10 Sep 24

Soldiers Ponds

No Ted today, he was being pampered at the groom room, and whilst he was there, I did a bit of shopping at Littlemore, followed by 20 minutes at the Soldiers Pools, before driving back to Westham to pick him up.

Main highlight was a female Adder curled up in the recently cut verge.

Also noted were a pair of Little Grebes feeding youngster/s, a Chiffchaff calling from the reedbeds, plus a female and two male Migrant Hawkers flying around a Horse Chestnut tree.


Birds Recorded:
2 Little Grebe
5 Mallard
5 Moorhen
2 Coot
Herring Gull
Wood Pigeon
Robin
1 Chiffchaff
Magpie
Goldfinch
1 Reed Bunting

This Little Grebe..........

.................had a beakful of small fish.........

................which it was presumably taking to youngster/s hidden in the reedbeds.

Two immature Mallards with a juvenile Moorhen behind them

These two are adult Moorhens

An adult Coot and.................

.............a juvenile.

Reptiles Recorded:
1 Adder

This female Adder was curled up in the recently cut verge, but......

................when this fly landed on her she was off and so were the three Meadow Grasshoppers sat on her.

Dragonflies and Damselflies Recorded:
3 Migrant Hawker

My apologies for dreadful photos, but here we have two male Migrant Hawkers (far left and far right)

In the centre of the frame is a female Migrant Hawker (below) and a male above her.

Bottom of the frame the female Migrant Hawker

And again here.

Butterflies Recorded:
2 Large White
2 Small White

A Small White, keeping a wary eye out for those hawkers

Hoverflies Recorded:
3 Common Dronefly (Eristalis tenax)

These are........

............all Common Droneflies (Eristalis tenax)............

....................on Common Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris)

Flies, Craneflies, Gnats and Midges Recorded:
Flesh Fly (Sarcophaga sp.) - See Adder Photo


Crickets and Grasshoppers Recorded:
3 Meadow Grasshopper (Chorthippus parallelus) - See Adder Photo


Plants:
Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum)

This Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) was fully...........

.............laden with "Conkers", which are the glossy brown seeds found in the protective spiky casing shown above. More on this tree here.

General Shots:

One of the pools at Soldier Pools.