Iping Common

Lesser Stitchwort Stellaria graminea

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Following Michael Blencowe’s report of Silver-studded Blues emerging at Iping Common I paid it a visit in the vague hope of finding them. I didn’t see one butterfly, although there were plenty of moths. This was my first trip to Iping Common and I will return when the sun shines! It is a fascinating area of heath, bog, ponds, heather and pine woods with some flora and fauna unique to the diminishing heathlands of Britain.

pond covered by Bog Bean (below)

Bog Bean Menyanthes trifoliata 

Common Foxglove Digitalis purpurea

Mouse-ear Hawkweed Pilosella officinarum

young Bracken fronds

Bell Heather Erica cinerea

Heath Bedstraw Galium saxatil

leaves of the Heath Bedstraw

Heath Bedstraw Galium saxatil

Sailor Beetle Cantharis rustica

one of the soldier beetles
Identified using this site: http://www.kerbtier.de/enindex.html

Comfrey Symphytum officinale

A country name for this plant is Knitbone due to a belief in its medicinal healing properties for broken bones. Sue's father gave her a daily drink of a leaf infusion when she broke her leg and she did heal well.

bumble bees at work

Red ants

Tormentil Potentilla tormentilla

Rhododendron

Many-zoned Polypore coriolus versicolor

a bracket fungus which grows on tree stumps

beautiful antennae on this unidentified moth

Ragged Robin Lychnis flos-cuculi

a buttercup

Silverweed Potentilla anserina 

Common Blue at Rewell Wood

foxglove

We visited Rewell Wood this afternoon and saw just one butterfly, a Common Blue. There were plenty of woodland flowers on display.

Common Blue 

Ants and eggs under tarpaulin 

busy bumble bee 

Columbine Aquilegia vulgaris, garden escapee

Silver-ground Carpet moth

foxglove

 unidentified

Common Tormentil Potentilla erecta

Heath Fritillaries at East Blean Wood

Heath Fritillary

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Yesterday I visited East Blean Wood near Canterbury to see the Heath Fritillary which emerged a week ago. As I parked I could see a photographer at work next to the fence. The clearing next to the car park was teeming with more fritillaries than I have seen in one place before. I observed six tumbling in an aerial group, mating pairs and half a dozen nectaring on the same head of bramble flowers. I was told that last year cow wheat, the larval food plant, was abundant in a nearby clearing. Then the HFs were flying in clouds but that this year cow wheat was absent from the clearing and so were the Heath Fritillaries.

mating pair

damselfly

Common Cow-wheat Melampyrum pratense, larval food plant of the Heath Fritillary

mating pair

Lacewing

ants harvesting black fly

ant nest

poppy in car park

The Heath Fritillaries were nectaring on the ox-eye daisies in the car park

ant nest

clearing by the car park

where most of the Heath Fritillaries were found

mound in the car park covered by ox-eye daisies