Author Archives: sconzani

Common periwinkles

17 Thursday Apr 2025

Posted by in coastal fauna, molluscs

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One benefit of this moving malarkey, which is limiting my time to get out for long walks, is that my shorter walks have taken me down to the local beach a few times and reminded me how much I enjoy fossicking along the tide line and how little I know about the flora and fauna of the seashore.

This week’s finds included these shellfish which, I think, are Common periwinkles (Littorina littorea). They are found all around the rocky coasts of Britain, though, locally, these periwinkles are growing on the concrete and steel supports of the pier.

The Marine Life Information Network website says these are

the largest British periwinkle, with the shell reaching a maximum height of 52 mm. The shell is sharply conical with a pointed apex and surface sculpturing. The spiral ridges which are marked in young animals tend to become obscured in older individuals, giving the shell a smooth appearance.

Whack a snack!

16 Wednesday Apr 2025

Posted by in birds, insects

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Wouldn’t you know it? This was my first ever Herald moth (Scoliopteryx libatrix) and it ended up being snatched, whacked, and snacked on by a Blackbird. I guess a bird’s gotta eat. (If you want to see what an intact Herald looks like, there are some cracking photos on the UK Moths website.)

Small zooming Orange-tips

15 Tuesday Apr 2025

Posted by in insects, spring

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As I write this, a weather warning has just come into force, potentially bringing thunder, lightning and heavy rain from midday today until midday tomorrow. These warnings don’t always produce the forecast downpours but I feel for all the newly emerged small creatures, especially the delicate butterflies like this little Orange-tip. Of all the small Orange-tip males I’ve recently seen zooming along the hedgerows and banks of wildflowers, desperately seeking females, this one finally paused long enough to refuel, which allowed me to quickly snap a few photos. I hope he, and all his butterfly cousins, manage to find sufficient shelter to survive any deluges.

On the move

15 Tuesday Apr 2025

Posted by in birds, spring

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I feel a little like this migrating Common sandpiper looks, ruffled, not at my best, discombobulated. If all goes to plan, I will be moving flats next week, and I’m up to my neck in cleaning, tidying, organising, packing, recycling, binning, repurposing, donating…. I’m sure you all know what it’s like. I just wanted to let you know that I’m trying to keep to my daily posting schedule (and those posts will appear below) but I may miss the odd day. Thanks to you all for following along with me here, and thanks, too, for your understanding.

Leafmines: Elachista cinereopunctella

14 Monday Apr 2025

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These two leafmines, in the leaves of Glaucous sedge (Carex flacca), may look quite boring and nondescript but scroll down to see what lies within.

This is the stunning little larva of Elachista cinereopunctella, a moth that can be found throughout Britain but only in areas where its larval plants can be found (mainly Glaucous sedge, but some other sedges are also used). And the moth’s not actually that common in Wales, with just 13 records showing in the national biodiversity database. This may be because the adult moth is also rather nondescript (see a photo on the UK Moths website here) and few people look for and record the leaf-mining larval stage. I was lucky to be directed to the presence of these mines by my friendly local moth expert, George, though it still took some poking about the sedges in a local area of woodland to find them.

Luscious leek for lunch

13 Sunday Apr 2025

Posted by in flowers, insects, spring, wildflowers

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Today’s short local meander was rather smelly, firstly with swathes of Wild garlic (which will feature in an upcoming post) and also this lush area of Three-cornered leek (or Three-cornered garlic, Allium triquetrum), which was attracting lots of insects.

First up, a tiny solitary bee.

Then, several Dark-edged bee-flies came hovering in to view, long spiky legs dangling below and long tongues poking in to the flowers to feed.

And then this brute showed up, the first Hairy-footed flower bee I’ve managed to photograph this year, just.

