The Holt Bioblitz 6th June 2026

A bioblitz was held at The Holt, near Upham, on Saturday 6th June. The weather was not promising but nevertheless it was a successful day. The early morning bird walk was wet and all present were glad to shelter for breakfast, but the sun came out briefly in late morning for the butterfly walk and pond dip led by myself (Phil) and Fiona Scully of butterfly conservation. The highlight here was a spider found on a daisy that was thought to be the crab spider Xysticus bifasciatus (pictured). In between Matthew Norris-Hill inspected the dormouse boxes – we found a family of wood mice in one and two very sleepy dormice in another. Later there was a flora walk around one of the wild flower meadows (in light rain but that didn’t spoil things too much), an evening bird walk, an evening bat walk (also run by Matthew) and moth trapping north of the old workshop arranged by myself and Pedro Pires. Over 60 species of moth were seen at 5 moth lamps. Highlights on the afternoon flower walk included tawny longhorn beetle, ladybird fly, and 3 downland villa bee-flies. A goshawk also paid a paid visit in late afternoon and in the evening walk we observed a labyrinth spider in it’s very wet web in Dur Wood. We haven’t yet added up all of the species seen.