Autumn in the woods...

North Downs Way, Mays Wood, 17th December 2017

A bit further on...

North Downs Way, Wingate Wood, 17th December 2017

View of Luddesdown from the edge of Bushy Wood...

Oak in autumn finery, Warren Road...

Cuxton Church...

St. Michael and All Angels Church, Cuxton...

Cuxton Church has a long history, dating back to Roman times. Its current Rector, the Reverend Roger Knight, has written a nice summary of some of that history, which can be found here.

Butterflies in Halling Wood, 26th June 2017...

Two less common species were present in good numbers this year in Halling Wood, particularly the Silver-Washed Fritillaries.  Given that these woods are a pheasant factory for the local shoot, how any caterpillars survived to make it to the adult stage is amazing.  The Silver Washed Fritillary caterpillar feeds on violets on the forest floor, and pheasants (not a natural UK bird) go mad for them.  I believe these feathered rats are the reason for decline of the fritillaries in general, particularly the High Brown, which tends to frequent more open habitat.

The more pheasants get blasted, the better, as far as I am concerned.

Female Silver-Washed Fritillary

Underside, showing the silver bands that give the butterfly its name

The male butterflies are not as easy to photograph. They are a brighter orange and the forewings have four or five broad dark veins. There were plenty of them but they are very wary, restless and active, constantly gliding up and down the woodland paths, chasing and fighting with each other and checking out anything that might be a female.  They are a spectacular sight. I saw this female crawling around some violets by a beech tree.  They lay their eggs on tree trunks near patches of violets, so I watched this one for a while but she got spooked and flew off.

White Admirals are my favourite butterfly, although they are quite scarce.  This one came down to drink from a mud puddle, though they are partial to bramble blossom.

Female White Admiral

The females tend to be slightly browner than the males and the hind-wing orange markings are more obvious.  They lay their eggs on honeysuckle, which is not too common in these woods.  They obviously manage though.

White Admiral, underside

White Admirals are sometimes called "gliders", as they beat their wings and then glide for long distances. They are fast and powerful flyers, and love flying up and down sunlit woodland paths.  They are a joy to watch.

Luddesdown in June...

From the edge of Wrenches Shaw, looking towards Cobham

From the edge of Wrenches Shaw, looking towards Luddesdown church

From Cutter Ridge Road

From Cutter Ridge Road

Taken 23rd June 2017

Ragwort in bloom...

Southern Valley, looking east

Taken 20th June 2017

Scenes from the Brockles in Summer...

Looking south-east

Marbled White butterfly and bumble bee on scabious

Looking south-west

Taken 13th June 2017

Cuxton Church bellringer's outing to Suffolk, 10th June 2017...

St.John the Baptists, Thaxted

Windmill, Thaxted

Barley fields, Thaxted

St. Mary's, Cavendish

Cavendish village green

St. Mary's, Glemsford

St. Mary's churchyard

Church of the Holy Trinity, Long Melford

Church of the Holy Trinity, Long Melford

Churchyard, Long Melford

Mays Wood, 13th May 2017...

Red Admirals used to be restricted to an annual immigrant population, and were a lot less common than they are now.  These days, our milder winters allow both adults and the caterpillars to survive. This battered warrior obviously managed to overwinter here...

Red Admiral

I saw a much less tatty individual a bit later. It had probably overwintered as a caterpillar and had emerged from a pupa in the past few days or so.

Red Admiral

The wild garlic was in spectacular flower this year...

Wild Garlic (also known as Ramsons), Mays Wood...

Tortoiseshells in April...

Small Tortoiseshell, Lower Bush, April 1st.

Small tortoiseshell larvae and old larval tent, 23rd April 2017

These once-common butterflies are sadly in decline, largely thanks to a parasitic fly Sturmia Bella. These disgusting brutes have found their way over to the UK from continental Europe and have survived due to our milder winters these days. They lay their microscopic eggs on the nettle leaves where the caterpillars are feeding.  The caterpillars ingest the eggs, which hatch out inside the caterpillar. The fly larvae eats away the caterpillar's insides, but not so much as to kill it before it pupates.  Once the host caterpillar pupates, the fly larvae eats its way out of the host and slithers off to pupate itself.

Caterpillar losses can be 100% from a colony such as above, although fortunately this lot seemed to escape parasite attack and seemed to produce a fair number of adult butterflies given be the numbers I saw in May.  I took a dozen or so of this colony and raised them all to adults, releasing the butterflies just to try and make sure there will be a few around to keep the local population going.

All of the nettle-using butterflies (Small tortoiseshell, Peacock, Red Admiral and Comma) suffer from Sturmia attack, but the tortoiseshell and peacock are hit worst because the caterpillars live in colonies, making it easier for the fly to pick them out.

Going bats...

 

Noctule bats over Upper Bush...

I was pleased to be invited by an old former colleague of mine to go bat watching in and around the woods to the west of Bush Valley in Cuxton. Red Wood is part of the Halling and Trottiscliffe Escarpment SpecialSite of Scientific Interest, an area which covers most of the local Cuxton woodland from Upper Bush, up either side of the valley and over the hill through to Pilgrims Road in Halling.

The north end of Red Wood is an old chestnut coppice, but Jeff told me there are some big old chestnut trees in there where the bats like to roost during the day. This was news to me as I thought bats hid out in churches, barns, crypts and people’s lofts, but apparently not.

In the early evening, Jeff took me to show where he had found a colony of Noctule bats roosting.  How he how found it I don’t know, but we picked our way through the coppices until we came to a couple of great old chestnuts, just coming into leaf but cracked and worn and in pretty poor shape. These were just the things for these bats, however, and indeed you could see the guano all around and all over the branches of the trees. 

It was a bit too dark in the woods to take any decent pics and as the bats were already active I didn’t want to use a flash. I thought bats had an ultrasonic squeak but you could hear these chattering away as they left the trees and shot out towards Upper Bush. There were probably 40-50 bats emerging from the hollow trees as we watched. Jeff told me they were Britain’s biggest bat but they look a little bit like slightly over-sized, rather chubby House Martins, with a powerful, flappy flight.

Jeff had a gadget that allowed him to hear the ultrasonic squeaks as well which is how he knew for definite that these were noctules, although their appearance is fairly distinctive. 

I tried to get a video but the light seemed too poor for my camera (which was annoying as it still seemed quite light to me) so we made our way eastwards out of the woods and past Upper Bush farm and up by Longbottom Wood. You could see at least a dozen or so Noctules climbing up and then swooping back down over and across the valley to grab whatever munchies they could. We spent about half an hour or so watching them fly over Bush valley until it got too dark to see anything.

Despite not being able to photograph one clearly, it was an enjoyable experience. Jeff said that this was the largest colony of Noctules he knew of, although they tend to disperse in the spring and summer to breed.

By now it was around 8.30 and as the moonless sky began to darken, we headed off to the White Hart, well pleased with ourselves.