18 Tuesday Jul 2023
Tags
British moths, caterpillar on Poplar, Laothoe populi, moth caterpillar, Poplar, Poplar hawk-moth, Poplar hawk-moth larva
The leaf-staring story I related yesterday didn’t end with me seeing my first Poplar spiral galls – oh no! There was a bonus sighting that was much more exciting. Lurking behind one of the leaves I turned to more easily photograph a gall was this caterpillar, the larva of a Poplar hawk-moth (Laothoe populi). What a magnificent beast it was!
17 Monday Jul 2023
Tags
aphids on Poplar, British aphids, gall, gall-causing aphid, galls on Poplar, Pemphigus spyrothecae, Poplar
During our recent wet and windy weather I’ve taken to leaving my good camera at home, going out in wet weather gear with just my point-and-shoot camera tucked in a jacket pocket. As that camera is really only good for macro shots, I’ve been forced to look at things more closely – no bad thing, and, given the frequent heavy showers, I’ve been spending more time than usual sheltering under trees. And that, of course, means I’ve been looking at trunks and branches and leaves, which is how I came to notice these odd swellings on a Poplar tree in a local park. The aphid Pemphigus spyrothecae causes the leaf petiole to twist two or three times, forming a chamber in which the aphid’s larvae can develop. I didn’t open any of the galls but, if you want to see images of what’s inside, and read more about the life cycle of these aphids, the Influential Points website is the place to go.
16 Sunday Jul 2023
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
I almost want to whisper this post, as it’s a miracle the local council hasn’t poisoned these wildflowers out of existence as they usually do a couple of times over the summer months, this despite the dangers of those herbicides to humans, insects and birds, even the dogs that get walked along the back lanes, and despite the council having declared a ‘nature emergency’! So, for now, the back lane between my street and the next is alive with wildflowers, some of which I’ve featured in this little video.
15 Saturday Jul 2023
Posted in birds
I first introduced you to my Carrion crow friend back in May last year (A crow companion) and then wrote about our continuing ‘friendship’ in October 2022 (The look, the glare). Our relationship has continued in the intervening months; whenever I walk through his territory, he flies over, walks with me, expects food. He even manages to find me when I’m walking along the woodland path adjacent to his paddock, and I don’t know how he does that!
Earlier this year, he began bringing another Crow with him, his mate I immediately presumed. She was initially very timid but is now much less so, and is sometimes the first to spot me and fly over. A couple of months back they both became much more demanding and were flying away, their beaks jammed with food, towards a specific part of the woodland. Chicks! And now here they are – three well-grown, raucous and difficult-to-photograph-because-never-still youngsters, who are also being brought to see and taught about the food-bearing human. I couldn’t be more proud!
14 Friday Jul 2023
All that’s missing from this illustration of the life cycle of the Dock beetle is the pupation stage but I’m not going to disturb their underground pupae to show you that. Though common, I still find them fascinating and, because they’re common, they’re a good insect to show children how a beetle’s life cycle functions.
n.b. There may be an extra insect in the photo of the larvae. I suspect those tiny white dots might be hoverfly eggs, as the larvae of some species enjoying feasting on various leaf beetle eggs and larvae. I’ll be doing more leaf-turning to check.
13 Thursday Jul 2023
Posted in birds
It’s been rather bird-quiet for the last few weeks so it was wonderful first to hear their chatting and then to see these two juvenile Stonechats in one of the outer fields at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on Monday.
12 Wednesday Jul 2023
When you read the words ‘tiger moth’, you probably think plane, after the flying machines engineered by Geoffrey de Havilland (the first of these was designed with foldable wings, so as to fit into a small space – hence the name moth]. I hadn’t realised until I read up about him that de Havilland designed lots of planes, with variations of the moth name – no surprise then to read he was apparently an enthusiastic lepidopterist.
However, I digress. In this blog, the tiger moths are actually moths not planes, Scarlet tiger moths – in fact, the two Scarlet tigers seen during last week’s perambulations. The Scarlet tiger is the tiger moth I see most often, though it is only one of six tiger moths regularly seen in the UK – the others are Ruby, Wood, Garden, Cream-spot and Jersey tiger.
11 Tuesday Jul 2023
Tags
I have a ton of photos of Mallard ducklings but I just couldn’t resist taking a few shots of this little cutie that was snoozing with its mum and three siblings on the water’s edge about 20 feet below me. At the very least, the angle, looking straight down from above, gave a different perspective to most of my other duckling photos.
10 Monday Jul 2023
Posted in insects
Though I’m generally very fortunate with my butterfly sightings, sometimes my luck’s just not in. Twice now I’ve visited the woodland where I usually see lots of Silver-washed fritillaries and manage to get reasonable photos of those I see. My first visit was on a windy day, with lots of big clouds rolling through – not ideal butterfly weather and, though I did see several fritillaries, they were mostly flying strongly along the woodland rides, only settling out of sight behind the shrubbery. This was my best shot from that visit.
Last Friday I tried again – it was warm and sunny with little wind. Conditions should’ve been perfect yet, once again, the butterflies just weren’t cooperating. I really enjoyed seeing those gorgeous vibrant fritillaries that zoomed past me but, once again, they weren’t stopping, so this is the best of few images I managed to get. Still, there’s always next year …
09 Sunday Jul 2023
Posted in wildflowers
There are a lot of wildflowers I can recognise at a glance – ‘Oh, that’s a forget-me-not, knapweed, mallow …’ – but, in many cases, there are several species of these flowers and I’m not sure which I’m seeing. So, I’m trying to make more of an effort to work out which is which. Here’s an example.
These two species of mallow look very similar to me, and they grow in similar habitats, in waste ground, along our road verges, beside footpaths. Their beautiful flowers are much of a muchness, though the flowers of Common mallow have dark purple stripes, whereas those of Musk mallow are finer and pale pink, and their petal shapes are also different. However, it’s the leaves that really clinch their identification, as you can see from the photos below.
Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
According to the Wildlife Trusts website, ‘Certain parts of common mallow are edible (leaves, flowers and seeds) and there is evidence that the Romans may have deliberately cultivated the plant to be used for food and medicine’.
Musk mallow (Malva moschata)
As well as the deeply lobed leaves that distinguish Musk mallow from Common mallow, the flowers also emit a musky perfume, which the Common mallow does not have. And that smell is, of course, how this plant got its common name.
earthstar 
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