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 […]
Monday, 19 Jan 2026
Today it was Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) found both on a dead moss-covered silver birch stump and a dead branch. Just as on my last walk, but for a photogenic fungus, my cameras would have remained in my shoulder bag. […]
Friday, 16 Jan 2026
After a second photo-less walk this year two days ago, but for another jelly fungus, today might have been the same. That jelly fungus was found on a dead oak trunk and is possibly Yellow Brain (Tremella mesenterica). […]
Saturday, 10 Jan 2026
Another cold day, but after some persisent rain in the past couple of days all the snow and ice is gone. So, it was back to a search of the woodland for something of interest. Fallen birch trunks and branches proved most profitable, with four photo opportunities. Removing a loose flap of bark on one […]
Tuesday, 6 Jan 2026
As the day-time temperatures since the snow four days ago have stayed only just above freezing, but with the wind-chill factor taken into account below freezing, a lot of that snow is still present. After a really heavy frost and a low of -6°C last night it is frozen, so my morning walk was just […]
Friday, 2 Jan 2026
At the same point that I had Roe Deer run across the track in front of me just three days ago I had a fox dash across this morning. After yesterday’s frosty start to the New Year it was something much more uncommon on the common today. A pre-dawn snowstorm had dumped a good 2 […]
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 […]
Wednesday, 31 Dec 2025
A review of my 2025 posts on Banstead Downs First the numbers. This year I have photographed and recorded in my posts a total of 340 different species of insects, arachnids and springtails, with a further 16 species of birds and mammals for a total of 356 animal species. Plant species totalled 156. Add to […]
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 […]
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. […]
Monday, 15 Dec 2025
I’m sure they have been around for a while already, but I saw my first small group of Redwing (Turdus iliacus) this morning. Similar to the Song Thrush, it has a wash of orange-red on the flanks that gives it its name. It is a winter visitor from the colder northern parts of Scandinavia, as […]
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 […]
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, 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 […]
Wednesday, 3 Dec 2025
Another search today for overwintering insects and yet more Birch Catkin Bugs (Kleidocerys resedae) found. It would seem that a favourite place for them to congregate is on the terminal leaf buds of Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) trees as this is where I found them on at least a dozen different sycamores, having first discovered them […]
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 […]