This is a “migrant addition” to my almost complete (bar one) British butterfly list. Large Tortoiseshell is one of a select group to have made inroads, with global warming into southern and south-east England and East Anglia over the last 15 years or so. Hence when I was invited by Ewan to observe a cluster of emerged hibernators from a small breeding colony in a Kent woodland, the opportunity was sufficiently evolved to arouse my interest.

Large Tortoiseshell occurs across continental Europe, being common in some regions though erratic in others. The species was once widespread nationally, mostly in central and southern English woodland habitat, particularly such containing the historic food plant Elm and where blooming Sallows and Cherries provided nectar sources in spring. But its numbers were always known to fluctuate and the butterfly became extinct here by the 1960s. There were various suggested causes for the decline including climate change, parasitism and the impact of Dutch Elm disease. As the species was disappearing in the UK, its numbers also decreased dramatically elsewhere in north-western Europe. 

My pre-trip research revealed that since then there have been sporadic national records annually, mostly in high summer from the south coast and Isle of Wight. It was always open to question whether those might be released by breeders from reared stock rather than genuine migrants. The spring of 2020 brought a marked influx by modern standards when sightings in Norfolk and Suffolk exceeded national totals over the previous 10 years. At the same time other European countries including Holland experienced their best emergences in 40 years. There have also been a few sightings of what are considered to be hibernators each spring since 2018 on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, and breeding has been confirmed there and at Sheringham in Norfolk.

I myself had recorded this butterfly pictorially, just once previously in Sardinia in 2018. Today the weather forecast that prompted our visit was for temperatures as high as 19 degrees, to match conditions earlier this month when my companion had first been alerted to our potential experience. That was certainly warm enough for Brimstones, my first for this season having been on 2nd March locally, and hibernators to be showing themselves. In the event this spring equinox was actually the warmest day of the year so far in southern England.

We arrived on site at 1pm to find a full car park, with butterfly people’s vehicles most likely outnumbering those of dog walkers. It wasn’t until meeting and listening to other observers here that I realised Forestry England Orlestone Forest (TQ 985347) is a further well-known (in informed circles) and established breeding location of some four-years’ standing. But there are thought to be around 12 individuals flying here at present, which to me suggested the colony is quite fragile. The first warm days of spring when hibernators emerge are said to be the most likely time to connect with Large Tortoiseshell, since the single-brooded insects in high summer are only on the wing for a couple of weeks and generally more elusive.

From near the parking area a long ride leads downward and into the woods. When we found and made our way along this we met a group walking up that contained some clearly very seasoned butterfly people, and a high-profile figure who was known to us. Soon someone located a Large Tortoiseshell on the ground and everyone got pictures of it (lead picture, above). We learned that our quest might be encountered anywhere along this ride, but the main concentration of observers was some way further along in a low-lying area that due to its warmth is especially attractive to the butterflies. Several specimens had been present there during the previous day.

Fortunately the gathering today was of genuine butterfly enthusiasts and not peripheral “butterfly tourists” as I term them, suggesting this site is not yet well known to that social-media generated underclass that always creates a circus around scarce species locations. When we reached the spot in question we further learned that as the sun begins to lower from around 2:30pm the LTs would settle open-winged against tree trunks. So this proved twice while we were there, the image below being the best I could manage in the circumstances, given the competition for camera angles. Ewan, through a combination of better position and equipment, fared a little better at this point (see here).

These butterflies were quite like Purple Emperor in their behaviour, starting their day in the tree-tops then coming down to ground level as conditions warm up. They were at all times fast-moving and elusive. But their graceful, gliding flight set them apart from the numbers of Comma and Peacock that were on the wing here, while even more new-season Brimstone were nectaring on scattered forest floor carpets of Primrose and Wood Anenome.

In around three hours here today we encountered possibly five Large Tortoiseshell, while there are reputed to be more in other parts of Orlestone Forest. This is not of course my preferred mode of butterflying, which is alone when it is then possible to gain the confidence of and enjoy communion with individual subjects. I was unlikely to attain pictures that then arise of the standard I seek today, given the constraints of being in a jostling group; ie lack of free movement and not wanting to be the one who puts subjects up. Whenever they did go, LT would always fly high and a long way before settling again. But I would not have gained this conversion had I been alone, so that is the trade-off.

