Bookham Common

I joined Mick Massie and Stuart Cole - two great blokes with a plethora of natural history knowledge - for Saturday's monthly Bookham Common survey. Despite a couple of early morning rain showers, the weather was warm enough to encourage plenty of invertebrate onto the wing, and we enjoyed a few hours sharing our identification knowledge (I didn't contribute much) and recording what we could find...

Pammene argyrana

Eriocrania - one of the colourful (and extremely hard to identify) members of the genus that feeds on birch

Coleophora flavipennella/lutipennella case on Oak

Andrena clarkella - one of the first solitary bees to emerge in spring, this one was burrowing into a soil heap

Nomada leucophthalma - a parasitic bee (and convincing wasp look-alike) which specialises in stealing food from Andrena clerkella!

Blackthorn covered in Evernia prunastri lichen - looked beautiful