07 Tuesday Sep 2021
Butterflies are smart!
The Speckled wood may be a woodland butterfly, able to cope without as much sunshine as most butterflies need, but it still needs some heat. And, when the sun’s not shining, the warmest places in this area of local woodland are where the rides were recently cut and the grass clippings are beginning to decompose. I found seven Speckled woods in one very small area, all taking advantage of the heat of the rotting process.
05 Sunday Sep 2021
Posted in autumn, wildflowers
Tags
Autumn Lady’s-tresses, autumn-flowering orchid, British orchids, native orchids, orchid, Spiranthes spiralis
A botanical treat I look forward to at this time of year is the final show of native orchids for the year, the delicately formed and perfectly named Autumn lady’s-tresses (Spiranthes spiralis).
When I first started visiting Cosmeston Lakes Country Park only one small clump of these little beauties was known but a couple of years ago another much large colony was discovered. I didn’t do an exact count but there were easily 30 stems, many not yet open, and probably more obscured by the other wildflowers.
They grow perilously close to a children’s playground area and are in constant danger of being trampled so let’s hope they survive to bloom another year.
24 Tuesday Aug 2021
Tags
autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Redstart
Thanks to a chat with local expert birder, Graham, I saw splashes of autumn, the flashing orange-red of a young male Redstart, at Cosmeston yesterday.
And he – the bird that is, not Graham – certainly wasn’t shy about displaying the glorious colours under his tail and wing, as he flitted from bush to ground to small tree to wire fence in his constant search for food.
There was another bird calling constantly very close by, probably a second Redstart, but I didn’t manage to get on to it before getting a message that there were Whinchats on the other side of the park. I love this time of year – you never know what’s going to turn up next.
19 Thursday Aug 2021
Tags
autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Spotted flycatcher, Willow warbler
These three were hanging out together in a clump of trees at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park yesterday, two Spotted flycatchers flanking a Willow warbler. All are starting their annual autumn migration to Africa, the Willow warbler to southern Tanzania or northern Mozambique, the flycatchers anywhere from the coastal forests of the Gulf of Guinea to South Africa. I hope to get better photos of these birds in the coming weeks but was delighted to get this shot of all three together.
30 Monday Nov 2020
In his ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, Keats wrote of a ‘light-winged Dryad of the trees’ singing of summer in ‘some melodious plot of beechen green’. The beechen green has now become beechen gold and brown, but I can still imagine Dryads singing of the beauty of mighty Beech trees, in all their autumnal finery, and even performing paeans in praise of their statuesque forms once those golden leaves have fallen.
29 Sunday Nov 2020
Posted in autumn, wildflowers
The seedheads of Old-man’s-beard – or perhaps you prefer to call it Traveller’s-joy – the native British Clematis vitalba, are a feathery delight, and I can rarely refrain from taking photos of them.
I also relish the delicate vanilla fragrance of the plant’s spiky flowers.
So, imagine my delight during today’s walk when I found both flowers and seedheads on the same plant. Spring and autumn, scent and seeds – a delicious, if slightly strange combination.
27 Friday Nov 2020
Redlead roundhead – try saying that name several times at speed – a real tongue-twister! Its scientific name is also a bit of a mouthful: Leratiomyces ceres, the ceres epithet a reference to the red of its cap, though I’ve found they’re more of a rusty red than cerise.
This fungus is an ‘alien from Australia’ that favours wood chip, particularly on sandy soil, and it owes its spreading distribution to the way many park departments cover areas of ‘gardens’ with chippings of trees from wide and varied sources. I found this particular specimen on the Cardiff Bay Barrage, growing on bits of wood washed down the Rivers Ely and Taff during flooding events.
26 Thursday Nov 2020
Tags
British moths, Firethorn leaf miner, leaf mines, leaf mines on Pyracantha, leaf-mining larvae, leaf-mining moth, leafminer, moth larvae, moth larvae in leaf mines, Phyllonorycter leucographella
I stumbled across these leaf mines by accident but I simply can’t resist including them … because the tiny striped larvae are so darn cute!
These are the larvae of the moth Phyllonorycter leucographella, the adult of which is also rather striking – you can see photos of it on the UK Moths website here. As the website reports, this moth is a recent arrival to Britain, first spotted in Essex just 40 years ago, but for such a small creature – its wingspan is only 7-9mm – it’s managed to fly and settle far and wide, from Yorkshire in the north of England to Pembrokeshire in the west of Wales, and all points in between. This may partly be due to the fact that its larvae feed on many garden plants: I found an abundance of leaf mines on an orange-berried variety of Firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea), which explains why the moth’s common name is Firethorn leaf miner.
As you can see from my pictures, the larval ‘mine’ is like a blister, centred over the midrib on the upper side of the leaf. The larva, which, with black blobs on a white body, is very distinctive, can often be seen through the membrane of the mine, especially when it’s feeding at the edge of the blister. You can read more about this leaf miner, its life cycle and preferred larval plants on the UK Fly Mines website here.
25 Wednesday Nov 2020
Tags
birding birdwatching, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay birds
Monday’s walk saw me striding out on a circuit of Cardiff Bay, a walk of just under 8 miles that day as I meandered here and there to look at particular things. (This panorama of the Bay was taken in April a couple of years ago and a few things have since changed but I just wanted to give those unfamiliar with the Bay a general idea of my walk. The Bristol Channel is to the right; Cardiff city centre at the top, slightly left of centre; the view is as seen from the town of Penarth.)
These are some of the birds I encountered on my circuit: three of four Redshanks that flew in to the embankment of the River Ely where it flows in to the Bay.
A Grey heron using some of the old dock infrastructure as a lookout.
A pair of Goosanders on the embankment near Mermaid Quay – the red-headed female mostly snoozing, her partner using the time out of the water to spruce himself up.
One of a pair of Mute swans also preening, then snoozing.
One of many Great crested grebes that make their home in the Bay.
I counted 20 Turnstones in total on Monday; this one had lost a chunk of feathers on its back, perhaps an encounter with a bird of prey that the Turnstone was fortunate to survive.
And, last but probably the most numerous, one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Black-headed gulls to be seen around Cardiff Bay.
24 Tuesday Nov 2020
Tags
… on mosses.
earthstar 
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