The end of February and first week of March offered at first a cold sunny, then exceptionally mild weather windows, and so my attention turned to re-experiencing the annual Common Frog spawning event at north-east Oxford’s Lye Valley LNR (SP547058). But the unseasonal conditions seemed to have caught the amphibians themselves unprepared.

The Friends of Lye Valley volunteer group that maintains this SSSI so excellently (pictured above) first reported frogs on 21st February. The site is just up the road from the supermarket where I shop most regularly, and so ensued four fair-weather visits that yielded just one frog first time around, then nothing further. I became disheartened. Where had they gone and what was happening? Then on 10th I received a call from Ewan saying the frogs had returned en masse over my prior working weekend. Game on!

We met on site next morning. Weather conditions were now much colder again but no matter. There must have been 100 or more Common Frog in the usual ponds, all singing their intent upon propagating the species. The soft chorus of croaking that filled the air was somehow very soothing in what is always a tranquil setting. What a transformation! Last year things were all over when I visited at around this time, and I found only spawn. My previous post herein (see here), containing the complete guide, was rather earlier in the last week of February 2022.

I believe the top right picture is of a male Common Frog and the one below it a female

The above (click to enlarge) are my favourite pictures from today. All are edited, some with creative intent. There were large quantities of spawn in two of the ponds and the juxtaposition of frogs with it in some of the images was something I found quite engaging. Very soon all this will be over for another season. The frogs will disperse again to whence they came across suburban Oxford, while the spawn will remain and hatch. Visitors to Lye Valley are asked not to enter the ponds or allow their dogs to do so, and not to disturb or remove spawn.

“I’m here to see the duck.” Whenever I responded thus as to why I was there, local people all knew what I meant, most having suspected it anyway. It seems that everyone on Texel is aware of the great avian celebrity in their midst, and are a little in awe at the low season boost to the island’s hospitality trade it is causing. Now, on a holiday-paid weekend off from work with a fair weather forecast, I myself had joined the prior flow of more than 10,000 visitors from across the continent and beyond on what is being described as Europe’s biggest ever twitch.

On 13th January news broke of a near-adult (third winter) drake Spectacled Eider amongst a wintering flock of Common Eider off the east coast of the first Friesian island of Texel (see here). This high-Arctic species normally winters in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia, and is very difficult to connect with even in its restricted home range. So the freak occurrence in Holland is most likely a lifetime’s opportunity for any European birder. On the evidence of my own visit recounted herein, interest is unlikely to wane any time soon, and there seems little reason for the bird to move on before the spring. Will it ever get home, who knows?

Not being one for nine-hour sea crossings, my itinerary was a brief evening BA flight from Heathrow, returning at Sunday lunch-time. After a night in a Schiphol airport hotel I collected my hire car early on Saturday morning, then it was a frosty 84km (52 mile) drive north to Den Helder where I took the 10:30 ferry. When I arrived on site (53.079906, 4.896607) a large number of cars were parked on the land side of Lancasterdijk, and upon reaching the crowd my quest was on view in the middle distance offshore.

For my first two connects I asked other birders to find the Spectacled Eider for me in my scope. But after that and with my eye in I relocated it for myself many times over the ensuing three hours, always with a degree of searching. Whenever I found it again the bird stood out from its companions, being noticeably smaller than Common Eider without that other’s elongated head and bill profile, and with it’s own distinctive head pattern. Everyone present was papping away but that did not mean they were getting good results in the morning mist and low sun. Fortunately I am once again indebted to the inestimable Richard (see here) for allowing me to illustrate this post with his own outstanding pictures from an earlier visit.

Common (left) and Spectacled Eider to separate at distance

To put things in perspective, the upper picture (above) is how things actually looked from shore, and that was with my own 300mm lens and a 2x converter. It would be a pity not to include my personal pictorial record of the occasion (above, right) if only to show I really was there. It cost an extra £80 to take my scope in a hold bag, padded out with warm winter clothing, and both were essential. The following image, an attempt to be creative, perhaps further conveys the difficulty of the viewing conditions, though in the afternoon the light was clearer. A constant stream of observers came and went throughout my time there.

