The Animals of Alvecote Wood
Alvecote Wood is home to a wide range of animals - birds have been listed already, but there are also a wide range of mammals, insects, amphibia, spiders and other species.
One of my particular interests is butterflies, and I have been photographing British Butterflies for many years. The woodland edge is alive with butterflies during the Summer and Autumn, and it is a pleasure to see the first Brimstone in the Spring, right through to the last hibernating Small Tortoiseshells in the Autumn. 2008 was an excellent year for Ringlets, Gatekeepers and Orange Tips.
But there is also a relatively wide range of mammals, including badgers, foxes, common moles, rabbits, stoats, muntjac deer, rodents of various sorts, and squirrels. We also have common frog, common newt and common toads. Grass snakes have been observed at the site, although we haven't seen any ourselves.
Maurice Arnold has personally been visiting the site for more than 40 years and has provided us with a fantastic master list of species seen there, which can be downloaded as a pdf. This includes insects, spiders, centipedes, millipedes and woodlice. Listed below are the butterflies, moths, mammals and amphibians seen at Alvecote Wood.
Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera)
Brimstone
Comma
Gatekeeper
Green-veined white
Holly Blue
Large Skipper
Large White
Meadow Brown
Orange Tip
Peacock
Purple Hairstreak
Red Admiral
Small Copper
Small Heath
Small Skipper
Small Tortoiseshell
Small White
Speckled Wood
Ringlet
Wall Brown (none since 1980)
Brimstone (moth)
Cinnabar
Latticed heath
Shaded broad-bar
Silver ground carpet
Six-spot burnet
Silver Y
Mammals
Badger
Fox
Grey squirrel
Short-tailed field vole
Mole
Rabbit
Water vole
Wood mouse
Hedgehog
Brown rat
* Muntjac deer
* Stoat
* added by S Walters
Amphibians
Common frog
Common toad
Common newt