Cherry plum or Blackthorn?

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, trees

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blackthorn, blossom, Cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera, prunus species, Prunus spinosa, spring, Spring blossom

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Being a relative newbie to Britain, I’m still very much a learner when it comes to identifying plants (and everything else, to be honest), so I was pleased recently to learn how to tell Cherry plum blossom from Blackthorn.

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It’s partly in the timing – Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) usually flowers first, apparently – and also in the growth pattern, but a sure-fire way to tell whether the gorgeous blossom you’re puzzling over is this or Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), which flowers soon afterwards, is to look at the back of the flower.

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In the Blackthorn the sepals (those leaf-like bits that originally enclose the flower but split apart when the flower opens) lay flat along the backs of the flower petals, or between them when fully open (photos above), whereas in the Cherry plum, the sepals are folded back (photos below).

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Nests

09 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, spring

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birding, birdwatching, Buzzard, Carrion crow, Coot, Great Crested Grebe, Magpie, Mute swan, nesting, nesting birds, signs of spring

Just like their makers, nests come in all shapes and sizes, and they’re made of all sorts of materials: twigs and branches, feathers, moss, paper and plastic, mud. They can be seen high in trees and on buildings, hidden secretively away in hedges and behind reeds, or plonked in a hole in a concrete platoon, as I saw some Coots do recently in Cardiff. Some are messy and loosely constructed, others are cosy and snug, still others are miniature works of art.

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This is prime bird-nesting season so it’s quite likely you’ll see nests when you’re out walking. Please stay well away and do not disturb parents, eggs or babies. In Britain (and I’m sure in most countries) it is, in fact, an offence under The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to ‘intentionally take, damage, destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built’ and to ‘intentionally take or destroy the egg of any wild bird’. (You can read more details here.) And, rest assured, my photos were all taken with a long lens, well away from the birds, so as not to disturb them.

This week in insects

08 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, spiders, spring

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Abraxas grossulariata, Andrena flavipes, Magpie moth caterpillar, Red Admiral, Red velvet mite, Trombidiidae, Vanessa atalanta, Yellow-legged mining bee

I mentioned yesterday that I saw my first butterflies of 2018 this week. The first was a Peacock but my camera was in my backpack and, by the time I extracted it, the butterfly had flown off. I was still cursing that fact when another butterfly appeared, this lovely Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta). Snap!

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On Wednesday’s walk, as well as the bee-flies I blogged about yesterday, I also saw several varieties of bee. I’m hopeless at identifying bees – I will focus on them one year to try to improve my skills, but that won’t be this year. Luckily, there’s a good Facebook group where the folks are very helpful, and they’ve IDed these as Yellow-legged mining bees (Andrena flavipes). They’re spring-flying solitary bees that make individual nests but often in large groups (the experts call them aggregations). This lot, of perhaps 20, were digging in to a sandy bank by the seaside. (Here’s a link to more information from BWARS.)

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This next little critter was tiny, as you can see by comparison with my hand behind (and I have small hands). Once again, I needed help on the ID but the folks from my local Butterfly Conservation Facebook group are experts. This is a caterpillar of the Magpie moth (Abraxas grossulariata), a stunning-looking moth that I have not yet seen. Its caterpillar is quite lovely too, don’t you think?

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Though only 3 to 5mm long, these little Red Velvet Mites are hard to miss, simply because of their unusual colour. This is one of the Trombidiidae family but I don’t know which one. It’s really an arachnid (note the eight legs) rather than an insect but I’m including it here anyway. It’s carnivorous but no need to worry – it only eats creatures smaller than itself!

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And, finally, a bee that I haven’t tried to put a name to – I just liked it for the way it’s positively luxuriating in the pollen of this Lesser celandine flower.

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Signs of spring: Bee-flies

07 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, spring

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Bee-fly, Bombylius major, British insects, signs of spring

Last Wednesday was a ‘B’ day – not ‘B’ as in ‘B-rated’ or in any way inferior – in fact, in that sense, it was an A+ day. I named it a ‘B’ day because I saw my first Butterflies of 2018, my first Blackcap, and my first Bee-flies – and not just one Bee-fly, but a total of seven!

