And then there was one

Pam's Pools, Underton - Wednesday 2nd August 2017

Pam's Pools is not a true description of this collection of habitats but they are the first feature you notice on arrival. The site is far more extensive than first impressions and includes hillside woodland, streams, meadows and orchards as well as the pools.

Despite the poor weather ten of us gathered in our wet weather gear on site in the shadow of a very welcoming cabin which will feature later in this report. A group photograph was called for and taken just as our host arrived on her bicycle.

A group of ten - there are only 8 on the photograph?

Well, I was behind the camera and the absentee was a late arrival.

One of the group had  a personal objective for the day and wandered off to pursue this. Here are the results of his dedication:

Long-winged conehead female adult - Photograph: David Williams

Long-winged conehead female nymph - Photograph: David Williams

Slender groundhopper nymph - Photograph: David Williams

Eventually the initial chatter of the rest of the group died down and we set off into the woods with our host who was giving us a guided tour. However some dallied to look at fungus and other things of interest.

Bracket fungus - Photograph: Jim Cresswell

Leiobunum rotundum - Photograph: Jim Cresswell

Paidiscura pallens egg-sac - Photograph: Jim Cresswell

(Normally we find the spider Paidiscura pallens egg-sacs attached to the oak leaf, but this one was suspended from the leaf by two strands of spider silk.)

Common froghopper - Photograph: Bob Kemp

One of us was disinclined to climb into the woods and preferred to stay and hunt for things of interest around the pools. Having explored the woods at a recent moth event I kept him company.

As we pottered by the first pool we would hear the occasional voice from the woods and every now and again someone would appear only to disappear again. Everyone seemed content so why worry?

Time marched on and we got to lunchtime. The lure of the cabin was difficult to overcome, so we returned to it only to find three others already tucking in  to their lunches. 

As we sat down to eat ours others appeared (from different directions) to join us. No-one had said we were going to have lunch here. It just happened!

Lunch over, we moved slowly through the orchard where we a found common puffball that had teeth marks in it possibly from a small rodent.

Photograph: Les Hughes

We passed between the two lakes and then spent the rest of the day by the second pool and the meadow that bordered it.

The vegetation by the pool was visited by lots of damselflies and the occasional dragonfly. These included white-legged damselflies. I do not have a photograph of a white-legged damselfly but here are some of the other things that we found by the pool.

Common blue butterfly and Small skipper - Photograph: Bob Kemp

Physocephala rufipes - Photograph: Bob Kemp

Spaerophoria scripta - Photograph: Bob Kemp

The pool is home, unfortunately, to the invasive signal crayfish which has devastated the population of our native white-clawed crayfish through competition and carrying a deadly fungus that the native crayfish is susceptible to. The crayfish, however, provide food for others as these remains of a head indicate.

Photograph: Les Hughes

A couple came up to me to say they were leaving and left. I carried on searching in the vegetation then two more did the same. This was fine, they are grown-up, they know the way back to their cars; I knew and checked where that the other five were still in the vicinity; I carried on.

As I climbed to the top of the meadow I did another check and found that there were only two others in the area. I was not too concerned.

I nipped into an area of woodland, came out and found I was all alone.

OK, enough hints, time to go. I wandered back to the cabin and found all bar the first two milling about the cabin!

Some time later we all made our way home.

My thanks to Pam Yuille for giving us permission to visit her site and do what we enjoy doing and to the photographers Les Hughes, Jim Cresswell, Bob Kemp and David Williams for providing the excellent photographs.