Thursley (17 June)

Eight members met in the Moat Pond Car Park under mainly clear skies with forecast temperatures of 27 degrees. Being 10 o’clock we decided to break with tradition and walk an anti-clockwise route to try to time our arrival at Pudmore Ponds around midday when there would be a better chance of hobby and dragonfly activity. Given the expected heat we also opted for a shorter walk than previously, past the Parish Field, around the back of Shrike Hill and onto the boardwalk.

Unfortunately, there’s been no reports of Colin the cuckoo this year, having been a Spring fixture for the last eight years, which isn’t too surprising as the oldest officially recorded common cuckoo was just under seven years of age.

As we left the car park we could hear a common redstart singing from one of the trees around Moat Pond and we were soon having excellent scope views of it. We then followed the bridlepath away from the pond and quickly picked up a woodlark on the telegraph wires which remained in situ long enough for everybody to have a good look and it even gave a couple of short bursts of subsong. This was followed by a second bird which showed the striking black and white pattern on the folded wing. A Dartford warbler then got in on the act, showing well in a low tree and remaining in view, enabling everyone to see it.

A little further along the bridlepath we could hear a tree pipit singing and although it was deceptively difficult to see, it was eventually pinned down and after several attempts to describe its exact location, everybody saw it.

Some small ‘blue’ butterflies then attracted our attention and, after consulting apps and photos, were deemed to be silver studded blues. A singing willow warbler and the relocated tree pipit then took our attention along with several unidentified dragonflies. A small/medium sized bird with an undulating flight was picked up flying towards us and we all, with one accord, thought it was a great spotted woodpecker but, as it came closer and then flew over us it clearly showed a short tail and we realised it was another woodlark. As we moved towards the Parish Field we came across our fourth woodlark which was in a small tree and nicely showed the white ‘V’ on the back of its head, where the supecilia meet and there was a second tree pipit singing in the same area, which eventually showed us it’s parachute display flight.

We detoured slightly through the shade of the trees along the front of the Parish Field and came across a calling willow warbler which demonstrated its disyllabic call; nicely contrasting with the many monosyllabic chiff-chaff calls we could hear. Another couple of tree pipits were heard singing on the way to the boardwalk and once there we soon saw good numbers of dragonflies. Unusually a skylark gave us a full rendition of its song whilst perched in a small dead tree, allowing excellent views and saving us all from cricking our necks peering into the clouds.

Arriving at Pudmore Pond there were quite a few photographers on site but despite some of them having been there for several hours, no hobbys had been seen. There were however large numbers of dragonflies and damselflies including many four spotted chasers, black tailed and keeled skimmers and azure and large red damselflies. Bird wise there were a pair of teal, a pair of tufted ducks, moorhens and a couple of juvenile pied wagtails. After twenty minutes or so we decided to head back up the boardwalk to the car park but after a couple of minutes a hobby was spotted in the distance and was watched for a few minutes but it didn’t ever come very close.

Continuing along the boardwalk several orchid spikes were noted and, on checking at home, I think they were common spotted, heath spotted and southern marsh orchids (apologies if I’ve got that wrong!) We also saw a couple of skippers which were thought to be large skippers, a pair of reed buntings put in a brief appearance and approaching Moat Pond our final bird was a singing whitethroat.

Fortunately, the day hadn’t been quite as hot as had been feared and we enjoyed excellent views of many heathland specialities, birds, dragonflies and orchids.

by Andy Roberts