Summer camping in the woods

Well, the British Summer has been wetter than usual, but this week we managed to get a couple of days off to coincide with some sunshine, and went to camp in the woods for a night...

This was the first time we'd both been camping there since I got a new phone, so we took advantage of it to set up a solar-powered woodland wifi hotspot, so Tracy could use her ipod and keep up to date on facebook!

We had a great dinner, cooked mostly on the BBQ:

Using our own charcoal of course

Here's the end result, including sweetcorn, chicken kebabs and halloumi cheese!

Of course, for taking photos of food I should really be using a new iPhone 5... :-)

After dinner we settled down around the fire for the evening...

As usual on a first night sleeping in the woods, we woke up early. As it was sunny, I wandered around getting some photos of the sun coming up...

Later in the morning we went to watch the wildlife. There were several flocks of a variety of small birds moving through the wood, though it's hard to get photos of them at this time of year, due to the leaves on the trees. I managed to catch this Robin briefly:

and then got several of a Treecreeper preening:

I also got these pictures, which at first I had thought were of the treecreeper too, but on closer examination I think they might be something else, though I'm not sure what...

Lots of insects around too, like this Red Admiral butterfly:

A Small White:

A Silver Y moth (thanks to Heather for the ID)

Loads of dragonflies:

and lots of bumble bees too:

When we were packing up the tent, we also rescued this cricket(?) from getting squashed:

and I found this weird insect, which looks like a bit of algae off a tree, trying to eat me:

And finally, insects are of course food for spiders...

Mike

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Attack of the butterflies!

Yes, really, look - here's one going for another!
OK, maybe they were courting, but there was certainly some chasing going on!
It's a Green Veined White (thanks to Steve Wheatley of Butterfly Conservation for help with the ID).

Anyway, the butterfly I was most pleased to see is not rare, it's just one I've never seen before in the wood: the Painted Lady
These were taken out in the wayleave, where there's the combination of lots of sunlight and also Bluebells. I guess when the Bluebells finish soon there'll be other flowers out for them to feed on. Also out there were several Orange Tips. Again not rare, but very striking:
A quick mention must go to the Speckled Yellow Moth - there's lots of these around in the wayleave, but I like this photo as you can see its eyes clearly, and they look different to normal butterfly eyes I think (click on the picture for a larger version):
In the same patch was a Brimstone - I can get pictures of them now I know where they are feeding!
Further down the wayleave were several Small WhitesThey seemed to prefer the Blue Bugle to the Bluebells:
I like the last one, where you can see its proboscis going into the flower to get some nectar.

Here's a couple of pictures of a Large White. They're not particularly good photos, but I wanted to show the different markings to the Small White. They all look very similar from a distance, but once you know what you're looking for you can tell them apart (we're still learning though...).
And finally, the Speckled Wood, which is enjoying flying around the edges of where we coppiced last winter:
Several types of White are also deep inside the wood now, thanks to our wildlife corridor, as is the Brimstone, Comma and Peacock.

That's all for now, another post tomorrow to finish off...

Mike

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Badgers and firewood

I had my friend Alex visiting today. We cycled down to the beach in the morning, and then took lunch up to the wood, where I sawed up a couple of birch logs and then Alex tried out the maul - I think he'll be buying one!
We filled the wheelbarrow and then emptied it into Alex's car - he'll be burning it this winter (the wood, not the car). Then we went off on a walk around the woods to look at the wildlife...

Plenty of butterflies in the wayleave, even though it was cloudy. I got a picture of this Small White (I think):
Over in Sweep Wood we saw an old badger sett:

but what caught my attention was the new digging, it looks the badgers have moved back in:
They weren't the only things digging - there were moles too (apologies for the flash photo):
It might be interesting to go out and spy on the badgers one evening...

We're not at the wood tomorrow - out all day at the SWOG meeting.

Mike

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