03 Tuesday Jan 2023
It probably comes as no surprise that the first mammal I spotted this year was a Grey squirrel – it’s certainly the mammal I see most often.
And that wee beastie was followed closely by the second mammal of 2023, a Rabbit, this one enjoying a snooze in some very welcome sunshine yesterday.
27 Sunday Nov 2022
As today is the last Sunday of autumn I thought I’d pull together a little video of this year’s display of trees and their leaves, from the brown and bland to the rosy red and spectacular. Come scuff some leaves with me …
23 Wednesday Nov 2022
This is my favourite time of year for leaf turning, not only because it’s the best time of year to search for leafmines but also because you never know what you might find lurking beneath. In this instance, a rosy red Parent bug (Elasmucha grisea), which overwinters as an adult bug, was hiding away beneath the leaves in a well-vegetated spot.
20 Sunday Nov 2022
Posted in autumn, flowers, wildflowers
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autumn colour, autumn wildflowers, British wildflowers, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, frost, frosty leaves
Yesterday saw our first real frost of the season, with the ground crunchy and vegetation covered in a sparkling layer of ice crystals.
Despite these signs of the cooler weather to come, there were still plenty of wildflowers in bloom so, as I meandered up and down the east and west paddocks at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, I photographed those I found: Blue fleabane; Bramble; both Creeping and Meadow buttercups; the ubiquitous Daisy and Dandelion; one or two Devil’s-bit scabious and Flax flowers hanging on in the more sheltered spots; Wild carrot enjoying a second flowering; and Yellow-wort, whose little bursts of bright sunshine yellow dotted much of the west paddock.
16 Wednesday Nov 2022
Though I know many Lepidoptera over-winter as caterpillars, and this has been a particularly mild November as well, it was still a surprise to see these two caterpillars on one of my recent walks. From previous sightings, I knew that the black, red and white hairy beastie was the larva of a Knot grass moth (Acronicta rumicis) but I didn’t recognise the other one. One of my Twitter pals was able to tell me it’s one of the Noctuid species of moths but wasn’t able to be more specific, but I’ve just ordered a book I’ve long desired, The Field Guide to Caterpillars of Great Britain and Ireland, so will hopefully be able to update this post soon.
13 Sunday Nov 2022
‘Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight, they swirled and sailed and fluttered on the wind drafts.’ ~ from Where the crawdads sing, Delia Owens, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2018
11 Friday Nov 2022
As you can see, the Dusky puffball (Lycoperdon nigrescens) is very similar to the Common puffball but its skin is darker. Specimens are primarily found in coniferous woodland (mine was fruiting in a section of a local cemetery planted with various species of conifer), though these flexible puffballs can also be found growing amongst the dunes at the seaside and in the acid soils of heathland. According to Pat O’Reilly in his book Fascinated by Fungi, these fungi emit ‘an unpleasant gassy smell’ when their flesh is cut. I didn’t check!
10 Thursday Nov 2022
I could hear them tooting from the other side of the road so quickly got my camera out and headed across to Roath Park Lake. There were six Teal in total, four males and two females. One pair was drifting off to one side together but it was the other three males that were making all the noise.
The second female, a delicate brown-and-grey beauty, was the subject of their intense attention. All three males were circling her, making their distinctive tooting call and flinging back their heads. I had never seen this behaviour before but their display was unmistakeable. Each was trying, but seemingly failing to impress the female. They were certainly presenting her with some very handsome choices, and I was definitely impressed.
09 Wednesday Nov 2022
I know the weather’s been mild – we haven’t even had a frost here yet – but I still didn’t expect to see a bunch of ladybirds on nettles as I walked through a local park on Monday afternoon. Initially I thought there were just one or two but the little red dots just kept on appearing so I retraced my steps to where I’d seen the first one and counted. Twenty two! Sadly, they were all the invasive Harlequins but hopefully that means the native breeds are all tucked up somewhere safe for the winter.
07 Monday Nov 2022
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I’m not actually a fan of mud. It clings to my shoes, leads to more frequent clothes washing, makes pathways impassable, occasionally causes me to slip and slide and fall over on my backside. But, when I noticed a patch of fallen leaves lying in mud, I rather liked how they looked, how the mud helped to highlight the veins. And, when I got home and looked more closely at my photographs, this one leaf looked to me like a lung. And so I manipulated the image, cropping the photo then flipping it horizontally and pasting the two parts together. Et voilà!
earthstar 
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