Thursley Common.

After my recent morning session with the Silver-washed Fritillary's at Bookham Common I decided to head over to the acid lowland heath at Thursley Common and did a circuit of the boardwalk to check out the wildlife.

Avian activity around midday was very quiet apart from a distant perched Stonechat plus Mallard with chicks and a pair of Tufted Ducks on the pools.

 While searching the water I located an Emperor Dragonfly ovipositing amongst the vegetation.

Due to the warmer conditions a few of species were taking advantage of the boardwalk to rest and soak up some limited sunshine including a large number of Common Blue Damselflies .....

 .... and numerous male Black-tailed Skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum). It is easy to get these confused with a Keeled Skimmer (see below) but the Black-tailed has a dark brown-black pterostigma.

I only managed to find one male Keeled Skimmer (Orthetrum coerulescens) perched above the water. Distinguished from the Black-tailed by the totally blue abdomen; the parallel light markings behind the head plus the obvious yellow pterostigma.

Numerous Common Lizards were also basking on the boardwalk and I'm always intrigued to see how close I can get by slowly creeping towards them before they scurry away into hiding.

Other sightings included Four-spotted Chasers, Blue-tailed Damsels, Great-spotted Woodpecker, a single Swallow, a few high flying Swifts and a pair of Hobbys made a brief foray over the pools.   FAB.

Bookham Common.

While I was waiting on Bookham Common for the Silver-washed Frits to appear (see previous post) a few other species kept me entertained.

 Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)

 Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus)

 Comma (Polygonia c-album)

 An immature female Beautiful Demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo). Note the very distinctive white pseudo-pterostigma near the tip of each wing.

 Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa)

Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum). Distinguished from the Common Darter by the totally black legs and lack of a darker middle segment on the side of the thorax.
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 Bumble Bee (Bombus hortorum)

And then just like the Bee it was time for me for to move on to pastures new ... an afternoon visit to Thursley Common where the insect life was subtly different. (Details to follow soon).

Wherever you are ..... have an interesting wildlife weekend (if the weather permits!) ..... FAB.

Silver-washed Fritillary.

A hunch paid off today. With an improvement in the weather I headed over to my favourite 'butterfly glade' on Bookham Common this morning and although the initial sightings were high above in the leaf canopy once the sun broke through a few male Silver-washed Fritillarys (Argynnis paphia) eventually decided to descend upon one of their favourite nectar sources.

Other butterfly sightings included Speckled Wood, Meadow Brown, Ringlet, Comma, Large Skipper plus two or three high flying White Admirals but no sign of any Purple Emperors. Common Blue Damselflies were around in good numbers together with Broad-bodied Chasers and a female Ruddy Darter.  FAB.