Despite the less-than-ideal weather we were lucky and hit a window where it wasn’t raining and there were some bright spells.
We started walking east and after crossing the little footbridge we glanced around a small area of shrubs where we picked up a nice male Common Redstart, a few European Robins and a Common Stonechat.
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| Bog Asphodel © Richard Smith |
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| Marsh Lousewort © Glynis Payne |
We then concentrated on the botany aspect as we walked along the Mill Lawn Brook. In no particular order and no particular locations (and with the use of phone applications!) we found Selfheal, St John’s Wort sp. Hypericum sp., Water Forget-me-not, Bog Pimpernel, Bog Asphodel, Marsh Lousewort, Petty Whin, Water Mint, Lesser Skullcap, Unbranched Bur-reed, Water Figwort, Mouse-ear sp. Cerastium sp., Lesser Spearwort and Cross-leaved Heath.
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| Bog Orchid habitat © Kevin Tubb |
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| Bog Orchid © Kevin Tubb |
We then crossed over the larger bridges over the boggy area to concentrate on the runnels coming off the hillside. Scattered around this area we found quite a few Common Froglets. We found one solitary Bog Orchid – only a few inches tall! As the sun was attempting to come out, we switched to looking for Odonata and we found the following species including the hoped for Southern Damselfly, White-legged Damselfly, Black-tailed and Keeled Skimmer, Beautiful Demoiselle, Small Red Damselfly.
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| Keeled Skimmer © Glynis Payne |
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| Small Red Damselfly © Richard Smith |
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| Southern Damselfly © Richard Smith |
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| White-legged Damselfly © Richard Smith |
Butterflies started to make an appearance and included Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper and Large Skipper. As we traversed an area of large gorse bushes, we found a few Heath Spotted-Orchids Dactylorhiza maculata hiding at the gorse bush bases – subsequently shortened to HSO’s. One of the smaller shrubs at the side of one of the runnels housed a Nursery Web Spider – an impressively large spider. At the end of the last runnel we checked, the leader tried to turn a piece of wood on the ground into a Spotted Flycatcher.
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| Heath Spotted Orchid © Glynis Payne |
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| Nurseyweb Spider © Richard Smith |
We then turned around and headed back to the car park spending a little more time on the birds that were around. We recorded Northern Lapwing, Pied Wagtail, Common Buzzard, Barn Swallow, drumming Common Snipe and finally as we neared the car park a Nuthatch, a male Siskin calling from the top of a tree and a few House Martins which were collecting mud from the side of the brook – presumably to patch up their nests for the next brood of chicks.
The final thing to note that in a few patches there were a lot of very active Semaphore Flies. KT
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| Semaphore Fly © Richard Coomber |
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| Our route © Crown copyright 2023 Ordnance Survey. Media 006/23. The licence is valid until 31 December 2023 |