TQ6410: Almost halfway

Just a handful more species over the past couple of days to edge ever closer to the halfway mark. I can certainly echo Mark T's sentiments this morning about the Challenge - it's been a great incentive to visit - correction - comb through parts of the local square in intimate detail and that's been a real revelation. I'm sort of pleased with progress to date although I suspect some of the serious PSL'ers out there would already be nudging 1000 species here by now given the mix of habitats in TQ6410 and my invertebrate- and plant-friendly, overgrown, wildlife plot. But time is a great leveller and I'm sure that even the experts taking part would vouch for the number of hours it can take up to find and ID everything, never mind write a few blogs (for me it's the amount of time I waste wrestling with Blogger's attempts to randomly change the fonts every time I preview something). Anyway, here's the latest collection of wildlife from around the square (and plot) .....

485 - Large Red Damselfly Pyrrhosoma nymphula  I was only bemoaning one emerging in a neighbouring square on Sunday .... when there was a sudden mass emergence at the plot and around TQ6410 the very next day  ....

486 - Garden Warbler Sylvia borin  in dense blackthorn scrub by the Castle's bridleway, next to the former Nightingale thicket (sulk!) on Monday. Not this bird though which I photo'd only yesterday in the High Weald near Mayfield, several squares away. Possibly the most obliging Garden Warbler ever. It sat in this same perch just 10m from me, singing away for at least 15-20 mins. I fiddled with the camera, rustled the camera bag and even dropped the bird survey clipboard without disturbing it. Which all suggests that the endless photos should have been miles better .....

487 - Speckled Wood  Pararge aegeria - predictably on the edge of the rookery wood on Monday.

488 - Large White  Pieris brassicae - in the same spot as the Speckled Wood.

489 - Grass Snake  Natrix natrix - slithered into the undergrowth by the bridleway through the plot on Monday.

490 - Slender Groundhopper Tetrix subulata - in the front meadow by the overgrown rubble  bank.

 

491 - Parasitic wasp  Ichneumon suspiciosus inside the barn by the windbreak netting (which can make the front of the barn like a giant insect trap - only just noticed the mozzie too).

492 - Parasitic wasp  Netelia testacea  a very red insect on the sheet by the moth trap last night (bit of a rubbish photo though so left it out).

493 - Brindled Beauty Lycia hirtaria - a very furry beast right at the bottom of the moth-trap this morning.

 
494 - Early Tooth-striped Trychopteryx carpinata  also in the trap this morning.

Which leaves me on 494 species and into the nervous (four hundred and) nineties ......