Author Archives: sconzani

Two bedstraws

05 Sunday Jul 2026

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The bedstraw family of plants (the Rubiaceae) includes wildflowers like Field madder (Sherardia arvensis) (featured in a post of that name in May 2023), and Woodruff (Galium odoratum) and Cleavers (Galium aparine) (both of which appeared in New and noticed, May 2021), but today I want to focus on the two bedstraws I’m seeing everywhere in the local fields at the moment, the yellow-flowered Lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum) and white-flowered Hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo).

In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that the flowers of Lady’s bedstraw smell strongly of honey, something I’ve never got down low enough to notice, and when dry, smells of new-mown hay, which is why it used to be stuffed into straw mattresses. Mabey also notes that this plant is ‘a coagulant and was once employed not just as a styptic, but as a vegetable substitute of rennet … in the making of cheese’.

Though I mostly see Hedge bedstraw growing alongside its yellow-flowered cousin in the local wildflower meadows, as its name implies, it is more often seen climbing amongst other plants in and around hedgerows, and in areas of low scrub. Both plants are a lovely addition to the profusion of summer flowers now in bloom.

Lesser emperor, at last

04 Saturday Jul 2026

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In September last year, I wrote about the encounters I’d had with the Lesser emperor dragonfly (Anax parthenope), the fleeting glimpses of previous years and then the most recent ‘close but partly obscured by a bush’ sighting.

Though this dragonfly does now breed in southern Britain, there are no records of its breeding in south Wales; the Lesser emperors we see are either dragons from further south in Britain or, more likely, migrants. And, this year, probably as a result of the hot south-easterly winds blowing in our direction from the heatwave conditions in Europe, there have been quite a few local sightings of Lesser emperors much earlier in the year than usual.

My local WhatsApp group notifications had been beeping with reports of others finding this dragonfly so I had also been looking, in particular at three different locations along the River Ely where they had been seen in recent weeks or reported in previous years, but I kept coming up empty. Until, finally, a week ago, on 28 June, I was walking along a path not far from one of the lakes at Cosmeston when the flutter of a dragonfly’s wings caught the sunlight. I froze, as they are so easily spooked. And then I could hardly believe my eyes … a Lesser emperor … not zooming past at the speed of light, but perched on a bush in full view. And it actually stayed completely still while I moved ever so slowly and carefully around so as to get photos from each side and front on. This was my best ever view of a Lesser emperor!

Dead man’s fingers

03 Friday Jul 2026

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything fungi-related so I was quite pleased to spot these examples around a tree stump near a local railway bridge, a stump that was deliberately cut down some time ago and had poison plugs hammered into the stump to try to prevent regrowth.

The poison may have stopped the tree re-growing but it certainly hasn’t deterred the fungi. In fact, these are probably the healthiest examples of Dead man’s fingers (Xylaria polymorpha) that I’ve ever seen. I think you can see how they got their name – they really do look like blackened fingers reaching up from under the earth!

In Fascinated by Fungi, Pat O’Reilly explains that this is a species of flask fungus, a type of ascomycete that releases spores from the exterior surface of its relatively large fruiting body – another example is King Alfred’s cakes (Daldinia concentrica). The fruiting bodies of Dead man’s fingers can grow up to 8cm tall, are generally club-shaped, and grow from buried hardwood, usually Beech, though if I recall correctly, this particular stump was a Field maple.

Beetle: Lagria hirta

02 Thursday Jul 2026

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Let me introduce Lagria hirta, a lovely little beetle I’ve been seeing quite frequently in recent weeks – well, twice in one day and on about four other occasions, which is quite frequent in my book.

As you might guess from that hirta epithet (which comes from the Latin hirtus, meaning ‘rough haired’ or ‘shaggy’) and as you can hopefully see from my photos, this is one hairy beetle.

Though I’ve spotted all of my finds sitting on the leaves of trees and shrubs, the Naturespot website says the adults ‘feed on nectar and pollen on open-structured flowers such as Daisies or members of the Carrot family’ and their larvae ‘eat decaying plant material in leaf litter and turf’.

That website also gives the information that these beetles prefer to live in areas with sandy soils; though I live on the coast, I haven’t seen my specimens close to the beach, which is mostly pebbles not sand, and we have no sand dunes along this edge of the Bristol Channel, so I’m a bit puzzled by that habitat information. Interestingly, the species map on iRecord shows a spread of records throughout coastal and inland Britain, right up to the Scottish border, though excluding the Lake District, and then a grouping of records along the Moray coast east of Inverness.

Sawfly: Abia fasciata

01 Wednesday Jul 2026

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At a quick first glance, I thought this creature was a hoverfly, one of the larger species like Volucella pellucens (the last of the five hoverflies featured in Five big hovers, June 2025) but, when I looked more closely, I noticed the multiple rounded bands across its abdomen and knew it must be a species of sawfly. It was not, however, a species I’d ever seen before, so let’s give a warm welcome to Abia fasciata, also known as the Banded clubhorn.