Spectacled Eider (see here) breed on Alaskan and far eastern Russian coastal tundra, typically dabbling for food in shallow water. They move a little to the south to form large wintering rafts in gaps in the sea ice between the two continents, at which time they become quite deep underwater divers to 250 feet. The Alaskan population is estimated at between 3 & 4000 nesting pairs, while the Russian contingent is said to be much larger. It was not known exactly where they wintered until the 1990s, with the aid of satellite transmitters tracked by US Fish and Wildlife Service aircraft. With this gain, just the sixth and by far most southerly Western Palearctic record, I have now observed all four Eider species; the others being Common, King (see here) and Steller’s (here).

On Saturday night I stayed at the most excellent Hotel de Lindeboom in Den Burg (see here), 10 minutes from the ferry terminal. The food there was so good I thought the people of Texel must be encouraging “duck tourists” to visit again. The island is of course a world-renowned birding location, and I myself went there a previous time on a group tour in 1988.

My March 2024 run-in with El Montezuma in Spain had rather stemmed my motivation for solo wildlife travel since. But this just seemed too good to miss. If these things are out there within accessible range I will still get up and go for them. I was amongst the first British birders on Fuerteventura for the Dwarf Bittern in December 2017 (see here), one of few to take advantage of the November 2019 Pine Grosbeak irruption in Oslo (here); and now I have done this. I believe I am also just the second Oxon birder to have gone to Texel this time. Little is more fulfilling than these near-continental adventures.

I made a £630 outlay on this experience, but if you don’t buy the ticket you don’t see the show. Over seven days a first county Green-winged Teal, first national Lesser White-fronted Geese (BOU category 5), and now this ultimate European and WestPal list addition have provided a welcome spate of new and different birding. If records like those are available … Woof!!

The subject of this post has this winter shown quite a partiality for eastern English shores. It is an item that has lingered long within the dwindling wish-list of “more regularly occurring” birds I might still seek nationally. And though almost all records are now placed within category E (non-sustaining) of the accepted British list, the recent spate of occurrences has represented a best chance of adding another straggler to my own, non-purist British and life totals.

The latest, 24-strong group has been settled at the site featured herein since 21st, having passed through RSPB Titchwell a day earlier. Today was a sunny, crisp, clear winter’s one such as I value most at this time of year, and so I found the desire and energy to hit the road. In the event the connect was straightforward, a 400 metre walk north along an embankment just past the entrance to RSPB Snettisham, and there these appealing little Geese were: out in the middle-distance inland, serenely going about their business in the as attractive habitat of Ken Hill Marshes (TF 652338). Their small size was readily apparent given the feral Greylags they were associating with. Four what are now named Russian White-fronted Geese were also reported from here on this day a little further to the north, but I didn’t seek them out.

I had previously either been frustrated or dithered in this quest for Lesser White-fronted Goose through much of the current winter. First a family party of seven arrived in Yorkshire at Flamborough Head back on 9th November. The dominant bird of that subsequently itinerant group bears a ring establishing he was released as a juvenile in Swedish Lapland in July 2018, and has since been tracked regularly wintering in Holland. Though it cannot be proven scientifically, his current six companions are unlikely to hail from any other source. In the newer, remarkably large Norfolk group, seven adult birds carry rings from the same re-introduction initiative, whilst five more are first winter birds.

It was thought the Yorkshire LWfGs would over-winter, so given the distance involved  I intended to record them over the Christmas holiday period, before my attention was distracted by the Yellow Warbler in Kent. But by then they had moved on, to suddenly re-appear at Spurn for just two days on 13 and 14^th January. That group has not returned to Blighty since.

LW-f Goose is classed as endangered on the IUCN Red List, with a worldwide population of around 16,000. The likelihood of observing a genuine vagrant in the British Isles is now slight. When I first started birding in the 1980s they were still expected regularly in very small numbers. But such occurrences have dwindled since then in parallel with the species’ long-term decline due to habitat deterioration, human disturbance and shooting. 

The core population breeds in Siberian Russia and over-winters in east Asia. There is also a discernible breeding sub-population of just over100 individuals in Norway. The latter winter at Lake Kerkini in northern Greece and can be connected with on an organized field trip that offers little else in an evolved (for me) sense. It may also be possible to observe them on passage through Hungary and Bulgaria. This year’s mid-winter count of 104 birds is cited as the highest for several years. Another former fragment cluster in Finland became extinct.

