Peter Jones Wildlife blog

Originally shared by Peter Jones Plenty of Orchids this week, with hundreds of Common Spotted and a few Chalk Fragrant on Pewsey Downs, and a nice assortment of Bee, Common Spotted, Pyramidal, and Greater Butterfly at Collard Hill. https://photos.app.goo.gl/PvSiS6XtFHfGPAb39

Originally shared by Peter Jones Plenty of Orchids around, a few hundred Heath Spotted in the New Forest during my Reptile Survey a week or so ago.

I've renamed this collection to include wild flowers and plants seen in Hampshire and the UK mainly. This should breathe some new life into the collection as I see a lot more flowers than fungi!

Spent a hot Sunday afternoon on a Nature reserve near Alton, which was packed with Orchids. Common Spotted and Pyramidal were most numerous, plus a small number of Fragrant Orchids. New species for me were Common Twayblade, which were in decent numbers, a Fly OPrchid which was sadly just past it's best, plus the tiny Musk Orchid, which is about 2 inches high, and the similarly diminutive Frog Orchid. Two other Orchid watchers kindly showed me the Fly and the Frog. I'd have never found them on my own! https://photos.app.goo.gl/zRZ6SVWNtNuY3GCi9

Ventured into Devon through the week to hopefully catch up with three new Butterfly species for me. All so rare, that realistically you have to travel to known colonies to see them. Heddon Valley, is managed for High Brown Fritillary, and I eventually saw a handful. Difficult at first to nail the key features, but managed to get photos verifying the extra row of underwing spots, and the off-centre dot on the upperwing. Very smart Butterflies. I also saw a Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary, Smal Copper, and Green Hairstreak. On to Haddon Hill, where the Heath Fritillaries were quite abundant, managed 1 cracking photo of a pretty smart individual, which was lucky, as they weren't the easiest to photrograph. Finished off at Collard Hill. Plenty of Large Blues at this introduction site, and also Common Blue (Beware!), Painted Lady, and Small Tortoiseshell. Not often you get a 100% success rate when "twitching"! https://photos.app.goo.gl/GoGwrJfWcm1CJC957

A failed attempt for Common Clubtail Dragonfly on the River Thames, but I was treated to nice views of a Little Owl hunting. Don't see many in the Test Valley, they are about, but not often as blatant as this one.

A Narrow-bordered five-spot Burnet Moth, in Brittany

The most memorable New Forest Reptile survey I have done so far, this morning. An Adder on top of one of the survey refuge sheets gave me good photos, while I decided how I'm supposed to look underneath the sheet! Fortunately, the snake moved on. Also, my first Smooth Snake, a young one only about 15 cm long, and a first for the survey area, which was a big surprise. 3 Grass Snake, Common Lizard and Slow Worm too, so 5 out of the 6 native Reptile species seen in one morning. Also Dartford Warblers and Nightjar.

A nice surprise in the garden yesterday as a female Demoiselle landed briefly in our small apple tree, before flying up into Wysteria where I got the photo. Unlike the males, female Demoiselles are pretty difficult to identify. I'm pretty sure, with the brown wings, that this is a Female Beautiful Demoiselle. Nearest population of this species, that I know of is about a mile down the stream which runs past the house. They would be more than welcome to colonise the stream outside our house! Also, two Large Red Damselflies were in the garden yesterday.

Water Vole in a small stream in Campsite, Brittany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL9vcv0A_Ek&feature=share

Have just returned from a family holiday in Carantec, Brittany. Spent some time searching for wildlife around the campsite, which was fairly intensely farmed, with a couple of small lakes, streams, and seashore. The weather was also pretty changeable which made things difficult, but I found a small selection of birds and insects throughout the week. Actually, the best of the wildlife was seen on the round trip to and from France.. a Nightjar over the car park at Newhaven just after dusk was a super start to the week, and Bottlenose Dolphins on the return ferry (out of St. Malo were also pretty good) Best of the birds in Brittany were Serin, Turtle Dove, Med Gulls, and Cetti's Warbler. Butterflies were fairly thin on the ground with Red Admiral, Painted Lady and Speckled Wood the most numerous. A stream running thru the fairly large campsite had a family of Water Voles. I think we were the only people who saw them out of the dozens of other tourists! The nearby lake had both Marsh F