Provided grazing animals are kept out of the woods, this cycle can continue for centuries. Many bluebell woods in Hertfordshire have a lot of hornbeam and hazel coppice, with a canopy of tall oaks. This type of woodland management is called coppice-with-standards.

Pollards: trees on woodland edges, along trackways or in groups within pastures have their branches cut at 2 to 3 metres height above the ground. The branches of these trees will re-grow at this height which is above the reach of grazing livestock, such as cattle, horses and sheep. Thus you can harvest wood, leaving the trunk (called the bolling) intact and the growth of the branches and tree canopy will be much faster. The trunk will continue to grow and so many pollards can be of great age and size. The largest hornbeam pollard in Hertfordshire has a girth (circumference) of more than 5 metres and is probably over 350 years old.

 

Fly Agaric Amanita muscaria

This fungus loves birch trees and birch woodlands.

Photos: © Kerry Robinson (Peppery Bolete (Chalciporus piperatus) is also shown, above)

The ‘toadstool’ we see, usually in the autumn, is the fruiting body with its distinctive shiny red-orange cap with white spots. Underneath the cap are gills from which thousands and thousands of tiny spores will be released. In the soil below the toadstool will be a network of tiny threads called mycelia, and some of these will attach to the roots of the birch trees. This fungus and birch trees live a symbiotic relationship, mutually beneficial to each species.

Fly Agaric is included in many fairy tale stories and in novels such as Alice in Wonderland.

Fly Agaric is poisonous, so it must not be eaten. The chemicals in the cap are known to kill flies, although slugs seem to be able to cope with the poisons.

 

Chalkhill Blue Lysandra coridon
 
This medium-sized blue butterfly is, as its name suggests, a species of chalky grassland. This is a limited habitat in England and in Hertfordshire we are lucky to have populations of this species at several sites such as Therfield Heath near Royston, Hexton Chalk Pit, Clothall Common near Baldock and Aldbury Nowers. These are some of the most northern sites where this warmth loving butterfly can be found. 

Photos: © Andrew Wood
Visit these places during July and August in sunny warm weather and you may well be rewarded with clouds of the beautiful milky blue males flying low on the hunt for the dark brown females which are harder to see and find as they tend to stay lowdown in the grass. Dozens of males may chase a single female in order to mate. The female lays her eggs on the low growing horseshoe vetch which is the plant that their caterpillars eat. As the summer progresses the males tend to loose their blue scales and so by the end of the season they may look rather more grey/brown.
 
The males are also attracted to less savoury sources of nutrition such as mud and animal droppings as they are able to extract a variety of mineral salts which are thought to improve their fertility. You can find dozens of the males clustered around these nutrition sources.
 
Therfield (in the past called Royston) Heath is a historically famous site for this butterfly and a century or more ago attracted many people intent on finding its various colour forms some of which, such as partially blue females, may still be occasionally found.
 

Green-eyed or Norfolk Hawker Aeshna isoceles

First recorded in the county at Amwell in 2015, the impressive 'Green-eyed' or 'Norfolk' Hawker is now very well established in the Lea Valley south of Hertford and starting to spread further. 

Photo: © Huw Lewis

Records have come from ponds, gravel pits, rivers and ditches with plenty of emergent vegetation – almost always at sites where a good variety of other dragonfly species have been recorded. 

It is one of the smaller 'hawker' dragonflies and is predominately orangey-brown with few markings other than a yellow triangle near the base of the abdomen. When mature the eyes achieve the distinctive green colour. If present at a site, males will usually be obvious, patrolling short sections of the bank and frequently stopping to hover.

Egg-laying females will tend to be less obvious, but records of egg laying are particularly welcome for this species – especially if the plant being 'oviposited' into can be identified.

The flight period is mostly from late May until the end of July, although a few may still be flying into August.

Photo: © Stuart Fox

A survey of dragonflies and damselflies in Hertfordshire began in 2022 and will continue to  2027. Further information is available on this website about the species found to date.

 

Green-winged Orchid Anacamptis morio

There are over 30,000 species of orchids worldwide, but only 50 of these are native in Britain. Some are relatively widespread but others are extreme national rarities.

Photo: © Ian Denholm

Green-winged Orchid is largely confined to central and southern England. It is most frequent in unimproved hay meadows and pastures, but can also be found in sand dunes, heathland, churchyards and even garden lawns. It has declined substantially over the last hundred years due to ploughing and the intensification of agriculture.

In Hertfordshire we are fortunate to have one of the largest colonies of Green-winged Orchid in the UK. This is on private land close to Stevenage, and owes its survival to enlightened management of its habitat through consultation between the landowner and Natural England. We have smaller colonies elsewhere, mainly on nature reserves, and there is a project underway to increase its numbers on Harpenden Common.

 

Grass Snake Natrix Helvetica

The Grass Snake, when full grown, can be more than a metre long, making it the longest of Britain's three native snakes. Adult females are longer than males. 

Coloured olive-green, the snakes are distinguished by the yellow and black collar around their necks and black markings along the body. Unlike the venomous Adder (believed to be extinct in Herts.) the Grass Snake's eye is round with a round pupil. 

Most Grass Snake records in a recent county-wide survey have come from the Lea Valley and other wetland areas in the east and south of the county.  They are graceful swimmers and accomplished hunters for frogs, toads and newts (sometimes fish, small mammals and birds, too). They surprise and grasp their prey, usually swallowing it whole.

Grass Snake at Waterford Heath © Andrew Wood

Grass Snakes specially favour the combination of sandy soil and water provided by filled-in gravel pits. Neil Hilton's photograph was taken at Rye Meads nature reserve, near Hoddesdon.

 

Brown Hare Lepus europaeus

With their loping gait, larger size and long black-tipped ears, Brown Hares are not hard to distinguish from scuttling, hopping Rabbits. They are an 'introduced' species, but have lived in Britain since Roman times. Appropriately, one good place to see them is fields on the Gorehambury estate near ancient Verulamium.

Photo: © Yves Gisseleire

Brown Hares can be observed in open, arable fields, but also on chalk grassland  farmland and the edge of woods. They feed on vegetation, tree bark and  bushes. Unlike Rabbits, they do not dig burrows, but live in 'shallow 'forms' in the ground or grass. They are most obvious (and least cautious) in early spring when e females fight or 'box' with males they are trying to fend-off at the start of the breeding season.

A recent ten-year survey of mammals in Hertfordshire has recorded them across most parts of the county, but notably absent from the south. This suggests a marked change since a 1984 survey by the Game Conservancy suggesting their were few 2km squares in Herts where they were not found (and shot!). Even then, however, the species was considered to be in decline.

Photo: © Alan Reynolds