Though records are not particularly numerous, this distinctive sawfly is present throughout Britain and, according to The Sawflies of Britain and Ireland website, has been recorded as far north as Inverness. Its larvae feed on plants from the Caprifoliaceae family, not a name I’d heard previously, but it includes the various honeysuckles (which is what I presume local specimens use as a larval plant), as well as a diverse range of plants that includes Elder, Guelder-rose, and Snowberry. The larvae are rather striking (see the Sawflies website) so I’ll definitely be checking for them on any Honeysuckle plants near where I spotted this adult.

A splendid jewelwing

30 Tuesday Jun 2026

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All of the species in the Calopteryx genus are known as jewelwings but today’s focus is on the Banded demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens, from the Greek καλóς [kalos] which means ‘beautiful’, and πτɛ´ρυξ [pteryx], meaning ‘wing’, and splendens, from the Latin splendere, meaning ‘shining’ or ‘glittering’ – an appropriate set of names for this splendidly beautiful glittering-winged dragonfly).

Only the males have the wing bands; the females have wings that range from pale green to dark brown depending on location, which means they can sometimes be confused with female Beautiful demoiselles; fortunately, in Britain, they tend towards the pale green end of that colour range. I’ve only seen males this year, so haven’t yet been confused, which makes a pleasant change, but I have been dazzled by their beauty.

NFY: Ringlet

29 Monday Jun 2026

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Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? It was 16 June and I was considering where to go for my daily walk. I figured it must be about time for the first Ringlet butterflies (Aphantopus hyperantus) to emerge so checked my spreadsheet for information about dates and locations. There was one particular spot at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park where I’d seen my first Ringlets in previous years so I decided to head in that direction.

Success! This beautiful creature, the only Ringlet I saw that day, not only appeared exactly where I’d hoped and expected it to be but it also posed nicely for photographs, something the newly emerged males rarely do, so enthusiastic are they to find females to breed with.

The dragon king

28 Sunday Jun 2026

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I saw my first definite Emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator) at the beginning of June (I had fleeting glimpses of likely candidates at the end of May but couldn’t be sure) but, as they spend the majority of their time patrolling their chosen territory, it took 25 more days to get a decent photo.

For most of the 20 minutes I spent yesterday alongside the River Ely at Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park this particular dragon was also constantly flying along and back, along and back over the same piece of water close to the water’s edge but, then, just as I’d decided to head homewards, it veered in over the patch of scrub and wildflowers behind me and disappeared.

I had watched, hoping it would settle somewhere, and I was lucky. Not only had it perched somewhere reasonably accessible but it also stayed put as I slowly, carefully, silently approached, and these images are the happy result. I did have to chuckle when I looked at the photos later and noticed the little colony of aphids on a stalk very close to the dragon’s head. If it had settled just a little to the left, it could have eaten lunch while it rested.

A one-legged wagtail

27 Saturday Jun 2026

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During the summer months I don’t often walk along the embankment of the River Ely where it flows in to Cardiff Bay as most of the birds I like to see there are elsewhere, busy breeding the next generation. However, during this past week, while we’ve been melting under the record-breaking temperatures of our second heatwave of 2026, the Ely embankment made for a pleasant and relatively short early morning walk before I retreated from the burning sun.

And, of course, there were still birds to be seen: Mallards snoozing close to the water’s edge; Coots ditto, until a passing dog walker’s mutt barked at them, scaring them in to the water; a couple of Great crested grebes diving often for sprats; and this handsome male Grey wagtail, standing guard over his two youngsters who were chasing each other with the mad exuberance of youth out over the water and back again.

Though Grey wagtails can be quite skittish, this one seemed more confiding. And then I noticed why that was – it only had one leg. This didn’t stop it from moving about but, when it was still, it was obviously more comfortable sitting with its body touching the ground. And, considering this bird had raised two healthy youngsters, it was obviously able to live a full life, which was very reassuring to see.

NFY: 2 Small butterflies

26 Friday Jun 2026

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Ten days ago, on Monday 15 June, I caught a couple of early morning trains heading up one of the south Wales valleys to meet a friend for a walk and catch up. My concern that we were probably a little late for the butterflies we might have hoped to see proved to be well founded – we would have looked earlier but I had avoided all-day walks during the heatwave and the previous week had seen a lot of rain, which is not the weather for butterfly hunting.

However, we got lucky! Just as we approached the kissing gate in to the fenced area of Aberbargoed Grasslands National Nature Reserve, a small butterfly flitted up from the path ahead of us. This was my first Small heath (Coenonympha pamphilus) of the year, a relatively common butterfly and not one most people would get excited about, but it’s a species that is no longer found in the coastal location where I live so I was very happy to see it. We carried on.

As we walked along the rather lumpy-bumpy, soggy-boggy tracks across the main field, my heart skipped a beat each time a little orange butterfly appeared near us. They all proved to be Large skippers, always nice to see but not what we were hoping for. Then, finally, towards the middle of the field, something bigger fluttered up and around the vegetation. Though the brief season for Marsh fritillaries had obviously already finished, we had found the last remaining Small pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria selene) of the year at this site (a fact confirmed later during a conversation with a local ecologist who told us both of the fritillary species had already finished and was surprised we had spotted anything).