Friday 15th. June 2012

Following on yesterday's post , I arrived on the Greensand Ridge with cloud building , but still a reasonable temperature for reptiles . I turned all 18 pairs of refugia , finding 6 Slow Worms , 1 male Adder and 13 Grass Snakes . Amazingly , just one pair of refugia produced the male Adder and 6 of

the Grass Snakes . This was him , cosied up with a Grass Snake that has a very large swelling halfway down her length , I am not pointing the finger , but have sent the shot to the Sec.of Kent Reptile and Amphibian Group for his thoughts as to whether he thinks it is food or eggs . An unexpected surprise under another of the refugia , when several bees lifted up from beneath . Having

been stung a couple of years ago , I was pleased to see that this time it was a Bumble Bee's nest , formed in a mouse or voles ex home . I could see a bee at the entrance and what looked like cells too .

As I watched , a much larger bee emerged from within , presumably the Queen , time to put the lid down and leave them to it . On the way round , I must have passed under a Common Buzzard in a

tree on the edge of a field , but shortly afterwards the local Corvids found it , and drove it out of the area , unfortunately I only had the macro lens with me . Interspersed with the refugia , I checked on the 20 Dormouse boxes on the site , finding that 9 of them had been taken over by Tits , as is quite usual , but what wasn't usual was finding 4 of those nine nests with dead youngsters . Warren commented that he feared for fledgling birds the other day , and so it has proved , as all the birds were ready to fledge , 3 of the 4 being Great Tits . The wet , cold , lack of insects and caterpillars ,  all must have played a part in the sad findings . Just one Dormouse , in the same box as last month ,

was found , but this time he was in a fully torpid condition , and this within a couple of weeks of mid-summer . Since last month , he had made a nest in the box and , although cold to the feel , was alive , and hopefully , when this Summer warms up he will find a mate and breed . I would repeat that I have a license from Natural England to handle Dormice and all records are forwarded to the monitoring programme . It is against the law to disturb this species and to do so carries a hefty fine .
When I arrived home , Carol had a pile of shredding from her time in the garden , and when we took

the top off one of the compost bins , found this female Lesser Stag Beetle / Dorcus parallelopidedus inside . After taking a couple of shots on my hand , I thought I would get some more in more natural surrounding , so moved an old log and put her on it . I then spotted another beetle where I had moved

the log from , which turned out to be a male of the same species . I put him on the log too , and it wasn't long before things got steamy . That's the male on the left , with larger mandibles , and knobly bits on them both . Fortunately , the log had a hole in the top , into which they both disappeared , to do , whatever they were going to do . Later in the evening , Carol spotted something on the lawn at

the bottom of the garden . It turned out to be a young Fox , no doubt just woken up . This morning I took the non-shredable garden waste to the tip and on the way back had a quick look around South Norwood Country Park . The wind was very strong and the sky was threatening during the visit , but did find a few bits of interest , like a female Kestrel on the high fence of the football pitches , a

great place to spot movement in the long grass below , and whilst watching her , was serenaded by a

Wren on another fence post . On the way around , found yet another variation of the Harlequin

Ladybird , this one being H.axyridis conspicua , and showing nicely the brown legs , one of the identifying points of the Harlequin Ladybird , in it's many forms . I must admit , I was watching the sky a lot as the wind was bringing quick changes and at one point the sky became almost black in the distance , time to head back to the car . On the way , a Common Whitethroat , with food in it's bill ,

gave me a good scolding until I got well away from it . Close to where I had parked , I just had time for a last shot at one of the few colourful plants seen , Bistort / Polygonum bistorta , a

member of the Dock family . No sooner had the shutter clicked , then the first drops of rain fell . This afternoon we have had a few really heavy downpours , just glad I wasn't caught out in any of them .