June's Wildlife Mix

June is I think an odd month in that spring migration has finished and all the birds have settled on territories with some young fledged and the adults going for their second brood. By the end of the month there is the likelihood of seeing a few returning non-breeding birds from there northern territories such as Common and Green Sandpiper also female Spotted Redshank as once they have laid they leave the male to brood and bring up the young.  It is also the time to catchup on butterflies, dragonflies and all the other invertebrates, orchids and plants much of this for me is usually during surveys but due to my calf injury I've been taking it a little easier than usual and it has paid-off and I've tested it with a couple of surveys and it seems to be holding up ok. The other wildlife that is good at this time of year is the moths as it's when the numbers increase and with the airstream coming  up from the south there is always the chance of a scarce migrant popping into the trap.

Our first visit out was to Morden Bog it was quiet, for birds of note we saw Hobby, Tree Pipit, Dartford Warbler and Stonechat.  We did manage to see a few Odonata and caught up with Silver-studded Blue butterflies. we also came across a large dung beetle and Tony identified for us as Trypocopris vernalis which has the common name of Spring Dumbledor.  

Trypocopris vernalis - Spring Dumbledor - Morden Bog

Silver-studded Blue - Morden Bog © Nick Hull

Broad-bodied Chaser - Morden Bog © Nick Hull

Our next visit was to Holton Heath or rather the newly opened Cordite Way, a footpath that takes you through woodland along the edge of the Wareham Channel at the end of which there is a view point giving views across to Arne and up the channel towards Wareham itself.  

Our first find was two very nice Marsh Orchid and on the information sign there was a Harlequin Ladybird larvae this ladybird first arrive in Europe in the 1980's to control pest species and arrived in UK in 2004 and has quickly become the most common invasive ladybird species in the UK and some authorities believe it to be the commonest species in the world.

Marsh Orchid - Holton Heath © Nick Hull

Harlequin Ladybird larvae -Holton Heath © Nick Hull

During our walk here I came across a small wasp species which I didn't recognise and checking later it turned out to be Gymnomerus laevipes. They are a fairly common species in the southern half of Britain though it's thought they are in decline certainly in the northern part of its range.  They are a tube nesting species usually in the hollow stems of bramble, burdock, elder and thistles. Where they form a series of linearly cells where they lay their eggs and stock the stem with weevil larvae separating each cell with a clay plug.

Field Grasshopper on the left Wasp on right - Holton Heath  Nick Hull

I took the shot and it wasn't until later that I realised that there was a Field Grasshopper also in shot.  

We also saw our first Marbled White butterfly of the year but it escaped being photographed.

We ended our exploration of the Cordite Way back at the trading estate and found a female Keeled Skipper illegally parked on double yellow lines.

Keeled Skimmer - Holton Heath © Nick Hull

On the 11th Jackie and I went out onto the Purbeck NNR doing a heathland bird survey.  Though the weather was good and not too hot at least to start with it was very quiet bird wise unlike our last visit.  Thats not saying we didn't record anything because we did.  We managed to confirm that the Redstart, though keeping out of photography range, was still present a good sign it was on territory.  We saw lots of Stonechat also one or two juvenile birds which was good. The highlight of the morning was finding a pair of Spotted Flycatcher on a cut pine tree stack. 

One of many Stonechat PNNR seen © Nick Hull

one of a pair of Spotted Flycatcher PNNR © Nick Hull

On the 16th along with friends we visited Badbury Rings, this old hill fort is or can be an excellent place for orchids and butterflies. Our main target was to see Frog Orchid as it had been a while since had seen any and Liz had been told where to find them, well, approximately anyway.  So following instructions we walked the rings and found the area we were told to go but we couldn't find them.  Re-reading the instruction liz and I decided we weren't quite in the correct place which was obvious really as we couldn't find the orchids.

Eventually I was travelling one of the rings and I spotted one then two and found five in the end, though not all were in there prime they still had a few day to go to be fully open.

Frog Orchid - Badbury Rings  © Nick Hull

We also saw Greater Butterfly, Common Spotted, Fragrant and Pyramidal Orchids on our walk.  We also added a few butterflies to our year list with seeing Dark-green Fritillary, Marbled Whites, Meadow Brown, Ringlet, Small and Large Skipper butterflies.

Marbled White - Badbury Rings © Nick Hull

I took the shot below to check if this was a Small or Essex Skipper and the top of the antenna were black and one of the good feathers to tell the difference is the underside of the antenna of Small Skipper in orange not black as in Essex.  As you can see it's orange so Small Skipper and in fact we didn't find Essex on this walk, perhaps next time.

Small Skipper - Badbury Rings © Nick Hull

Arriving home after our walk along the path to the front door I heard a high pitched buzz of a bee and checking around me I saw Anthophora bimaculata or  Green-eyed Flower Bee they are burrow nesting and can be found in large aggregations usually on Lowland heaths commons and coastal dunes. 

female Green-eyed Flower Bee Anthophora bimaculata © Nick Hull

Whilst trying to get shots of the bee I saw movement on one of the heathers and notice a Labyrinth Spider out on top of the web looking like she was in the process of making repairs. I have to say I've tried many times to get a shot of one of these spiders but they are quick and they very rarely are seen outside of their funnel like webs.  So I took a few quick shots before she disappeared.

