Chobham Common

When we moved to Britain 27 years ago, we lived within walking distance of Chobham Common, a large heathland. Recently, several people on the UK Butterflies Facebook group and the British Dragonflies and Damselflies Facebook group posted pictures of butterflies and dragonflies they'd seen there. And that made us think "why not go there again, see what butterdamseldragons we can see, while taking a trip down memory lane?"

Although we had plenty of sunny spells, it was quite windy, and that kept insects down at first. We did see a single migrant hawker hawking around, but, arriving at the first of several ponds and pools, we saw quite some odo activity.

Common darters, keeled skimmers, a broad-bodied chaser, a large red damsel and a tandem of small red damsels!

At other ponds, we could add black-tailed skimmers, common blue damsels, and several emperors. Nine dragonfly or damselfly species in total.

In terms of butterflies, the second-commonest species (after gatekeepers) were graylings, and not all of them had perfected their disappearance trick. 

Nine butterfly species in total, including several large skippers.

Apart from the butterflies and damseldragonflies we saw, it really was nice to be back to where we used to walk so often 25 or so years ago ...

Today's tables (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+):