Plenty of Muntjac Prints on the path near the Mud Sofa (if you know the reserve)
Well, quite the summer surprise: after all these years, none of us had ever seen or heard of a deer in the little urban reserve. But this weekend a visitor shyly checked with the warden whether they could have seen a deer; and a volunteer met the Muntjac, though they didn’t have a camera. Today, the deer had left some fine prints — indeed, trails — in the soft earth on various sections of path. The small size of the prints, and the pointed, cloven hoofs, leave no doubt whatsoever which species made them.
We’re preparing a Nature Trail with little wooden boards for children to find. So Muntjac prints can feature among the other mammal (and maybe bird) footprints that we see on the reserve.
Aston Rowant’s fine south-facing flowery Chalk Grassland meadow
Well, this strange year – a cold dry April when the bees could hardly feed for lack of pollen and nectar; the wettest May anyone can remember; and now a June so late that cherries, raspberries and redcurrants are ripening all together. In some recent years, the end of June would have been too late for many flowers, specially on Aston Rowant’s steep, free-draining Chalk Grassland.
But not this year: it’s like Tolkien’s The Shire after Sam Gamgee has returned victorious and sprinkled the magic grains of earth from Galadriel’s Elvish Garden in all his favourite spots, and everything is glorious with colour, buzzing with bumblebees, and glittering with iridescent green Forester Moths, Thick-Kneed Flower Beetles, and astonishingly shiny Hawkweed Leaf Beetles.
Chalk Fragrant Orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea)
Forester Moth, distinctive as a day-flying moth with shiny green scales and feathery antennae
Yellow Rattle
This curious little flower in the Broomrape family, Yellow Rattle, may seem to be just an oddly-shaped herb; but it’s critically important to the flowery meadow ecosystem. It doesn’t have much in the way of green leaves, as it’s a parasite: its roots attach to nearby grasses, extracting the food it needs to live, and in the process weakening the grasses all around it. Result? Tall tough grasses that would otherwise crowd out and overwhelm their attractively coloured neighbours are suppressed, and a wealth of insect-pollinated flowers can, well, flourish. That doesn’t mean the area can just be left to look after itself: Hawthorn and other shrubs would quickly take over and turn the place into forest, so carefully-planned grazing is necessary to keep the land at the meadow stage. It’s called Rattle, by the way, because the ripe seeds dry out and rattle inside the leafy fruit capsules when the plant is shaken.
Cryptocephalus hypochaeridis (Chrysomelid leaf beetle) as usual on Hawkweed
Ragged Robin, another handsome and once common meadow flower. The attractive grass just below it is Briza, the Quaking-Grass: the little seed-heads shake on their long thin stems when touched.
Hoary Plantain, an elegant (and tall) member of a familiar and often-overlooked family. It grows on lime (such as Chalk Grassland)
Milkwort
This small flower was once common in meadows, indeed its name tells its story: it was found wherever milk cattle grazed, in all Britain’s meadows. Now in lowland Britain at least, it’s a rare and special sight, and we feel excited and happy to see it: such is the scale of the catastrophe that has overtaken our countryside. Basically, the flowers are almost all gone; so are the insects; and the birds are fast following them. A place like Aston Rowant is indeed special: its warm, south-facing chalk slopes really were always a wonderful place for flowers like the Chiltern Gentian and butterflies like the Adonis Blue, and happily it still is; but it’s now special just for being what our grandparents would have seen as ordinary: it’s full of what they knew as common wild flowers “of wayside and woodland”.
Common Spotted Orchid
Dog Rose
Small Scabious
Yellow-Wort, a member of the Gentian family with its striking perfoliate habit and handsome 8-petalled flowers
Tufted Vetch, showing off its fine purple tufts of flowers, its handsomely pinnate leaves, and its little paired tendrils grasping several nearby grass stems as it scrambles up.
Mother Shipton Moth, named for a famous 16th-century Witch – her beaky nose and chin form a dark brown face pattern around her round eye and mouth. Seems to be a good day for day-flying moths!
There weren’t many butterflies about – Meadow Browns, Common Blues, a single Marbled White very handsome with its dancing flight, a good number of Small Heaths up on the hilltop, a Red Admiral. It looks as if the difficult spring has meant low butterfly numbers this year.
Eyebright
Goatsbeard Clock – the largest pappus of any of our dandelion-like composites
Gentians not yet in flower (but rather handsome even so) … come back later, and we’ll find out whether it was a Chiltern Gentian or an Autumn Gentian, maybe!
Cinnabar Moth, with hardly any Ragwort to eat, on Alfalfa
Reed Stem Borer on Buttercup. This family of Sawflies (no waist) is long and thin; the larvae tunnel in the stems of various plants, this species being one of the longest and living in, you guessed it, Reed stems.Male Common Blue Damselfly, with a little “wine-cup” atop each abdominal segment
As well as these elegant and colourful insects, there were Red Admirals and Meadow Browns flying today, but overall very few butterflies.
This pair of Azure Damselflies formed the “wheel” or “heart”, part of the complex mating behaviour of the Odonata, on a reed in the Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve pond. As you can see, the colourful male (with the bright blue “tail”) uses his claspers to grasp the female behind the head so he obviously can’t use his tail end to fertilise her at the same time. He therefore transfers the packet of sperm, the spermatophore, to the underside of his abdomen. She uses her tail to pick up the sperm packet from there. So now you know.
Meanwhile, another male of the same species has noticed the female, and is hovering close in the vain hope of getting a chance to mate with her. Of course he looks as if he’s a voyeur, there to enjoy the spectacle; but from an evolutionary point of view, his “selfish genes” can’t be anything but “disappointed” at the fact that another male has got there first.
Suddenly, after a freezing but dry April and a warmer but moist (April Showers) May, it’s June and Summer. The hazels have rushed into full leaf; the brambles are pushing across the paths at astonishing speed; Azure Damselflies have all hatched at once and are sunning themselves near the pond; and pairs of Large Red Damselflies are urgently flying about, all 8 wings in harmony, in their complex mating system, to lay eggs rapidly on pond plants before it all dries up. Like their much larger cousins, the Dragonflies, Damselflies are predators, and fiercely competitive for their territory; males chase off not only other males but other insects.
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