Geographically between the two existing populations, a re-introduction scheme in northern Sweden since 1975 has aimed to guard against LW-fG becoming extinct in the Fennoscandia region (see here). This group has maintained numbers of around 15 breeding pairs that usually winter in Germany and Holland. The project’s dynamics are a matter of debate amongst Scandinavian birders, amongst whom some maintain the introduced geese pose a threat to the Norwegian sub-population’s own survival. Others as vigorously oppose such a stance.

All recent British records, if not more plainly escapes from wildfowl collections, are presumed to be from that source. These included, most notably:

• Four birds at North Warren RSPB, Suffolk in 2014 -15 that I failed to connect with
• A juvenile that spent six weeks on Mainland Shetland in 2015
• An individual that ranged quite elusively around Norfolk amongst Brent and Pink-footed flocks through the winter of 2019 /20, without settling in any location for long. I attempted to connect with but dipped it on 10th January (see here)
• A candidate bird at Potter Heigham, Norfolk in April 2019
• An adult at Walpole St Peter, Norfolk in January 2020
• An adult at Oare Marshes, Kent in January 2023
• Another individual of unknown provenance amongst Pink-footed Geese in the Kings Lynn area during the current, 2024/25 winter.

For the RBA gallery of today’s birds see here. And for a detailed species comparison of Greater and Lesser White-fronted Geese see here.

Whilst awaiting any future national occurrence of scientifically proven, wintering individuals from the core Siberian/east Asian, or Norwegian/Kerkini sub-populations, what transpired today must suffice to fulfil my career objective for this species. The only LW-fG I had ever set eyes upon previously was in a pen at WWT Slimbridge, longer ago than I now care to recall.

Footnote: Through to the end of March, 16 more LW-fG from the Swedish scheme were recorded in two groups at a number of north-Norfolk locations. This brought the total number to have wintered in eastern England to 47. The single bird seen around King’s Lynn relocated to Lancashire in early March and looks set to be accepted as a genuine wild vagrant into category A of the British list.

Eager to progress my autumn Waxcap project in the Chilterns, I checked the Bucks Fungus Group sightings page on the opening day of this post. That source contained a picture of a highly attractive and diminutive Waxcap that I had missed on my previous visit to Prestwood Churchyard. More challenging was it presented the green, slimy and shiny emergent phase of that species’ fruiting cycle that I had yet to encounter in the field.

Arriving on site, my first instinct was to check out the Pink Waxcaps of six days earlier. Three had gone over but there were still two emergent items, while the previously noted Smoky Spindles clump lay ruined in a large boot print. My new quest took some time to locate, then it rewarded rather well. Parrot Waxcap (see here) has the particularly appealing quality of morphing through various colour tones during its fruiting cycle. At first the bell-shaped caps are green and slimy, before becoming more rounded as they expand, then turning yellow or orange with brown or purplish tints as the slime washes off.

I had observed orange specimens a year ago at Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens, but now it was the prospect of beholding the especially beguiling green initial phase that had brought me back to Prestwood. The first items I found were nonetheless orange again. I am not a very experienced mycologist, but on both occasions there was just something about this variety that sets it apart from other orange / yellow Waxcaps. In particular, in those first two experiences they seemed more diminutive. This post’s macro studies make them look much bigger than they actually were in the field. Some are tiny, and all have the propensity to entice and enchant in their own quite abstruse manner.

Parrot Waxcaps

Having converted my quest, more as so often were nearby. Moving on from those five orange specimens (pictured above), two pairs and a singleton, my app next ID’d a second, partly ruined group of ochre yellow and white mushrooms (below) as Parrots too. My doubts over accuracy were removed when hidden amongst them I found a first green and yellow slimer (top row, left above). So that was mission accomplished, albeit that the cap of the specimen in question was no bigger than my fourth finger nails.

Yellow and White-toned Parrot Waxcaps

Back at home, upon seeing the pictures in the relevant First Nature link (here), I just had to observe more of those early stages in the fruiting cycle. This is undoubtedly the most subtly engaging Waxcap I have encountered to date, notwithstanding the pink Ballerina’s obvious beauty. So on 15th I re-visited Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens, also in Bucks (SL2 4NZ – SU 977825). A week previously I had found no Waxcaps at all there. Now the central avenue, that is landscaped as eight oblong, tree planted grassed pitches for the interment of ashes, was carpeted with numbers of at least four species; amongst which was a single Parrot Waxcap in the emergent stage (first row, centre above).

