Buxton Heath and Holt Lowes, 31 July 2025

The weather seemed distinctly unpromising as four of us set off from Norwich, to meet three more at Buxton Heath, which is slightly easier said than done with the Norwich to Holt road in Horsford closed for several weeks. Today’s event was inspired by Honeyguider Everard staying in Norfolk. 

Buxton Heath was colourful with mixed heathers in flower, our visit being in the window when the earlier flowering bell heather is still out and common heather is close to its August best. There was also plenty of paler cross-leaved heath once we were into damper areas. I mentioned that we were too late for one of Buxton Heath’s star species, silver-studded blue butterfly, and Cheryl recalled a previous visit where we’d arrived and there they were, on the closest bit of heath to the car park [that was Buxton Heath and Holt Lowes, 2 July 2021].

Marsh gentian, growing among cross-leaved heath.

In the damp area we soon found two clumps of marsh gentian. A Flora of Norfolk notes that this flower is confined to just four sites in Norfolk and is a “nationally scarce species.” Ann glimpsed a blue dragonfly that was highly likely to have been a keeled skimmer, but on this overcast morning it didn’t show again, not even by the small patch of open water in the boggy area. Ann also found the first of the three wasp spiders we saw this morning.

Other flowers here included lesser spearwort, tormentil, marsh lousewort, the leaves of bog pimpernel, ragged robin, fen bedstraw and the round leaves of marsh pennywort on mounds of sphagnum moss. These were somewhat outshone when Everard pointed to a large, pale pink marsh orchid. Buxton Heath is known for its hybrid Dactylorhiza orchids. This one had the general appearance of a heath spotted orchid but was much bigger than a typical specimen, so at a guess this flower has some southern marsh orchid in it and hybrid vigour. More straightforward were gone-over marsh helleborines, then one still in fine flower.

Marsh helleborine; marsh orchid, probably a hybrid Dactylorhiza.

Then it started to rain, so out came raincoats and umbrellas. Happily, the rain didn’t last. Back on the dry track, Everard was looking at some heather and noticed an interesting-looking caterpillar. It was a chance to try various apps for an ID, which was beautiful yellow underwing moth, found on moors and heaths where heather or bell heather grows.

Beautiful yellow underwing caterpillar. Could the pale spots help with camouflage on heather?

We’d heard green woodpecker several times, seen distant stock doves, linnets and buzzard, and we took time to find a lovely singing yellowhammer. 

We headed to the main track north through Buxton Heath. There were two more wasp spiders: the tally was two found by Ann and one by Tessa. Common darters perched, allowing good views.

Wasp spider, its web decorated with rain. Behind are round leaves of marsh pennywort.

We’d hoped to find a tiger beetle on the track (we didn’t, probably the weather was against us) but looking down proved productive. Susan takes up the story. 

“Walking along a sandy path I saw what I thought were some large ants, but closer inspection showed them to be small bugs of some sort. I took a photo with my mobile phone and decided to test out a new app I had downloaded called Obsidentify. It came up straight away with an ID of nymph of the bug Alydus calcaratus, 100% certain. A few moments later Chris spotted a larger bug flying along the path showing bright orange flashes on its abdomen. It landed and he was able to pot it for a closer look. Again, I took a photo and tested the app. Rather pleasingly it identified it as being an adult of the same bug. More about this species can be found on the British Bugs website.”

Ant bug (an English name for Alydus calcaratus) collage. Adult on left, nymphs on the right. Two photos are in a bug box (photos by Susan Weeks.)

Near the car park we looked at knopper galls on acorns. In the car park we tasted water-pepper (there was a big patch), found a hoof fungus on a dead birch trunk and saw two male green-veined whites competing for mating rights with a female.

We said farewell to Susan and headed to Holt Country Park, where we found a picnic bench in the sunshine. A fast-flying silver-washed fritillary flew past several times as we ate packed lunches. While getting hot drinks from Hetty’s kiosk there was a red longhorn beetle on the move. It settled briefly, a moment to get a photograph.

Red longhorn beetle - sometimes English names are common sense - Stictoleptura rubra.

First stop was the group of buddleias in the car park, with plenty of butterflies this now sunny afternoon, including red admiral, comma, large white and silver-washed fritillary. No white admirals today, though we heard they’d been seen yesterday.

Comma and painted lady on buddleia.

We walked down through the woodland to the large pond. Tessa explained the ID features of the southern hawker flying around. Common blue and azure damselflies perched nearby for easy comparison, and there were several ruddy darters. An orange ladybird landed on Tim’s hand. A bumblebee took nectar from the huge blooms of white water-lilies; the patch of yellow flowers nearby was marsh St John's-wort Hypericum elodes (the name escaped me at the time).

Orange ladybird Halyzia sedecimguttata.

We did a clockwise circuit of Holt Lowes, starting on the shady track by the wood. A couple stopped us, seeing we were naturalists, to point out an adder by the base of a tree. They’d been sitting on the nearby bench and heard it hissing. We stood still and watched it from a respectful distance. The adder did the same to us, then moved slowly and steadily away into the woodland behind.

Adder, male from the silvery-grey background colour (Tessa Needham).

By the first low-lying, damp area, there were two clumps of ferns. They looked like hard fern, but felt softer than this species and an app called them deer fern. That was initially puzzling but is a synonym, an alternative English name. The softness was simply new growth.

Hard fern.

We continued steadily, with a star find by Ann of a fossil echinoid, a fossil sea urchin, there among countless other small stones, the photo showing its perfect shape. We passed the wood with a carpet of hair cap moss.

Echinoid fossil. It was placed on the white stone so it shows better in the photo.

There were hundreds of lovely round-leaved sundews in the boggy areas to our left. Then, as were towards the end of our circuit, we reached the wettest areas with patches of open water – the top of the River Glaven, downstream a chalk stream but here creating small acidic pools attracting keeled skimmers. We’d already found a female perching among heather, and here there were several power-blue males, around ten in number. One landed by us and proved very approachable.

Round-leaved sundew, growing from sphagnum moss.

Keeled skimmer collage. Left, female on gorse. Right, male on a sundew.

We stopped briefly by an alder buckthorn that had leaves nibbled in places but no brimstone eggs or larvae, albeit from a brief and unthorough search.

Silver-washed fritillary, end of season so a little tatty.

Back at the car park, the question was whether one of the several fast-flying silver-washed fritillaries would settle on a buddleia flower for long enough to allow a half-decent photo. The answer was no – but instead, one landed on the car park’s gravel. 

Chris Durdin