Greenland Wheatear

12 Saturday Apr 2025

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I struggle to distinguish between the ‘usual’ Wheatears we see passing through my area and the Greenland Wheatear, one of four subspecies that has the scientific name Oenanthe oenanthe leucorhoa and is usually seen only in the spring as it heads from its overwintering locations in African countries like Kenya to its breeding grounds in Greenland, Iceland and north-eastern Canada. So, when one of our more expert local birders announced the arrival of this Greenland Wheatear on Cardiff Bay Barrage, I went down for a look.

It was certainly a very handsome bird, and I’ve since tried to familiarise myself with some its key features. Given the requirement for its long-haul flight, it’s probably no surprise that Greenland Wheatears are longer winged than the subspecies that fly from Europe to Britain to breed. The Greenland’s relatively large size, longer legs and upright stance are also diagnostic.

They are often described as rotund and pot-bellied, which this bird didn’t really seem to be, but then it had just flown all the way from central Africa so probably needed to feed up to replenish its fat supplies. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bothered by the numerous people and dogs walking in the area, and did seem to be finding plenty of insects to snack on. I’m not sure I could yet confidently identify a Greenland Wheatear without expert help, but this was certainly a stunning bird to see and watch and photograph.

What an effort!

11 Friday Apr 2025

Posted by in insects, spring

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As I write this, my fingers are still stinging. And none of my photos are sharp, partly because ‘Ouch!’ but also because I didn’t want to disturb the clutch so was trying to move the leaf as little as possible. But, when I watched their beautiful mother laying the first of these yesterday, I knew I had to go back today to see how many she’d produced.

And here she is, the gorgeous female Peacock butterfly, clinging on to a Stinging nettle leaf. You might just be able to see how her abdomen is curved up towards the underside of the leaf where she is depositing her eggs. My guide book tells me that a female Peacock ‘lays her eggs in batches of up to 400 eggs, a process that can take over two hours’. What an effort! I will, of course, be looking out for when the tiny caterpillars emerge, in approximately two weeks’ time.

Mystery: on a pine tree

10 Thursday Apr 2025

Posted by in insects, trees

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As the spring and summer progress, this first ‘mystery’ post may well develop in to a mystery series, depending on how many intriguing things I manage to find and how many I don’t manage to identify. These first mystery items were found recently when I was looking more closely than usual at Pine trees to see if I could spot any more Pine ladybirds. I did find one more of those lovely creatures but I also found these ‘things’, dotted sparsely around, attached to the Pine needles.

No amount of googling has produced any similar images or information and, when I asked for help on social media, I was inundated with helpful people saying they were Pine scale, which, after checking the lifecycle of those scales, I’m fairly sure they’re not. They look to me like some kind of egg sac or pupal case, with a tiny creature growing and developing inside.

In an attempt to solve the mystery, I plucked a couple of Pine needles, with the things attached, off one tree, and I’ve brought them home, stuck them in a jar on my kitchen window sill. Whether or not something will emerge remains to be seen and, rest assured, I will definitely write another blog post if that does happen. In the meantime, if any of you has any bright ideas, please do share them in the comments.

Holly blue and Small white

09 Wednesday Apr 2025

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Two for the price of one today!
It’s always a joy to see the blue butterflies emerge; it’s like a tiny piece of the sky has fallen to earth and is flitting amongst the flowers and shrubs and along the trees and hedges. The first to appear locally are the Holly blues. My first, on 2 April, was in an unlikely place; as I walked past, it flitted out from the street-side hedge of a house a few streets away from where I live. There was no Holly or Ivy in sight but perhaps those larval plants were growing in a nearby back garden that I couldn’t see in to.

Next to appear, just a couple of days later, was a Small white that was already looking a bit tatty. It seems its short life was proving to be a challenge, escaping from bird attacks or, perhaps, getting snagged in vegetation. My second Small white was pristine, feeding along a field edge so abundant with Blackthorn blossom that the area had attracted six species of butterfly: as well as the Small white, there were Speckled wood, Comma, another Holly blue, Brimstone, and my first Orange-tip of 2025 (which will feature in a future blog, as soon as one stays still long enough for a photo).