) of the year just 4 days ago I came across a cluster (what is the collective noun for a group of Birch Catkin Bugs?) of them this morning, again on a bramble. Found on leaf litter was a female wolf spider (family Lycosidae), possibly the species […]
Saturday, 1 Nov 2025
A lovely morning for a walk and I thought that’s all it might be until I turned over a bramble leaf and found two insects and a spider within inches of each over. They were a Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis), two adult Birch Catkin Bug (Kleidocerys resedae) and a well-camouflaged female Green Crab Spider (Diaea […]
Tuesday, 28 Oct 2025
Leaves are getting yellower and the carpet of fallen leaves is getting thicker. Another bird foraging party today, but this time Goldcrest (Regulus regulus). Unfortunately, I needed my 300 mm lens as the 28 – 135 mm zoom was hopelessly inadequate. I’ll post the image anyway as it the first time I have […]
Tuesday, 21 Oct 2025
We may be well into October but the new insects keep on coming. I use the term ‘insect’ loosely here, as the first new species today was a Long-horned Springtail (Pogonognathellus longicornis). The springtails were long regarded as insects but are now placed in a separate class. They are hexapods but not insects. Next was a […]
Friday, 17 Oct 2025
Another new insect this morning with a Banded Winter Gnat (Trichocera annulata). It belongs to the Diptera family Trichoceridae, the winter crane flies. However, it is neither a true crane fly nor a true gnat, the names given simply because of a superficial resemblance to members of the other two families. Otherwise it was a […]
Thursday, 16 Oct 2025
Another new species for me this morning on an Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) leaf, the Ash Whitefly (Siphoninus phillyreae). I located a single adult and puparia on the underside of a leaf. Several leaf mines and galls were photographed. These included the hairy galls of the Hairy Beech Gall Midge (Hartigiola annulipes) on Common Beech (Fagus […]