24 Monday Apr 2023
Posted in molluscs
Though I failed to get a clear photo of the underside of this snail, I’m fairly sure it’s a Strawberry snail (Trochulus striolatus) as it shows the ‘coarse growth ridges running across each whorl’ and had the deep umbilicus typical of this species. It also looked very attractive sitting on the blossom, though it seemed an odd place for a snail to be.
23 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
As I write this, we actually have April showers but, luckily, they weren’t falling on me or this random selection of April flowers from today’s walk. First one to name them all gets … a gold star!
22 Saturday Apr 2023
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Common whitethroat, spring migration, Sylvia communis, Whitethroat
I love this time of year, when our migrating birds wing their way back to our shores for the breeding season. The latest migrant to arrive locally has been the Whitethroat (Common whitethroat, if you prefer) (Sylvia communis). I heard my first four days ago, on the 18th. It showed briefly, on a tree branch, but fairly quickly ducked back down into the scrub below. Then, yesterday, I heard three Whitethroats during my five-mile walk – they will continue to arrive for a few weeks yet, some passing through to other areas, some remaining to breed locally. The handsome little chap in my photo seemed to have found his happy place, a large area of impenetrable (to humans) trees and scrub. He was singing and songflighting, both claiming this location for himself and announcing his presence and many impressive qualities to any passing females. If I’d been a female Whitethroat, I’d certainly have been interested.
21 Friday Apr 2023
Tags
British springtails, Dog's mercury, Melampsora populnea, Merculiaris perennis, rust fungus, rust on Dog's mercury, springtail, springtail feeding on rust fungus
We’ve seen springtails and slime a couple of times previously on this blog; now here’s the next instalment in the springtails series: springtails and rust fungi. I spotted this rust, Melampsora populnea, on Dog’s mercury (Merculiaris perennis) during yesterday’s walk. From the top of the leaf, all you see is a small area of puckering and some pale spots (near the hole on the leaf in the lower part of the first photograph below). But, on the underside of the leaf, it’s a different story, with the orange blobs typical of a rust fungus.
At the time, I didn’t notice the tiny creatures munching on the fungus, neither the minuscule orange ones nor the relatively large pale orange ones. I presume the smaller ones are the offspring of the larger, which are definitely springtails, though I don’t know which species of Collembola these are, and my photos aren’t precise enough to identify them more precisely.
20 Thursday Apr 2023
Posted in birds
Tags
I was just leaving the local country park yesterday when these two Jays flew across my path and in to the trees and scrub behind the boundary fence.
Surprisingly, they weren’t bothered about my presence, continuing to flit about the branches and ferret about in the undergrowth. As they had a somewhat frantic air about them, I suspect they were searching for titbits to feed young ones nearby.
19 Wednesday Apr 2023
Posted in insects
Though I was actually searching for migrating birds, the most exciting thing I found during last Sunday’s six-mile walk was this caterpillar that had just shed its skin. This is the larva of an Oak eggar moth (Lasiocampa quercus), now in the final instar of a one-year life cycle (some Oak eggar larvae have two-year life cycles) and due to pupate in June.
18 Tuesday Apr 2023
Posted in insects
This gorgeous Comma was showing particularly well the reason for its name.
17 Monday Apr 2023
Tags
Arctic tern, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, spring migration, spring passage
Terns of any description rarely visit Cardiff Bay but, if they’re ever going to, now, on Spring passage, is the time of year for it to happen … and it did, for two days at the end of last week. (Terns do sometimes pop in on Autumn passage as well, depending on the weather.) The Bay has some very keen and knowledgeable resident birders so when one of those, Gareth, put out the word that he’d seen a tern in the Bay, thought it was an Arctic tern but didn’t have his ‘scope with him, other locals quickly headed down with their equipment to check it out. Arctic tern it was! (Common and Arctic terns can be tricky to tell apart, and the term ‘commic’, a combination of their names, is used by birders when uncertain.)
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get there that afternoon so imagine my delight when word came through from Gareth again the next day that the tern was still showing. Though rain threatened and did, in fact, interrupt play a couple of times, I managed to find the tern. Sadly, it wasn’t giving the close views it had the day before and was mostly a small dot on the other side of the water until, when it decided to fly onwards, it flew almost directly over my head. A head-terning moment!
16 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in spring, wildflowers
Tags
#WildflowerHour, Borage family, Boraginaceae, British wildflowers, Comfrey, Forget-me-not, Lungwort, Spring colour, spring wildflowers
Finding flowering specimens of the Borage family was the target of this week’s Wildflower Hour. This family, the Boraginaceae, includes the various Forget-me-nots (Myosotis species), the Comfries (Symphytum species), Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare), the Gromwells (Lithospermum species), Green alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens), Borage (Borago officinalis), of course, and a few other species as well. Unfortunately, our wet Spring, the recent cold spell and storm mean many of these wildflower species are not yet flowering locally but I have managed to find three species.
Comfrey : I’m not sure which of the Symphytum species this is. It’s growing on the edge of a carpark so is probably a wind-blown garden escape or was perhaps seeded via a bird dropping.
Lungwort : Sadly, this isn’t a common plant locally – I only know of two locations where it grows. I wish there was more as the bees love it.
Forget-me-not : Did you know that the yellow ring at the centre of the Forget-me-not flower fades from egg-yolk yellow to white after pollination, which indicates to insects that there’s no more nectar and they should try another flower?
15 Saturday Apr 2023
Posted in insects
Though it’s often difficult to tell Buff-tailed from White-tailed, I think this is a queen White-tailed bumblebee. I caught her giving herself a good clean, and found her motions both fascinating and relaxing. In this short video, I slowed her movements down to half the actual speed the better to see more clearly what she was doing. What a beautiful creature she is!
earthstar 
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