July 2025 - trip to UK (days 1 & 2)

Late morning on 24th July, I set off on the ferry for a week of wildlife with the BUBO lads in Norfolk. This was the first time that I had been on the new ferry, and I was disappointed to see that there was nowhere to stand out on top to look for seabirds. There was a tiny little area pointing backwards, which was useless, so all viewing was from inside, through the windows - not ideal. By the time I got back inside, the window seats were full, so I snoozed instead.

I headed North-east up the motorway, towards my overnight stay at the Stevenage Premier Inn - I didn’t want to attempt the full drive to Norfolk in one hop, mainly to account for any possible ferry delays. As I was approaching London after a smooth drive from Poole, I noticed that the time was around 4 pm, which was the schedule I had expected. This meant that I was nearing the M25 as rush hour was looming, which was something I did not fancy at all. As I had predicted this, I had planned that I would wait out these busiest few hours at Virginia Water/Windsor Great Park, conveniently located a few km off the motorway.

Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

A slight spanner in the works was that it was now drizzling quite unpleasantly, and so my ideas of finding woodland butterflies and other winged beasties were becoming quite unlikely. I saw very few birds in the trees, but maybe because this was quite a busy area of the forest with lots of people out and about. Both Great Spotted and Green Woodpeckers called from distant glades, but I never came across a flock of small birds. On the edge of the lake at some kind of feeding area were a few wildfowl, including about 8 Mandarins. When I was a junior birder, Virginia Water was traditionally one of the epicentres of the feral Mandarin population before the species spread. I remember calling in here once when I was a teenager to make sure that I had a proper “countable” Mandarin for my British List, as previously I had ticked it from some dodgy one on a park lake somewhere in Leeds, probably. There were a few Egyptian Geese, and Grey Wagtails seemed to be breeding under the outflow.

Mandarin - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

Egyptian Goose - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

On the floor of the woodland, there were surprisingly few flowers growing but, I did notice a small clump of Enchanter’s Nightshade. I remembered that there is an interesting and distinctive stilt bug that lives on this plant which, I have looked for and never found in Guernsey. So, I gave the clump a couple of sweeps with the net, and I found two individuals - Metatropis rufescens. Not bad for a first effort, as I hear they can be uncommon.

Metatropis rufescens - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

Metatropis rufescens - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

It was a similar situation when I came across a few small plants of Common Figwort along a track. I knew that there were a few weevil species that feed on Figwort, which I have again looked for and never found on Guernsey (although our figworts are Water and Balm-leaved rather than Common). Straight away, perched up on the first leaf, were two different and distinctive weevils - Cionus tuberculosus (with the orange shoulder-patches) and Cionus hortulanus (greyer with dark, pale-dotted stripes).

Cionus tuberculosus - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

Cionus hortulanus - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

Despite the dullness, a few Southern Hawkers patrolled the edges of the trees, and plenty of hoverflies were present around the trees. Not many moths were found, but I did see a Rush Veneer amongst the many Agriphilas flushed from the grass, and I spotted a small Vapourer caterpillar, which was a new species for me, since it does not seem to occur in Guernsey. The other new insect was Aguriahana stellulata, which is an easily identifiable leafhopper.

Vapourer larva - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25 - even a very small larva like this had the distinctive black horns on the head

Of course, the most impressive thing about the forest was the amount and variety of huge trees everywhere. There were so many species that it was hard to identify many of them. The trouble is, as far as listing is concerned, most of these were clearly planted many years ago. For example, the fine-looking specimen below is a Japanese Maple (or similar), which is not uncommon in people’s gardens, but not something that one can just tick off for the list as being ‘wild’. The trick for these sorts of trees is looking for small self-seeded saplings which will be countable. I didn’t really have time for that, but I did see a tiny Western Hemlock-spruce emerging from the leaf litter, so I had that one.

Japanese Maple - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

The final new species I found in the park was this strange gall on Beech leaves, which is formed by the tiny midge, Mikiola fagi. It appears to be quite rare or uncommon, with very few dots on the NBN Atlas. It may be more widespread, but it is highly distinctive and would be unlikely to be missed by gall-spotters. Even though it was a dull day, these galls almost seemed to glow.

Mikiola fagi - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

Kite-tailed robberfly - Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25

Windsor Great Park, 24 Jul 25 - lots of impressively huge trees

After it turned 7 pm, I thought it would have settled down enough to try the M25, and it was indeed manageable, albeit still a bit race-track-ish for me! There were no delays however, and I made good time, spotting the first Red Kite of the trip just North of London. I found the overnight hotel in the glamourous environs of a trading estate on the edge of Stevenage and had a good night’s sleep.

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The next morning, 25th July, was fuelled by a Premier Inn breakfast. I had a relaxing, casual drive north-east across East Anglia before arriving at the village of Shotesham late morning, finding out no one was home. I had had absolutely zero coverage on my phone and so I could not phone anyone, so I wandered around a bit until Andy and John returned (I later found out, when I went into the phone shop in town, that my phone had somehow been “blocked” for use in the UK, and I couldn’t have used it even if I wanted to - no wonder I’d been struggling with it away from the island over the last few years!).

We had no particular plans for today and were just going to hang around until the others arrived. However, Andy’s garden is terrific for wildlife, and a couple of hours just pottering around resulted in 19 lifers! Just the weeds growing around the garden included species I’d never recorded before, such as Treacle Mustard, Bifid Hemp-nettle, Rough Chervil, Common Fumitory and Upright Yellow-sorrel. There were a few galls and mines that Andy knew about, including Stigmella aceris larvae chomping through galleries in Field Maple leaves. A selection of new flies, bugs, beetles, wasps and spiders were seen - a couple of these photographed below - which included the large hoverfly Volucella inanis and a Thistle Tortoise Beetle (Cassida rubiginosa).

Loxocera aristata - Shotesham, 25 Jul 25 - luckily this fly was able to be identified from photos

Golden-bloomed Grey Longhorn - Shotesham, 25 Jul 25 - a rather impressive beetle, but this one was apparently a dull individual

Chrysopilus cristatus - Shotesham, 25 Jul 25 - not a tick, but a nice pic

Ian and Mike arrived during the afternoon, and we all went for a wander round Shotesham Common, the marshy area in the village, alongside the stream. In total, I had another 9 new species on this walk, not many plants since I’d been round there before. Moth-wise, we found larvae of Phyllonorycter platani mining the leaves of the London Plane growing by the ford, and we had an adult Ethmia quadrilella by the village pond, a comfrey-feeding species. A few orthoptera included some tiny Slender Groundhoppers (completing my Tertrix hat-trick), and I managed to net a Roesel’s Bush-cricket for a close view. Some fine sweeping of the grassland resulted in a new ladybird (16-spot) and a new shieldbug (Tortoise Shieldbug). Briefly joining the couple of Red Kites soaring overhead was a fine Peregrine.

Phyllonorycter platani - Shotesham Common, 25 Jul 25 - on London Plane

Tortoise Shieldbug - Shotesham Common, 25 Jul 25

Roesel's Bush-cricket - Shotesham Common, 25 Jul 25

After a fine day’s pottering, I’d already hit 35 lifers, which was an excellent beginning to the trip, and after dark, we put out the moth trap, which would guarantee a plethora of new moths in the morning.