28 Friday Jun 2024
Posted in insects
This was not my first Ringlet of the year but it was the first to stay still long enough for me to get a few photographs. It looks restful, reposed but looks can be deceptive. Within moments of me taking this image, it was off once again, patrolling the woodland edge, spreading its pheromones, looking for a female to mate with.
27 Thursday Jun 2024
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Coot, Coot chicks, Mallard, Mallard ducklings, Tufted ducklings
As well as the Red-eyed damselflies I wrote about yesterday, my wander around Cardiff’s inner city canals also produced sightings of some delightful young birds and I had a wonderful time watching their antics, and their interactions with each other and their parents.
Three tiny Coot chicks were having a little swim with their doting parents. The chicks looked very young, were still relying on their parents to feed them, and, after about 15 minutes, the parents took their little family back to the nearby nest to preen and rest.
There were also two broods of Mallards, both with their mothers supervising them as they whizzed along the canals, nibbling at the weed, wobbling across lily pads. One mother Mallard had a brood of four ducklings, the other just one surviving chick.
26 Wednesday Jun 2024
Posted in insects
At the beginning of the year I’d never seen Red-eyed damselflies before. Then I found them along the River Ely in Cardiff in May (Lifer: Red-eyed damselflies, 24 May). And last Friday I had a wonderful time watching them flitting about on Cardiff’s inner city canals.
According to the NBN Atlas records for Erythromma najas, they were first reported in that location last August. I had been meaning to check the site but hadn’t got around to it before a local birder reported seeing them last Thursday.
Friday was a dull day (it’s usually easiest to see dragon- and damselflies in warm sunshine) but more pleasant for me walking to the area so I thought I’d take a chance.
At this time of year, the canals are almost covered by weed and lily pads, where the Red-eyed damselflies might be expected to be seen sitting, but they also like to use waterside vegetation to perch on and that’s where I eventually found them. What gorgeous creatures they are!
25 Tuesday Jun 2024
Posted in insects
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, Large white butterfly, Large white caterpillars, Large white larvae
If you’re a gardener living in Britain, you’re probably familiar with today’s creatures, the caterpillars of the Large white butterfly (Pieris brassicae), munching on your cauliflowers or broccoli, but I’d never seen them until last week. I think they’re rather attractive but I can certainly understand why the gardeners amongst you might not think so well of them.
24 Monday Jun 2024
Tags
British leafminers, British sawflies, leaf-mining sawfly larvae, leafminers on Birch, sawfly larvae on Birch
Staring at the leaves of young Birch trees paid off once again when I recently spotted these large blotches.
They were made by the larvae of Scolioneura betuleti, a small black sawfly – you can see a photo of the adult on The Sawflies of Britain and Ireland website. The larvae are active in early summer and again in the autumn – the British Leafminers website has images of the distinctive larvae.
23 Sunday Jun 2024
Posted in wildflowers
I’ve probably walked past this plant many many times but last Sunday was the first time I knowingly thought ‘Oooo, that must be Brooklime’.
It was the tiny blue flowers that gave it away, and the fleshy succulent-like leaves, and the fact it was growing in the wet muddy area of a local horse field (that has a public footpath running through it, which I often use to get to a favourite local woodland). The flowers of Brooklime (Veronica beccabunga) are the clearest indicator that this is a member of the speedwell family, just one that prefers to live in damp habitats.
The Plantlife website has an interesting section on this plant, entitled ‘Things you might not know’:
22 Saturday Jun 2024
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Canada geese, Canada goose goslings, Cardiff Bay birding, Lesser black-backed gull, Lesser black-backed gull chicks, Oystercatcher, Oystercatcher chick
For the first time in ages I walked a circuit of Cardiff Bay on Tuesday – I usually avoid the place in the summer as there are too many people for my liking, but I’d heard there were some chicks to be seen so I went looking. These are they …
Canada goose (above and below): there were two broods of goslings, one of five and one of six, with their parents and a flock of 20-plus adult geese (as if they were all keeping an eye on the children) in one of the now-landlocked old docks. They’ll be stuck there until they learn to fly but I’ve heard people have been feeding them (perhaps that’s also why so many adults are present) so hopefully they’ll all develop to maturity.
Lesser black-backed gull: one chick was still on the dolphin where their nest must have been (there is no other way the chick could have got there), squawking almost repeatedly at an adult gull that was perched higher up the dolphin structure. The other chick had either fallen or jumped from the dolphin and was nearby, at the water’s edge, washing and preening.
Oystercatcher: this was the main reason for my walk and definitely the highlight. A pair of Oystercatchers has been returning to the same spot, on another of the dolphin structures, for several years, to breed but they have always failed to raise a chick to adulthood. It is a very odd location for their nest – no other Oystercatchers breed locally so I wonder if this is where one of them was originally hatched. So far, this year’s breeding attempt is going well so let’s hope their good luck continues.
21 Friday Jun 2024
Posted in fungi
Tags
British rust fungi, British wildflowers, Puccinia pulverulenta, rust fungus, rust on willowherb, Willowherb, Willowherb rust
I’ve probably ignored the yellowing leaves of various willowherb species when I’ve seen them previously, thinking they were just drying out or perhaps diseased, but this time I turned a leaf over and discovered a new fungus (and lots of tiny orange grubs – likely fungus gnat larvae – feasting on that fungus).
This is Willowherb rust (Puccinia pulverulenta) (luckily, most rust species are host specific so are easy to identify if you know what the host plant it). The tiny orange rings, which, with their white fringing look a little like miniature flowers, are aecia – it’s from these that the rust releases some of its spores. Later in their complicated life cycle, the rust also produces the brown uredinia that can be seen in the photo on the right below. (Rust fungi have five different spore states – if you want to delve in to that life cycle, Science Direct has a good explanatory, though very technical article on its website.)
20 Thursday Jun 2024
Posted in insects
Butterfly species 20 for 2024 took some finding. I usually see a few of these little beauties when I visit Aberbargoed Grasslands National Nature Reserve looking for fritillaries but, perhaps due to our exceedingly wet spring, butterflies everywhere have been thin on the ground this year. So, when my second visit to the grasslands failed to turn up any butterflies at all, I decided to try the adjacent coal spoil tip, thinking that the shingle and scree surface might be both drier and warmer. And so it proved. And there, in a small sheltered area, I found my first three Small heath butterflies of the year.
19 Wednesday Jun 2024
Posted in insects
Tags
Black-tailed skimmer, British dragonflies, Broad-bodied Chaser, dragonfly, Four-spotted Chaser, Libellula depressa, Libellula quadrimaculata, Odonata, Orthetrum cancellatum
Last Saturday was a day of golden dragons …
my first Black-tailed skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum) of the year (unfortunately, the male didn’t stop for a photo),
a female Broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa), and …
a Four-spotted chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata).
earthstar 
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