Pete's Walks - Thursley Common

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This wasn't really a walk (I covered maybe four miles in about 6 hours!), but a meeting of nature lovers from the WildAboutBritain web site (thanks for organising it again, Wild-Woman!). It was a two-day event held over a weekend, but I only went down for the Saturday (24th July 2010). This was the second time I'd been to this event (you can read about last year's here) - there were ten of us altogether, including four people I'd met there last year.

Again it took me about an hour and 20 minutes to reach Thursley Common in Surrey, a straightforward drive down the M1, M25 and the A3. Apart from the wonderful wild-life, the Common is a very pleasant and interesting place to walk. It is one of the few remaining fragments of Surrey heath, and consists of lowland heath, mire and woodland. The ground was noticeably drier than last year - several small pools we had seen then were partially or fully dried up this year. We did a circular walk in the morning, stopped for an hour for lunch back at the car park around 1pm, then did a longer circuit in the afternoon.

 

Anyway, here are a few shots of the common, taken as we wandered around.

 

 

 

 

 

And here are a few of the things we found:

 

Common Lizard

 

Small Red Dragonfly

 

Bog Asphodel

 

Emperor Dragonfly

 

Common Darter

 

Four-spotted Chaser

 

Black Darter

 

Keeled Skimmer

 

Large Red Dragonfly

 

Marsh St John's-Wort

 

Green Tiger Beetle

 

White-legged Damselfly

 

Emerald Damselfly

 

New sightings for me included Brown Argus butterfly, White-legged and Small Red damselflies, and Golden-ringed Dragonfly (couldn't get a photo of this, unfortunately). Other sightings included a Little Egret and a Wasp Spider.

 

It was a very enjoyable day out, and I hope the event will be repeated next year!

 

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