23 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, insects, wildflowers
Tags
5-spot Burnet moth, 6-spot Burnet moth, British wildflowers, Burnet moths, Burnet moths on pink flowers, pink wildflowers
There’s just something about pink flowers that Burnet moths find enticing. Whether they be thistles or Red clover or Knapweed, the 5-spots and the 6-spots seem to prefer them.
22 Friday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
The gorgeous Gatekeeper may well be the last butterfly species to be added to my local list this year, unless I get particularly lucky and manage to spot something unusual. But what a fabulous finale!
21 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
Tags
British sawflies, Sawfly, Tenthredo arcuata/brevicornis/notha/schaefferi agg., Tenthredo sawflies
Have you ever wondered why the abbreviation ‘agg.’ is used after the scientific names of some flora and fauna? Well, this particular sawfly is a prime example.
‘Agg.’ is short for aggregate and is used where there exists a group of species that are so closely related and difficult to distinguish from each other, that for practical biodiversity recording purposes they are considered one species. As the Nature Spot website explains
The four species within the Tenthredo arcuata complex are problematic to distinguish and the species boundaries are unclear. The complex within Britain and Ireland consists of the species T. arcuata, brevicornis, notha and schaefferi. Unless specimens have been microscopically examined by someone with suitable expertise, we have decided that they should be recorded as part of this aggregate.
So, the scientific name used for this rather cute little sawfly is quite a mouthful: Tenthredo arcuata/brevicornis/notha/schaefferi agg.
20 Wednesday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
A little video slideshow of some of the hoverflies that have recently caught my eye, including one new species larva – always a treat to find these strange-looking aphid eaters.
19 Tuesday Jul 2022
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lesser black-backed gull, Lesser black-backed gull chicks, urban gull chicks, urban gull nest
Last Saturday afternoon, with much screeching and peeping, this year’s Lesser black-backed gull chick fledged from its home amongst a neighbour’s chimney pots – the same location and, presumably, the same pair of gulls as I’ve posted about here before (in The eggs have hatched!, June 2019 and Fledging, July 2020). I’m never sure whether the chicks’ departures from these rooftop nests are deliberate or accidental – some over-jealous wing-flapping, perhaps? But this year it was certainly well timed to miss the scorching heatwave – I can’t begin to imagine what the temperature would be on the rooftops in full sun.
I’m pleased to report the fledgling has made it through its first couple of nights and days. When I headed out early Sunday morning for a walk, it was sitting across the road in the local church grounds, an adult on the roof top keeping an eye on it, and that’s where it seems to have remained, a relatively safe and sheltered spot next to a very busy road. Fingers crossed for its continued survival!
p.s. The top two images were taken when it was still in the ‘nest’; the photos are dated 11 and 12 July respectively.
18 Monday Jul 2022
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff Bay birding, Cygnus cygnus, Whooper swan
Patch birding list number 108 for 2022 is a delightful surprise, a Whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus), hanging out with the Mute swans in Cardiff Bay. The Whooper isn’t a swan I’ve seen very often as they don’t usually spend their winters in this part of Wales but, with its yellow face patch, its distinctive head shape and its erect bearing, it was easier than expected to pick out from the swan crowd. And, if you’re in this area, the bird will be around for a few weeks yet as it’s currently undergoing its primary moult (i.e. growing new primary wing feathers) so will be unable to fly until the moult is complete. (My photos don’t show this but, if you’re on Twitter, check out @CardiffBirder Peter Howlett’s excellent photos – in fact, I recommend you follow Peter for all the amazing wildlife photos he shares.)
17 Sunday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Common figwort, Scrophularia nodosa, Vicia sylvatica, Wood vetch, woodland plants, woodland wildflowers
These new-to-me plant finds served as a welcome reminder that I should vary my walking routes more often, as I spotted both along a woodland path I don’t often wander.
This first plant is Common figwort (Scrophularia nodosa). Richard Mabey, in Flora Britannica, explains the name: ‘The “fig” in figwort is an old word for piles [haemorrhoids], which both the globular red flower-buds and the root-protuberances were thought to resemble. Figwort was recommended for piles and also for the tubercular swellings of scrofula, “the King’s Evil”.’
Common figwort is a rare plant locally so I returned to the site during last Friday’s walk, hoping for another look and better photos, but I was both dismayed and angered to find that the Woodland Trust’s maintenance team had been through shortly before I got to the location, and their overly aggressive strimming of the path’s edges had destroyed the plant. Sadly, this is just the latest in a series of issues I have noted with the Woodland Trust’s mismanagement of this glorious ancient woodland.
Fortunately, the Wood vetch (Vicia sylvatica) had not been affected, probably because it was scrambling along a backward-sloping bank so out of the strimmers’ line of attack. At a glance, this vetch’s flowers look white but a closer look reveals the delicate beauty of their fine purple lines.
16 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
The latest odonata species to fly on to my 2022 sightings list is the Southern hawker (Aeshna cyanea), a blue-and-green-coloured male patrolling the woodland rides at a local woodland last Sunday 10 July and, yesterday, a brown-and-green female perched on the bramble poking through a mesh fence bordering a local high school. These beautiful beasties fly from June to October and are often seen quite a distance from water, as mine were.
Dragonflies fascinate me, especially their ‘flying mechanism’, that part of their thorax where the two pairs of wings are attached to their body. My Europe’s Dragonflies field guide describes how ‘Dragonfly wings are remarkably strong and light, but flexible, with a complex highly evolved structure. They are powered by strong muscles in the thorax, with neurons connected directly to the brain.’
15 Friday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
Starting today and running until 7 August, this year’s big butterfly count is underway. The general public – that’s you! – are crucial in assessing the state of the nation’s butterflies by taking part in this annual count. There’s still time to get involved, as you can download the necessary materials from the Butterfly Conservation website, and it only takes 15 minutes of watching and counting the butterflies in your back garden, your local park or green space, then logging those counts online. Easy peasy! And a massive thank you to everyone who takes the time to make a difference!
14 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, hairstreak butterflies, mating butterflies, mating White-letter hairstreaks, White-letter hairstreaks
Saturday’s walk to my local woodlands started with a magical experience when I spotted these mating hairstreaks sitting, almost hidden, on a leaf of a small sapling. The tree was a young Oak, so I assumed the butterflies were Purple hairstreaks but a closer look showed these were actually White-letter hairstreaks, though there were no Wych elms, their usual habitat, anywhere in sight. The lessons for me were twofold: I should always check rather than make assumptions, and butterflies don’t always do what you expect them to. And, though I felt a little like a voyeur, the butterflies were a joy to see so close, and they stayed quite still while I took this series of photographs.
earthstar 
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