Getting to Know My ‘Patch'

It’s a funny thing, you never quite realise just how used to an area you are until you move away from it. When you visit an area regularly over months and years, you become familiar with the inhabitants and the best places to visit depending on the time of year. You know the best times of day and just where to look.

I know so many encounters are chance ones, such as finding an emerging Downy Emerald dragonfly, but I knew where to look and what time of year/day would be the most likely to see such spectacles. I knew my patch.

So now, I’m starting from scratch! I’m learning which inhabitants have carved out a niche for themselves in this new landscape. I used to spend a lot of sketching time near water, so I could feed my love for both damselflies and dragonflies. I watched the herons and was serenaded by marsh frogs, which in turn served as a tasty treat for aquatically proficient grass snakes.

Now I make my home amidst the tree trunks on the forest floor; by field margins where baked earth paths separate crops from tangles of brambles and nettles; in amongst the giant hogweed and peering into treetops from my ‘rooftop studio’.

I can still make educated guesses; I have some idea what I may be likely to find on my jaunts.

I am making friends with a whole new invertebrate crowd, Stunning yellow-legged parasitic wasps; hoverflies that mimic red tailed bumblebees & a hidden helix or two