Labyrinth Spider - © Nick Hull

Staying with the gardens wildlife, next day I noticed a damselfly species but couldn't get to grips with it to get a good identification.  In fact I had seen it or another a number of times in the back garden and now there were two in the front I grabbed my camera and returned and couldn't find either.  Anyway I kept popping out and checking and eventually managed to get a half dozen shots of one of them.  Then back into the man cave, my office/laboratory, to identify it.

Female Small Red Damselfly of form f. typica

It turn out to be a female Small Red Damselfly of the form f.typica instead of having a complete red abdomen the first two and the last segment are red all the others are a metallic green as you can see in the photograph above. 

If fact the garden pond has done well this year with Large Red and Azure Damselflies in fairly good numbers for the size of pond. Plus the garden has attracted several Keeled Slimmer and the Small Reds, I have also caught sight of a hawker in and around the garden at times which is most likely a Southern Hawker as we have recorded females ovipositing in the pond in the past.

Our next trip was to Portland with the aim to see shearwaters, though there were good numbers over the last few mornings they had tended to be early morning movements and we were not going to be there at the right time.  From past experience we know there are always birds that move through in the later morning, we just needed a little luck so we headed out to the obelisk and began our seawatch.  I suppose we hadn't been there fifteen minutes when I picked up our first shearwaters coming in from the left at middle distance a group of nine Balearic Shearwaters moving east.  There was another birder present and chatting to him he said he had had both species but Manx were definitely less in numbers to Balearic.  He then pointed out a small group of Common Scoter sat on the sea and as we scanned around there were lots of Guillemots and the odd Razorbill dotted about.  It took another ten to fifteen minutes probably before we saw more shearwaters again a group of Balearics again moving east this time twelve in a tight group skimming the waves as they past.   A while later I picked up a single shearwater that moved east and as it closed to pass in front of us turned out to be a Manx I quickly got Jackie on to it and it then turned and went back west only to return and continue east and disappear.  Checking the time, as we only paid for an hour to park, we had been almost an hour and as we had seen our target species headed for the car.

Balearic Shearwater © Nick Hull

Manx Shearwater © Nick Hull

Whilst we were doing our seawatch Jackie looked down and asked what's that beetle thing I took a look and quickly took a few shots but the speed I had set on the camera was a tad to slow and I didn't get a very sharp shot as you can see.  Though it was good enough to be able to identify what it was a Sea Slater or Sea Roach (Ligia oceanica). They are a type of crustacean related to woodlice and they are found on rocky shorelines and feed on decaying seaweed.  The best time apparently to see them in late evening when they come out to feed.

Sea Slater - Portland Bill © Nick Hull

On our way back to Upton we decided to check out Silverlake for Odonata and see if we could see any Broad Scarlets present.  Looking around the pond there were Black-tailed Skimmer everywhere one or two Emperor Dragonflies and I had a brief view of a Lesser Emperor as it zoomed past me.  I also had a dark brownish chaser/darter but it didn't perch and moved off too fast for me to get an identification.  We also saw Azure and Blue-tailed Damselflies and Four-spotted Chaser and a single Pyramidal Orchid. 

It wasn't until we arrived home that Bird Guides put out news that 3 Scarlet Darter had been reported.  I telephone Terry and asked if he had heard and he said yes, I saw three teneral Scarlets and sent me a copy of one he managed to get a shot of.  I'm pretty sure it was the same as the one I didn't managed to identify as it past me and disappeared when we were there, I'll have to return and see them properly another day.

Male Emperor Dragonfly Silverlake © Nick Hull

Female Four-spotted Chaser - Silverlake © Nick Hull

The wildlife garden at home has been producing a good selection of invertebrates.  On the the 30th we had a count of eleven species on butterfly using the garden.  Plus we had our second burnet species, as we had Five-spot Burnet in the first week of the month and now Six-spot Burnets have emerged. 

Six-spot Burnet pupa case and the freshly emerged adult © Nick Hull

We have a very tenuous breeding population of Common Blue butterflies and oddly they are always later emerging here than in other areas.  The first brood only produced a female that we noticed and now we have just seen a male around the garden.  I'm not hopeful that they will continue for much longer but time will tell.

Common Blue © Nick Hull

We have just recorded our first Ringlet and Gatekeeper which have joined the Meadow Browns, all three species were about a week earlier than last year to emerge or be seen in the garden as were the Small and Large Skipper.  

Small Skipper - © Nick Hull

The other species of note is the dragonflies this year has been particularly good as mentioned above and usually we have to wait till July to see our first Common Darter but not this year, our first appeared on the 26th June but I wasn't 100% as it went by me and disappeared somewhere in the garden then on the 30th I managed a quick shot of it and was able to confirm it's id.

Common Darter © Nick Hull

I'm going to end this blog now as it's seems to be rather longer than usual and I'll add another with the moths. that have turned up in the trap some of them have been pretty scarce or rare migrants.....