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 conditions turned out to be a wise choice.

I returned to the same area as my last visit to again search the underside of evergreen leaves for overwintering insects. The only find was of more non-biting midges of the family Chironomidae, probably the same species as before. The surprise here was that I located a mating pair on the underside of a Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) leaf. This is presumably very late in the year for mating, as the Chironomid midges overwinter in the larval stage.

On the same cherry laurel I found flower buds already opening, with the most distal on each branch being at the most advanced stage. Ivy (Hedera helix) is now beginning to show clusters of purple fully ripened berries (and they are berries in the true botanical sense). Beware! These are toxic to both humans and dogs.

A rotting tree trunk in the same area had extensive growth of Candlesnuff (Xylaria hypoxylon) fungus and another tree trunk (living – lack of leaves left me confused as to which tree species it is) displayed large amounts of Script Lichen (Graphis scripta s. lat.) on its bark.

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