A blisteringly hot Sunday, which I don’t mind at all – I love the heat – or, if you are a fan of The Fast Show, it was scorchio! For much of the day though the woods offered cooler shade. We had covered this area near Reading before, in 2021, but the setts are especially impressive here and there was a lot of other wildlife to enjoy, including Roe and Muntjac Deer.
This was identified as Saslify by one member of the group who has it in his garden (the seedhead is much too big for a Dandelion).
Common Hogweed or Cow Parsnip below.
Two Common Red Soldier Beetles were busy mating on it.
This is Greater Knapweed or Centaurea Scabiosa:
Then Field Scabious with a Thick-legged Flower Beetle, or Swollen-thighed Beetle, Oedemera nobilis. I had only first noticed and identified one of these very recently, see: The Kennet & Avon Canal part IX – Animal Wild
As is often the way, once you have seen one, you don’t stop seeing them.
An impressive Nursery Web Spider, its body alone as big as the top half of a human thumb:
A cheerful poppy:
Southern Marsh Orchid:
I think this is barley. A gorgeous golden colour but the field was massive and hedgeless and wildlife was only present around its edges.
I think these are White-tailed Bumblebees, Bombus lucorum, but they could be Buff-tailed workers, Bombus terrestris. The queen Buff-tailed actually has a buff tail whilst those of the males are apparently “buff tinged”. Those of the workers are white. It is far beyond me to distinguish one from the other.
Lots of butterflies today too, including Skippers, Small Coppers and Marbled Whites who seem to be having a good year. And we heard Skylarks and Garden Warblers.
Most of us had never seen this before, an exposed collapsed tunnel, part of a badger sett. A rare insight.
We think badgers had predated this ruined wasps’ nest – only a few, very angry wasps remained.
We were told that foxes and badgers dig differently and so the larger rocks than we usually see indicate the work of a fox. Also the hole is a bit small and not the right shape for badgers:
This is Wilder’s Folly, the first photograph from 2021, the other from Sunday, the tower now topped with greenery.
It’s also known as Pincent’s Kiln, Nunhide Tower and Flint’s Folly. It was built by Reverend Henry Wilder in 1769 while he was courting Joan Thoyts, younger sister of John Thoyts of Sulhamstead House. How romantic. It was located so as to be visible from Wilder’s house and the Thoyts’. The two married that year and had eleven children. There was an open ground-level arcade, and a wooden staircase leading to a painted first floor room. Other features included glazed ogive or arched windows and a flat lead roof. In the late nineteenth century the windows were bricked up and the tower became a dovecote and we could see doves in residence still (you can make one out in the second photo).
Leave a Reply