The last-named was pale yellow and white again, having lost its green tones and slime, but was nonetheless unmistakable as this option appears consistently to be. A new item for this autumn on the day was Honey Waxcap (below – see here), whilst Butter Waxcap (here) was present again now and a day earlier at Prestwood. I relied on my Picture Mushroom app to identify these various orange and yellow spectrum species, but truly accurate separation may require assessing both cap and stem texture, gill spacing and smell.

Honey Waxcaps (above). Butter, Blackening and Golden (below) all at Stoke Poges

On Wednesday (16th) I opted for an easier day or so I thought, checking out some churchyards close to home to see what they might contain. It culminated in a visit to St Bartholomew’s, Nettlebed (RG9 5RL – SU 698867), that a year ago a respondent to this journal had advised was a good place for fungi. I couldn’t have imagined what I now found … yes, there are Waxcap grasslands in my home county too! Driving out I appreciated how mycology now motivates me in the way that local birding used to, future county ticks aside, even if only for two late autumn months in the year. And with the experience that had just unfolded, I became even more engrossed in this Waxcap project.

Rather larger Parrot Waxcaps than at Prestwood

Several Parrot Waxcap here displayed the distinctive green and yellow tints in each stage of the fruiting cycle (above) that I observed. That set them apart from a second orange/yellow variant, Oily Waxcap (below – see here) that I had recorded once before at Prestwood in 2023. Other records were more Golden, Blackening, Meadow and Snowy. The last named was beginning to erupt at all three sites featured herein, but being white is difficult to obtain satisfactory images of.

Oily Waxcaps

Searching online for other Oxon sites, I could find no references for Nettlebed churchyard, but discovered that Waxcap grasslands had existed historically on Boars Hill to the immediate west of the city. Thursday (17th) had a sunny forecast, so I went to check this out but drew blank. At Matthew Arnold’s Field (SP 484023 – see here) the grass was to my mind too long to pick out low growing mushrooms in. The second cited location along Berkeley Road, with its panoramic vistas over the dreaming spires of Oxford is just too large to contemplate, and the grass there didn’t look much shorter.

So I went back to Nettlebed for seconds, and was now rewarded with an emergent Parrot Waxcap with the deep green hues I had been hoping for through the three previous days (pictured above, left). In a little over an hour on site this individual developed noticeably, growing imperceptibly in size and shedding some of its much-desired greenness (right). Mission was thus completely accomplished, but I still desired as many more studies of these colour-fluid little gems as I might find.

The subtle allure of this favourite Waxcap was now exerting quite a hold over me. But on my next visit to Nettlebed on 22nd Oxon’s possibly only surviving Waxcap grassland had been mowed and almost all of the mushrooms had gone. Large, stately items including a fine group of Parasols and a magnificent Goblet had also been removed for no apparent reason. I contacted those responsible for that site’s upkeep, hoping to engage over preserving the precious and irreplaceable resource in their stewardship, but received no reply.

On my next visit to Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens (24th) there was little new interest along the central avenue. So I surveyed some other areas and was eventually rewarded with a large eruption of emergent Parrot Waxcap at w3w ozone.soft.cards. These were all tiny but offered the interesting shapes pictured below (top row). I hoped they would grow and so came back four days later on 28th seeking studies of larger specimens such as at Nettlebed. In the event they were no larger or more photogenic, but now the darkest-toned subjects encountered so far had appeared amongst them (lead post image).

More Parrot Waxcaps

I had imagined this visit might be my season’s last here, but as I rambled on there was more than enough to still motivate me. There were large quantities of different Waxcaps around this wonderful place, and much more fungal interest besides. Eventually I located a second, good-sized cluster of small, emergent Parrot Waxcap (lower row, above) near the far end of the central avenue, at w3w cycle.plus.packet. This had not been there four days previously.

I next moved on to the neighbouring St Giles churchyard (SL2 4PG – SU 975827) where the seemingly burgeoning Waxcap feast continued. Now three groups of again miniscule Parrots had appeared over the weekend and my picture collection of the species continued to grow. The following are the more interesting images from this further location.

