Woodlife Trails

I’ve set myself a bit of a challenge in the last few weeks. Instead of the normal pictures of spring, I wanted to photograph one species of each category of mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile, wildflower, butterfly in a spring setting, but one of each species that you don’t see too often. I gave myself a deadline of today.

Initially, I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but looking back, I’ve actually not done too bad. Unfortunately, the only one I couldn’t ‘collect’ was the reptile. The weather just hasn’t been warm enough for them to sun themselves. It’s still a little too early for dragonflies around this area as well.

I was worried that I would be stuck with the usual picture of a deer for the mammal category until, as luck would have it, we had a visitor to the garden yesterday and I managed to snap this little Bank vole eating some seeds.

The piece de resistance came when I photographed what I thought was a slightly different form of cowslip in Park Woods. When I showed it to our wildflower expert from Essex Wildlife Trust, he identified it as an oxlip. This is now a scarce flower and only found in this area of the East of England. The flowers are bigger and paler than the cowslip and haven’t got the predominant red dots inside the flower. I’ve since identified quite a few patches around the locality.

Erratum: The previously posted picture was of a cowslip which is very similar. The picture above is definitely an oxlip.

I was lucky to photograph this Sawfly lifting off from some Lesser stitchwort and together with the ladybirds, I deemed that to satisfy the criteria for the insect category.

The pendulous sedge isn’t at all scarce but is a good indicator of ancient woodland.

As for the choice of birds, I opted for this newly hatched wren. The nest has been made inside an unused external electrical box. Don’t worry, the electricity is off.

I’ve combined amphibians and pond life. There’s literally thousands of tadpoles in this large puddle.

I saw this Common frog not too far from the puddle. I think it’s still quite young and was very pale.

Not a great picture of a Speckled wood butterfly.

Bill and I have had great fun on this quest. Most of the time he’s come along and seems to have developed a nose for unusual events.

He spotted this young rook that had fallen out of the rookery.

If the rook remains hidden, he may well stay out of the foxes reach until he’s strong enough to fly.

Thanks for the visit.