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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matt Prince" data-source="post: 1811940" data-attributes="member: 52862">Saturday 1st May 2010A check through the waders at bowling green failed to turn up anything new, and an attempt to string a marsh warbler out of a sedge warbler failed miserably. A wander around the back path near Riversmeet turned up plenty of mini-beasts, including owl-midges, though I suspected few would be identified.Exminster was next, looking for hatching hairy dragonfly, failed, but turned up some flowers, including horsetails. No sign of hobbies until we bumped into Dave Hopkins, who did me the favour of spotting one hunting distantly over the marsh. A small spider down in the vegetation was well enough marked to identify conclusively with a hand lens. At this point though the rain was coming so we decided to check out Orley common. Arriving at Orley the sky opened up properly and a quick search for funghi revealed nothing more than a tantalising stump..Still raining we moved back to Bystock ponds, were large red dragonfly were sitting on the wooden rails.Then a quick troll around haldon listening for tree pipit but to no avail.Very last thing was a hunt along the walls outside the house for mini-beasts. To my surprise a 2mm spot on the wall turned out to be a gorgeous little female jumping spider with white palps that lifted its front half up to look back at me through the lens. When I returned with the spider book to get another look it took a while to relocate her. When I did she was dragging a springtail almost as large as herself, across the bare expanse of the wall..Sites: Bowling Green, Exminster, Orley Common, Bystock Ponds, HaldonNew Species : Hobby, White Spot Pinion (Moth), Red Damselfly, Laranoides Cornutus (Spider), Aranaeus Diadematus (Garden Spider), euophrys erratica (Jumping Spider), Gastrophysa Viridula (Leaf Beetle on Dock), Leucozona Lucorum (Hover-fly), Tipula Oleracea (Cranefly), Ptychoptera Contaminata (Crane fly lookalike)Meadow Buttercup, Common Sorrel, Broad-leaved Dock, Field Horsetail, Water Horsetail, Mountain Ash, Crosswort, Pendulous Sedge, Yellow Water Lily. Totals: Birds 166; Butters 9; Dragons 1, Moths 6; Beetles 9; Misc 30 ; Spiders 11; Flora 142GT 477Nicolas grips RL PartridgeUnid Stress level - fair to middling</blockquote>

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