Monday, 16 Mar 2026
Today, a search of evergreen leaves turned up this tiny (+/-2mm) sub-adult female(?) Bleeding Heart Spider (Nigma puella) on an ivy leaf. Also found was a tiny cynipid gall wasp on a cherry laurel leaf, which I believe to be an Andricus sp. Species of this genus are responsible for Marble, Artichoke and Knopper galls, among […]
Sunday, 15 Mar 2026
Another sunny yet windy morning – the ’March winds’ are definitely upon us. That didn’t stop me from finding something new. On the same sycamore sapling I found two new species on the undersides of adjacent leaves. The first was a leafhopper. Although there are several small similar-looking green planthoppers some can be ruled out […]
Thursday, 5 Mar 2026
The Brimstone butterflies are back and in much larger numbers this time. A single Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) was also spotted. A surprise was a small flock of Redpoll (Acanthis flammea cabaret), a bird I had not seen on the Downs before today. Best of all was that I did not miss out on a photo as […]
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 […]
Tuesday, 24 Feb 2026
The above average temperature and sunshine of the past two days has brought the first butterfly out of hibernation, a Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni). With early signs of spring a week or so early this year too, Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera), Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) and Tree Bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) were all active on the same […]
Friday, 20 Feb 2026
While photographing fungus on a fallen tree trunk, possibly Common Tarcrust (Diatrype stigma), I was aware of a small insect on the back of my hand. It wandered around quite happily, giving me plenty of time to get a good photo. It would seem to be a Cynipid gall wasp, most likely a Striped Pea Gall […]
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. […]
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 […]
Wednesday, 10 Dec 2025
Damper and damper, even the leaf litter in the woodland is now distinctly soggy. I was only just onto the Downs today when I made my first discovery. Searching the underside of ivy leaves for anything of interest I found the pupa of a hoverfly (Syrphidae sp.) in plain sight on the upper surface of […]
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 […]
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, 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 […]
Friday, 24 Oct 2025
There is a distinctly autumnal look to the Downs now. I encountered a large mixed bird foraging party this morning, comprising Great Tit, Blue Tit and Long-tailed Tit. Jays are still very conspicuous as they build up their winter nut stocks. Yet another new species for the Downs, having previously found it at […]
Monday, 14 Jul 2025
What a start to my walk today! Just 3 minutes after setting foot on the Downs I realised that there were a Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) doe and her fawn walking towards me along the path. So I fired off a quick couple of shots and ducked into the trees to my right, trying to […]
Monday, 14 April 2025
I thought perhaps that after the rain showers yesterday afternoon and evening I might see a little more insect activity on the Downs today. The ground has been so dry for the time of year that all the rain was gratefully soaked up as if it had not rained at all. First sightings for the […]