Exploring Chambers Farm Wood

Another weekend, another opportunity to go butterfly hunting

After last weeks 'expedition' all the way up to the vast wilderness of North Yorkshire, this week we opted for something a little closer to home... less time spent travelling, and more of an opportunity for a lay-in

it is the weekend after all!

This weeks location was Chambers Farm Wood, a great little nature reserve not least as it is a brilliant example of ancient woodland (the trees have been left undisturbed for over 600 years). So much in the UK has been chopped down and replanted, there are very few places like this.

And all of those years being left alone means the ecosystem is rich in variety with lots of different and interesting invertebrates to be seen. It is also one of the few places where the Marsh Fritillary butterfly is well established.

With the reserve being so local to us, we had often visted in the past and had already seen those Butterflies, but it had been a while and we though it was high we returned to see them again.

thinking about it, it might be nearly 3 years since we came here, partly due to the covid restrictions, and partly due to the road to the reserve being closed for resurfacing

Definitely time to check it out again.

First stop was to check out the Butterfly Garden...

This is a small space managed by volunteers/members of the local Butterfly Conservation group. Lots of different 'butterfly friendly' plants and flowers are grown here, such as this Wallflower which was one of the few to be open. Its still a bit early for butterflies here as its only late Spring, and most of the plants in the garden will flower later on.

With not much to see, we headed off into the wood itself...

Nice and peaceful while walking under the trees...

,,,although the dark and gloomy conditions were hard work from a photography perspective.

These little blue flowers were quite pretty. I thought they were a type of Speedwell initially, but now I'm not so sure.

Sawfly - Tenthredo maculata (possibly...)

While my partner wandered of up ahead, I spotted this wasp-like insect. It is actually a Sawfly (from the Symphyta order), and can be thought of as a type of primitive Wasp, or the family that Wasps eventually evolved from.

Don't be fooled but the yellow/black markings, these are harmless to humans.

Next up was the first butterfly of the day

A Speckled Wood, sat in the sunshine.

After a few warm days, todays walk was on the cooler side. We worried it might mean the butterflies were not active, but instead it meant they were more likely to be found trying to warm up in the week sunshine.

So that was a plus lol!

We carried on around the path... head down looking at the leaves for insects, pointing out different species to each other.

I found this Red-headed Cardinal Beetle

And a little 'long horn' moth - Adela reamurella

The long horns of the name actually refer to those super long antennae, and fun fact... I can tell this is the female, as the males antenae are nearly 3 times as long

I'm not kidding, the males look ridiculous!

ahem, where were we...?

Ah yes... while I was faffing around with the little moth, my partner called me over to where she was stood, and proudly showed me this little Beetle.

This was cool. I'd never seen this in the flesh before, but I had seen pictures online, and in books and so I knew exactly what it was:

A Leaf-roller Weevil!

And as a helpful clue, it was found on a leaf belong to a Hazel Tree, so that would make it a Hazel Leaf-roller Weevil (Apoderus coryli)

sometimes this identification business is really easy!

Such a wierd and interesting shape with its elongated 'neck' and small head.

This was the highlight of my day so far, its always exciting to stumble across something new. After I took a million pictures of it, we headed round the corner where path through the trees opened up into a reasonably sized meadow.

This is Little Scrubs meadow, and is the site of those Marsh Fritillary butterflies that we were hoping to see... I'm sure we'll see some soon enough, so slowly and carefully we made our way along the grass 'path' to see what turned up.

Well for starters a meadow generally has plenty of flowers:

Ragged Robin - Lychnis flos-cuculi

Common Spotted Orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii

Hawthorn - Crataegus monogyna

And of plenty of inverts' to check out, like this little Bush Cricket Nymph

And then a smart looking tortrix moth. I've never see one with these markings, so thought it would be easy to ID... turns out there are at least 6 species that looks similar to this.

I've resorted to asking in a local moth group on facebook in case anyone has a clue - I've gone with Cochylidia rupicola for now!

A few more invertebrates:

A type of Soldier Beetle - Cantharis sp

And then a Wolf Spider - Pardosa sp. This is a female carrying a bundle of her eggs behind her.

And then finally, the main attraction.

We spotted a couple of flashes of orange whizz past us, and then one of them circled around and dived into the vegetation... he looked quite still, so I very carefully crept towards it to try to get a closer shot.

...et voilà !

The last I had seen these was over 4 years ago, and they were just as gorgeous as I remembered. Back then there were hundreds to be seen, whereas today there were less than 10, mostly due to the weather I'm guessing as it was rather cool and cloudy on the day we went out.

After we both got some pictures we were happy with, it was time to head back

We were still pointing different things to each other, like this Thick-legged flower beetle (Oedemera nobilis)

And then this caterpillar, which I think is the larva of the Twin-spotted Quaker Moth

And we found a group (a clump, a gathering?) of small black caterpillars.

They look like the caterpillars of the Marsh Fritilary Butterfly, but that can't be right as the adult form is out now. These would either be 2 months late, or 2 months early. A guess is maybe a Peacock Butterfly? but that doesn't completely fit either.

'tis a mystery...

And that's the thing really, whenever we head out we never know quite what we'll see. And I can guarantee that if we came here next week, we would see completely different stuff... we might see a pretty butterfly, a funky little Weevil, or some mysterious caterpillars

Speaking of which, we'll be heading of to Scotland in 9 days time*, and I know for a fact that we'll see some some fascinating and amazing stuff up there too

*yes, I know, I've already mentioned the upcoming trip to Scotland in several posts now... I'm just super excited!

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