Still more Parrot Waxcaps

As October drew to its close and a new dark season arrived I made a further visit to St Bartholomew, Nettlebed, in company with Ewan on our way to a nearby ancient woodland. The vicar was present but did not wish to engage when I attempted to, making it plain that preserving mushrooms is not a priority when keeping the churchyard tidy. The Waxcaps, though were proving resilient, many more having emerged since the site’s recent peak-season mowing. Golden, Snowy and Slimy were all fruiting anew in good numbers, with one or two Blackening and Parrot; and there were some fine examples of Oily Waxcap (pictured below, left) that I have only recorded here this autumn.

Nettlebed specialty Oily (left) and Spangle (?) Waxcaps

We also found a clump of smaller items in the same colour spectrum that to me just seemed different to other varieties recorded so far in this post. My app was not consistent in identifying them but I hope they are Spangle Waxcap (Hygrocybe insipida – above right), that I had previously seen records of from Prestwood but had yet to encounter the mushroom itself. This one is not covered in my usual sources of First Nature or the now ageing Roger Phillips mushroom bible, so who knows?

More certain is that throughout the above-recounted exercise, crawling around on soggy hands and knees, while performing contortions to capture close-up images of often tiny subjects, has been a totally absorbing activity during which nothing else matters. That is very like butterflying on remote mountainsides of southern Europe. So thank heaven for the two-month extension to the annual non-birding wildlife season that fungi provide.

Last spring I got around to joining Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (ARC – see here) to learn more easily where different herpetora might be observed, and be alerted to relevant field meetings. Since then I have converted three new Amphibians nationally, while the lifelong quest of the almost mythical Smooth Snake lingers ever on. So when the invitation went out to this year’s Members Day I booked onto it in a spirit of exploration and enquiry.

The New Forest Reptile Centre (SO43 7GR – SU 271071) operates in partnership between Forestry England and ARC which have been carrying out refurbishment through the spring and summer of 2024. There are several outdoor concrete pods here (pictured below) that accommodate native herpetora in natural conditions. These facilities, dating originally from the 1970s, allow visitors to closely observe normally scarce and secretive snakes and lizards that are difficult to locate in the wild.

Two recent ecological mishaps have resulted in the loss of most of the centre’s amphibians, firstly an infestation of rats. Before that a Grass Snake in one of the pods took a liking to climbing into others and predating their own occupants, after which the adventurer was promptly returned to the wild. Adder and Smooth Snake are said to be lazier in nature and less inclined to climb. There is now just one of the latter here, a female the hope of experiencing which was a second reason for my own attendance. But on this day she exercised the lady’s prerogative of not putting in an appearance at any stage of proceedings.

The most pleasing opportunity (for me) here was to complete the set of European water (or green) frogs nationally. Edible Frog (pictured above) has been introduced variously across south-eastern England and East Anglia, and now has expanding populations in Surrey and the north of Sussex. The superficially similar, three-species group is taxonomically ambiguous, especially with inter-breeding. Today’s individuals had a yellow-green dorsal stripe like the Pool Frogs I observed at Greenham Common (see here), which Marsh Frogs at Sandwich Bay (here) clearly lacked. My research nonetheless suggests the most reliable means of separation is to measure the length of the hindlegs, presumably in similarly aged individuals. A second differentiator is the size of the ‘meta-tarsal tubercle’, a bulge at the base of the shortest rear toe. No need to go there, that at once reminds me of anal appendages in dragonflies.

The group as a whole is highly vocal and much more closely associated with water than the default British Common Frog, that spends part of its time on land. Edible Frog is currently the only Amphibian remaining at the NFR centre following the recent losses. The biggest individual of three encountered today certainly looked a bumper mouthful for even the errant and now exiled Grass Snake.

I was assured that the two adult Sand Lizard in the next sequence are both males, though as I have previously observed this reptile only in April today’s records lack the bright green flanks of the breeding season recalled from Higher Hyde Heath Heath, Dorset in 2021 (see here) and Frensham Common, Surrey in 2018 (here). Unlike taking pictures of Orchids or fungi, unwanted blades of grass and other intruding vegetation could not be gardened away in these studies. But they do portray how reptiles are more often observed. The images in this post also suffer from blurring caused by netting that covers the pod tops.

