A mostly cloudy, humid and rather windy morning. Counting the butterflies today was easy – 3 Small Heath and just one each of Small Copper, Speckled Wood and Common Blue.

The only other insect of note was a 4^th instar nymph of the Green Shieldbug (Palomena prasina) on a Buckthorn leaf.

Otherwise, my focus today was on plants and my first fungus of the season. One patch of grass caught my attention as it stood out from its background. I believe this to be Wood Small-reed (Calamagrostis epigejos), my first record of this one.  

Have you ever seen hairy rose hips? Until today I thought that the wild roses on the Downs are either Dog Rose (Rosa canina) or Sweet Brier (Rosa rubiginosa), however finding those hairy rose hips I believe I can now add Apple Rose (Rosa villosa) to the list. Neither of the two more common wild roses have hairy hips, although there are some other relatively uncommon Rosa species with which Apple Rose could be confused.

My first mushroom of the season is definitely a bolete, as it has a spongy layer of pores on the underside of its cap instead of gills. The yellow colour of this spongy pore layer suggests that this may be a Rooting Bolete (Caloboletus radicans).

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