Natural History

Hot and Humid on Puttenham Common

Alder forest! The species likes to get its feet wet, growing by rivers and lakes. Here, a patch of damp low-lying land by the Tarn on the common gives a rare opportunity for a whole stand of the trees: surprisingly handsome, given their usual appearance as riverside bushes.
Black-tailed Skimmer resting near the Tarn. Several of them zoomed over the water, with an Emperor; a Great Crested Grebe fished; a fish jumped.
Large Skipper under the Birches
A Birch, unusually carpeted in crusty orange lichen (not Xanthoria, I think) or perhaps a non-lichen fungus
Handsome Polytrichum moss on forest floor
A Robber Fly with its prey, on Bracken