Since its formation in June 2009, succeeding the Hepatological Conservation Trust, ARC has taken the lead in British Sand Lizard conservation supported by multiple other partnership bodies. Many of its land purchases for reserves have been of sites already significant for the species, after which habitat is improved, populations are monitored and extra captive-bred stock is released. Climate concerns, predation by vermin and disturbance to egg-laying areas mean only around 5% of hatchlings survive to become adults, and since these lizards cannot disperse far or cross hostile habitats, they do not easily colonise new suitable areas. So re-introducing captive-bred hatchlings has been an effective means of recovering lost range and maintaining wild populations.

Adder has particularly thrived at the centre. Two large adults (pictured above) were showing themselves today, and at this time of year there was also the opportunity to observe recent hatchlings of both that snake and Sand Lizard. These would be no more than a few weeks old. That is something I had not experienced previously in the field, though I have recorded infant Viviparous (or Common) Lizard often enough.

This was an interesting and enjoyable day. I came away armed with information on more sites at which to attempt the holy grail that is Smooth Snake, and two Natterjack Toad projects in Hampshire. But as ever the issue in the wild will be actually setting eyes upon either of those elusive subjects, especially since unlicensed disturbance and picture taking of both is illegal. One way might be to invest a little over £1000 in three days of wining and dining amidst convenience company at a Dorset country house hotel with Naturetrek for the purpose, but that is not my preference. So my best hope must lie in ARC or other wildlife organisations offering field meetings for the purpose as the newer managed sites mature. That is something I will be keeping a keen eye open for in the near future.

Records of my home county’s newest colonizing dragonfly have kept on coming through the first half of August. Since my own first observations at Radley Lakes and Pinkhill Meadow (see here), the most reliable location has been in one part of the Lower Windrush Valley gravel pit complex, with up to seven individuals noted on some days. So that was where I headed to broaden my own experience on the sunny Tuesday morning of 13th.

Tar Lakes (SP 382072 – see here), to the immediate south-east of Witney in west Oxon, is managed both for wildlife and as a recreational resource for local people. Unfortunately, my arrival on site at around 10am coincided with what appeared to be a dog walking peak, which on a hot day in the school holidays rather inevitably meant stick-throwing family groups all around the first lake. Then, hurrying on to where I had read about previous sightings of my quest, I strayed into the neighbouring Tar Farm Linear Fisheries.

The three-lake complex of my intent had matured greatly in habitat terms since previous visits, and these further facilities were entirely new and very samey. On and on I wandered until conceding I was way off course. Horror stories are told in county birding circles of LWV fishery clients’ hostility to optics carriers. But fortunately I was approached by just one helpful angler, who upon being told I was lost steered me in the right direction. And so, approaching midday and passing back into the original area of Tar Lakes, I regained my bearings and now had the place largely to myself.

Feeling far more relaxed given the lack of disturbance, I noted a first male Lesser Emperor chasing off a rival dragonfly in the reedy margin of the first lake’s north-eastern corner. After tracking that for a while I next made a circuit of the second lake, locating another male along the eastern shore. This looked like a good spot for a potential perched picture, and I lingered there a while without success, before going back to the first place where things got interesting. Now there were two males competing for space and hovering nicely at the lake margin, and so I sensed the other opportunity I sought.

It is only very occasionally that I manage to attain flight studies of dragonflies. The above two compare favourably in quality with what has been published in Oxon over recent weeks. Since my own camera is not capable of auto-focusing on small airborne entities, even less their eyes, I have to be satisfied with these results; only the second time I have captured any image of Lesser Emperor. It now remained to go back to Tar Lakes and try for perched pictures, such as have almost always eluded me abroad, as the day warms up. The it has to be said rather drab numbers are just not known for keeping still.

The incentive to re-visit was that I had got much closer to my desired subjects here than at Radley or Pinkhill, while identifying specific locations where they might perch. But two days later (15th) after leaving home in pleasant sunshine, blanket grey stuff awaited me on arrival despite a favourable forecast. Such, as always is insect watching. It remains to discover, since Tar Lakes is just one small portion of extensive former gravel pit workings to the west of Oxford, just how many more Lesser Emperor might await discovery in the area as a whole.