Wednesday, 25 Feb 2026
The warmer weather continues and has coaxed more insects into awakening from their winter slumber. After the first sighting of the year yesterday of a single Brimstone butterfly my tally today was 14. Also found were several active Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata), all on brambles. Turning over some of the bramble leaves I spotted what […]
Thursday, 26 Feb 2026
A windy day so I kept mainly within the woodland and continued with my recent tactic of searching under loose bark on rotting trunks and branches. Very obvious on the outer surface of the bark on one rotting Silver Birch bough was the fungus Birch Woodwart (Jackrogersella multiformis). Under bark that had spalled off a […]
Friday, 27 Feb 2026
Another windy day, so another search of the woodland floor for something of interest. In one small area I turned over several large pieces of bark and branches lying in the leaf litter to uncover quite a mix of gastropods and arthropods without an insect among them. Among the gastropods were several Cellar Snail (Oxychilus cellarius), […]
Thursday, 1 Jan 2026
A Happy New Year to you all! And a frosty one on Banstead Downs, although by the time I got out for a walk the frost was lingering only in a few shady spots, but I managed to get shots of frost encrusting the leaves of a young Red Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum) and covering a […]
Friday, 2 Jan 2026
At the same point that I had Roe Deer run across the track in front of me just three days ago I had a fox dash across this morning. After yesterday’s frosty start to the New Year it was something much more uncommon on the common today. A pre-dawn snowstorm had dumped a good 2 […]
Tuesday, 6 Jan 2026
As the day-time temperatures since the snow four days ago have stayed only just above freezing, but with the wind-chill factor taken into account below freezing, a lot of that snow is still present. After a really heavy frost and a low of -6°C last night it is frozen, so my morning walk was just […]
Saturday, 10 Jan 2026
Another cold day, but after some persisent rain in the past couple of days all the snow and ice is gone. So, it was back to a search of the woodland for something of interest. Fallen birch trunks and branches proved most profitable, with four photo opportunities. Removing a loose flap of bark on one […]
Friday, 16 Jan 2026
After a second photo-less walk this year, two days ago, but for another jelly fungus today might have been the same. That jelly fungus was found on a dead oak trunk and is possibly Yellow Brain (Tremella mesenterica). […]
Monday, 19 Jan 2026
Just as on my last walk, but for some photogenic fungus my cameras would have remained in my shoulder bag. Today it was Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) found both on a dead moss-covered silver birch stump and a dead branch. […]
Tuesday, 20 Jan 2026
Well, my walk began today with a train ride. Bit of a cheat, but I wanted to get down to the south-western corner of Banstead Downs, an area that I don’t visit too often. So, I hopped onto the train at Belmont and got off one stop down the line at Banstead. Leaving the station […]
Saturday, 24 Jan 2026
Today was lichen day. Returning to the tree mentioned in my last post on which I found the Whitewash Lichen I focussed my attention on some of the other lichens present. One of them is a green foliose lichen probably of the family Parmeliaceae and possibly a Parmotrema species. Another could well be Gold Dust […]
Wednesday, 28 Jan 2026
After 3 days of rain during Storm Chandra the underfoot conditions on the paths on the Downs are extremely muddy and slippery, so a walk on the leaf litter in the woodland solved that problem. It also meant that my focus was again very much on lichens and fungi. As always with these there is […]
Thursday, 29 Jan 2026
Another day, more fungi photos. I am reasonably confident of my ID for two of them, Hairy Bracket (Trametes hirsuta) found on a rotting twig of hawthorn or blackthorn and Crimped Gill (Plicaturopsis crispa) found on a fallen birch branch. One I have less confidence with is Cellar Fungus/Wet Rot (Coniophora puteana) while another two I make […]
Friday, 30 Jan 2026
Got lucky and had a dry early afternoon walk (but that’s not underfoot) free from the unpredictable showers of today. The focus was still on fungi. Today’s finds included Netted Crust Fungus (Byssomerulius corium) on a dead ivy vine and Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) on a dead branch. A dead oak tree with a double […]
Saturday, 31 Jan 2026
A lovely sunny afternoon. The first thing that attracted my attention today was a foraging flock of Redwing (Turdus iliacus) in the tree canopy of the woodland adjacent to Downs Road. This is our smallest member of the thrush family (Turdidae) and a winter visitor. Crossing Sutton Road and entering the clearing there I encountered […]
Tuesday, 2 Dec 2025
After the very wet weather of the past few days, the ground on the Downs is saturated and there are puddles of water on many of the paths, something not seen too often during the summer. I had decided to retire my trainers and break out my sturdy hiking boots, which given the squelchy underfoot […]
Wednesday, 3 Dec 2025
Another search today for overwintering insects and yet more Birch Catkin Bugs (Kleidocerys resedae) found. It would seem that a favourite place for them to congregate is on the terminal leaf buds of Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) trees as this is where I found them on at least a dozen different sycamores, having first discovered them […]
Friday, 5 Dec 2025
It was a shorter walk than usual today as I wanted to get back to a spot where I had taken a photo 2 days ago to get better images of the subject of the photo, but more of that later. Along the way I discovered a Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) that looked as if […]
Saturday, 6 Dec 2025
Leaf litter and dead branches and twigs seem to be the place to find things now. So, I found a fallen tree with a large piece of loose bark and gently prised it off wondering what I might find (I did put the bark back afterwards as carefully as possible). There was an immediate frenzied […]
Wednesday, 10 Dec 2025
Damper and damper, even the leaf litter in the woodland is now distinctly soggy. I was only just onto the Downs today when I made my first discovery. Searching the underside of ivy leaves for anything of interest I found the pupa of a hoverfly (Syrphidae sp.) in plain sight on the upper surface of […]