A Day of Discovery

This morning, tired and aching from my 5 night stretch, my walk took on an unexpected route, mainly so I could stay in the sun as much as possible (there was quite a chill in the wind, but this might be down to tiredness?), but also so I could take a look at areas of the patch I seldom (if ever) visit, and guess what? I’m glad I did as a made quite a pleasant discovery.

A Day of Discovery

Before I get into my new discoveries on reaching the lake I saw it literally (ok figuratively) dripping with fishermen. Almost every peg had an angler casting their lines out into the water, hoping for that elusive “big one”. And so I though the main lake was best avoided. There was unlikely to be much about anyway (there never really is). So I headed around the small lake and came across this wonderful looking fly.

Empis Sp. (I think) – Lodge Lake, Milton Keynes

Hoverfly sp (I’ll ID it later) – Lodge Lake, Milton Keynes

Spider Glory

A second creature to highlight today was this stunning green spider!, the photo only shows the underside but what amazing colourings it had!

Green Spider – Lodge Lake, Milton Keynes

New Discovery

After reaching the lake car-park rather than continue round I decided to head over the road into the area that is up for development by the National Badminton Centre, and area I don’t normally check but I was amazed by what I found, there was a colony of Marbled White butterfly (at least 10 dotted about, though none settled for a photo), and a small amount of Small Skipper (again none settled) a single Large Skipper  and the start of a day filled with Ringlets (there were hundreds dotted around my walk).

But that was not all, in amongst the long grass struggling to reach the sunlight were two stunning Bee Orchids (a first for me), these amazing looking plants are not the rarest of orchids but they are not overly common (I later found another some way away on the patch which is nice).

Bee Orchid – Lodge Lake, Milton Keynes

Dragonflies and More Butterflies

Further on around the patch (going an odd way, crossing over the A5 rather than my usual route) and my summer wild grass field was alive with Dragonflies and Butterflies, I counted no less than 10 Emperor Dragonflies, a large number of Common Blue Damselflies and my first Black-tailed Skimmer for the patch (a poorly photographed female). Butterflies were everywhere, mainly Ringlets but I also saw Meadow Brown (in good numbers), Red Admiral, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Comma, Large White and Common Blue.

Black-Tailed Skimmer (Female) – Loughton Valley Park, Milton Keynes

Common Blue Damselfly – Loughton Valley Park, Milton Keynes

Common Blue Butterfly – Loughton Valley Park, Milton Keynes

Large White – Loughton Valley Park, Milton Keynes

Meadow Brown – Loughton Valley Park, Milton Keynes

 All in all not a bad day out for my first in a while. A Day of Discovery.

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