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The Bee-fly (officially Bombylius major) is a strange-looking mini-beastie, a weird and wonderful combination, all the cuteness of a furry teddy-bear but with the sinister look of a sword fish. Never fear, it is entirely harmless to humans, though it does lay its eggs in the nests of bees and wasps, where the bee-fly larvae feast on the bee and wasp larvae. Its sword-shaped proboscis is no stinging machine – it’s used exclusively for drinking nectar from flowers. These are springtime mini-beasties, out now in sunny spots in your garden or local hedgerow.

Variable and promiscuous

06 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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British flora, British wildflowers, purple violets, Sweet violet, Viola odorata, violets, white violets

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In Flora Botannica Richard Mabey’s opening statement on the violet family reads: ‘The violets are a variable and promiscuous family, apt to throw up all kinds of sports and hybrids.’ This once meant that botanists split the family into as many as 40 different species, depending on their colour variations. Fortunately, common sense and modern scientific analysis has now prevailed and that number has been almost halved. Still, violets are not always easy to identify.

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Although the violets in my photos are both purple and white, they are, I believe, all Sweet violets (Viola odorata), as they all had the distinctive scent of this variety – Common dog violets (Viola riviniana) are so called because they do not smell. In olden times, Sweet violets were one of the herbs that were strewn on floors to improve the smell of your home, and they have also been used by herbalists to treat insomnia, depression and headache. All that, and pretty too!

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Bundles of fluff

05 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, bundles of fluff, goslings, Greylag, Greylag goose, Roath Park Lake, signs of spring

180405 Greylag goslings (1)

As this year’s lingering wintery weather has delayed the true advent of spring by about three weeks, I certainly wasn’t expecting to see these four gorgeous Greylag goslings when I went for a wander around Roath Park Lake on Tuesday. But, as Greylag eggs take about 28 days to incubate, Mrs Goose may well have started laying just prior to the ‘Beast from the East’ storm on 1 March. Full praise to her for persevering through two heavy dumpings of snow, freezing temperatures, and some very heavy deluges of rain as well!

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Wild words: strobilus

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in nature, plants

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#WildWords, British flora, Equisetum arvense, Equisteum, Field horsetail, Horsetail, strobilus, wild words

Strobilus: noun; a botanical term, which came originally from the Greek strephein meaning ‘to twist’, and which is used to describe the cone of a pine, fir or other conifer; and also ‘a structure resembling the cone of a conifer, such as the flower of the hop’ (Oxford Dictionary).

180404 strobilus

I have the lovely Helen of Plantlife Cymru to thank for this word because, when I originally posted this photo on Twitter, she responded by saying that ‘the strobilus is ascending’. My photo shows the newly emerged stalks of Equisetum (possibly Field horsetail, Equisteum arvense), which is a dinosaur of the plant world, a plant that reproduces using spores rather than seeds. The spores are produced in the strobili, the cone-like structures you can see on the tips of the stems.

Signs of spring: minibeasts

03 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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bees, bumblebee, flies, hoverflies, ladybird, minibeasts, signs of spring

‘If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.’
~ E. O. Wilson (1929 – ), American biologist, environmentalist, author

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Winning ways?

02 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, British ducks, ducks, male mallards fighting, Mallard, signs of spring, Spring is in the air, springtime

You can tell spring is in the air when the males start fighting over the females. These drake Mallards were really going at it. To the victor the spoils?

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Wildflower challenge: The Borage family

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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#WildflowerHour, Borage family, British flora, Forget-me-nots, spring flowers, wildflower challenge, wildflowers

Forget-me-not

This week’s challenge for #WildflowerHour was to try to find flowering members of the Borage family – and, in case you don’t know which plants they are (as I didn’t), they include such beauties as the Comfreys, the Gromwells, the Buglosses, Green alkanet, the Lungworts and the Forget-me-nots, as well as Borage itself, of course. Having found Lungwort last week, I didn’t feel I could count that for this week’s challenge, and I knew from a recent visit to Bute Park that the Green alkanet and Comfrey I usually find there were scarcely out of the ground yet – certainly, not flowering.

Forget-me-not

So, I set off on a six-and-a-half-mile walk around Cardiff Bay yesterday, hoping I might find something along the way. Nothing! There were wildflowers, of course, just none of the Borages. I was almost home again, when I thought I’d check a little lane alongside one of my local train stations, and bingo! Forget-me-nots, growing amongst the nettles and clinging to the stone wall. I don’t know which variety they are and they may originally have been garden escapees, but I was just happy to find them.