WILDLIFE
REPORTS
27
June 2019
Painted
Lady Butterfly
Several
hundred Pyramidal Orchids
were the notable feature of the verges of the cyclepath
between Old Shoreham and Dacre Gardens (Upper Beeding) where there
were the first flowers for this year
of
Purple Toadflax,
Perforate
St. John's Wort,
Burdock,
Tufted
Vetch and the small Self-heal.
Six species of butterfly included
two faded Painted Ladies, a
fresh Comma
and at least three of my first Ringlets
of the year.
Full
Butterfly Report
Illustrated
Flora Report
26
June 2019
Viper's
Bugloss had taken over as the dominant
plant
on the shingle above the high
tide ridge on Shoreham
Beach West, its blue spikes exceeding
all the other vegetation by mass. On a humid
breezy afternoon, on the Widewater
flood plain, one spike
was visited by my first definite Painted
Lady Butterfly of the year.
25
June 2019
Kidney
Vetch, Biting Stonecrop, Hare's Foot Clover,
Childing
Pink
Melilot,
Black Horehound
Silver
Sands, Shoreham Beach
There
were well over a hundred Childing Pink
flowers
amongst the Hare's Foot Clover
on Silver Sands,
Shoreham
Beach.
Great Lettuce and Fennel was growing
nearby, but had not yet flowered.
24
June 2019
Marbled
White
It
was cloudy and the overcast southern road
verge of Slonk Hill was shaded by the
trees.
What remained of the open grass meadow was scattered with Ox-eye
Daisies, Common
Spotted Orchids and Rough
Hawkbits. There were no purple
flowers
for the few active Marbled Whites Butterflies
to visit. Male Meadow Brown
Butterflies were frequently disturbed
and I also caught a fleeting glimpse of a probable Painted
Lady.
Adur
Butterfly List 2019
22
June 2019
Roesel's
Bush-cricket,
Metrioptera
roeselii
Adur
Recreation Ground
A cricket
was spotted amongst the long grasses and nettles on Adur
Recreation Ground.
At
first it was dismissed as just one of the four species of grasshopper
found in Shoreham, until the photograph of the long antennae revealed it
to be a cricket, probably the previously unrecorded (in Shoreham) Roesel's
Bush-cricket, Metrioptera
roeselii.
19
June 2019
Narrow-bordered
Five-spot Burnet Moth, Meadow Brown on
Greater
Knapweed
Large
Skipper
Upper
Mill Hill
It
was too cool for active butterflies
and they had to be disturbed from their shelter in the afternoon on the
upper part of Mill Hill. it was a notable
visit for my first of the year Narrow-bordered
Five-spot Burnet Moth and my first two
Large
Skippers.
Full
Butterfly Report
5 June
2019
Two
dragonflies
darted rapidly to and fro over the Yellow
Water Lily covered main pond at Woods
Mill, with
no inclination to pause for a photograph or come close enough to make identification
definite. One was unmistakably a male Broad-bodied
Chaser but the other one was slimmer
with a brown and black appearance and I best guess this dragonfly as my
first ever Four-spotted Chaser,
Libellula
quadrimaculata.
3 June
2019
Bee
Orchid, Southern Marsh Orchid, Common
Spotted Orchids
Adur
Orchids
2 June
2019
Summer
arrived with the first orchids
in flower
on the eastern sunnier verges of the Downs
Link Cyclepath between Erringham Gap and the disused Cement Works.
Flowers seen in amongst the abundant Ox-eye
Daisies for the first time this year included
the natives Common Spotted Orchid
and Yellow Rattle,
the alien Dotted Loosestrife. I
cursorily looked for Bee Orchids
without success, but I did find a budding Pyramidal
Orchid.
Common
Blue Butterflies were first seen on the
shadier verges on a sunny midday, but only a few actually seen. A first
of the summer Meadow Brown
Butterfly was clearly spotted on the sunnier
verge of the Downs Link Cyclepath near the disused Cement Works. A definite
Green-veined White visited
the abundant Ox-eye Daisies on
the cyclepath verges north of the Tollbridge.
A Holly Blue Butterfly
fluttered around my tiny front garden in Shoreham.
LINKS
June
2018 Reports
Shoreham
Weather 2019
EasyTide
(Shoreham)
Adur
Nature Notes 2013 |
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