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Category Archives: nature

Wild word: pupa

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, plants

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Tags

British leaf mines, Cerodontha iridis, leaf-mining fly pupae, leafminer, pupa, pupae of Cerodontha iridis

Pupa: Noun (pl. pupae); An insect in its inactive immature form between larva and adult, e.g. a chrysalis; Origin: late 18th century modern Latin, from Latin pupa ‘girl, doll’ (Oxford Dictionary).

210120 pupa cerodontha iridis (2)

I don’t find pupae very often so I was very pleased to find these – all the black oblong shapes, not just the one outside the leaf – the pupae of the leaf-mining fly Cerodontha iridis. More about that creature in my blog post of 7 December.

210120 pupa cerodontha iridis (1)

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364/366 A vibrant treat

29 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by sconzani in fungi, nature, winter

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

blue fungus, British fungi, Cobalt crust, Terana caerulea

It would be fair to say that my fungi-finding year was fairly dismal: only about 20 of this year’s 366 blog posts were about fungi. The highlight, though, was brilliant – the vibrant, intense, almost unreal blue of the Cobalt crust (Terana caerulea) that I posted about earlier this month, in Not just any stick. I haven’t yet been back for a second look at it – I’ve been saving that for a New Year treat!

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345/366 Italian Alder aphid

10 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, leaves, nature, trees

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

aphids, Crypturaphis grassii, Italian Alder, Italian Alder aphid

At first I thought this incredibly tiny creature was the early instar of a shield bug but, when I couldn’t find any pictures that resembled it on the British Bugs website, I turned to Twitter for help. Luckily, a botanist I know, Karen, had seen something similar posted recently in a Facebook group and very quickly supplied me with a name, Crypturaphis grassii, the Italian Alder aphid, so named because it’s only ever found on Italian Alder trees (Alnus cordata).

201210 Crypturaphis grassii (1)

I found online a report published in 2011, on the first records of this species in Cornwall, which provides some interesting detail about these aphids. Apparently, Crypturaphis grassii is ‘native to southern Italy and Corsica and [was] first recorded in the UK in 1998’. Intrigued, I returned to the tree I’d found my first specimen on and found many more of these creatures, with variations in colour and markings. The report explains that:

Viviparous individuals [those able to birth live young] are yellowish-green to yellowish-brown, with brown spots extending along the dorsal surface, around the edge of the abdomen and on the head. Compound eyes are reddish in colour. … Immature apterae [wingless individuals] are similar but smaller, paler and lacking in dark spots, more translucent and slightly more elongate in shape. Oviparous apterae [wingless individuals that are able to lay eggs] are similar in size and shape to viviparous apterae but are brown in colour, with transverse darker abdominal stripes, rather than spots.

201210 Crypturaphis grassii (3)

201210 Crypturaphis grassii (4)
201210 Crypturaphis grassii (5)

The Italian Alder, on which the aphid feeds, was ‘commonly planted as a roadside, waterside and/or windbreak species’ during the 1980s, and, by 2011 when the report was published, the aphids had already spread widely throughout Britain, including having established colonies in the Vale of Glamorgan, which is where I found the aphids in my photographs.

201210 Crypturaphis grassii (2)

Citation: Luker, Sally. (2011). CRYPTURAPHIS GRASSII (STERNORRYNCHA: APHIDIDAE): FIRST RECORDS FOR CORNWALL. British Journal of Entomology and Natural History. 24. 205.

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335/366 In praise of Beech

30 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, leaves, nature, trees

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

autumn colour, autumn leaves, beech, British trees

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.

201130 beech (1)
201130 beech (2)

201130 beech (3)

201130 beech (4)
201130 beech (5)

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324/366 Simply red

19 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi, leaves, nature, plants

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autumn colour, colour red, red fruit, red fungi, red leaves, red stems

Stop! Danger! With green, Christmas. Anger (seeing red). Passion (red hot). And, in Nature, red leaves, red breasts (though I’ve always thought of the Robin as more of an orange breast), red fungi, red fruit, red feathers, red eyes…. Here’s a selection of reds from my recent meanders.

201119 red (1)
201119 red (2)
201119 red (3)
201119 red (4)
201119 red (5)
201119 red (6)
201119 red (7)
201119 red (8)
201119 red (9)
201119 red (10)
201119 red (11)
201119 red (12)

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297/366 Candlesnuff

23 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi, nature

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British fungi, Candlesnuff, Candlesnuff fungus, Xylaria hypoxylon

With our weather much wetter and temperatures not too cold, October should be a good month for spotting fungi but I haven’t been finding much during my daily meanders. So, it was good to spot a piece of wood with the early stages of Candlesnuff (Xylaira hypoxylon) fungi growing out of it.

201023 candlesnuff (1)

I’ve blogged about this lovely fungus before so to find out more about it, click on The right snuff, December 2016.

201023 candlesnuff (2)

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295/366 Salmon in the Bay

21 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

British fish, Cardiff Bay, fish in Cardiff Bay, Salmon, Salmon in Cardiff Bay

During yesterday’s walk along the southern edge of Cardiff Bay, I spotted this huge metre-long fish cruising along sluggishly very close to the embankment. Turns out it was a Salmon, possibly returning to the Bay after having spawned somewhere high up in the River Taff.

201021 salmon

Sadly, this fish has probably now reached the end of its life … but what a life! As Will Millard kindly explained on Twitter, this Salmon may have

been born in the Taff, migrated to sea, possibly even as far as Greenland, to pile on weight, mass and muscle over a few years, before returning, hundreds of miles home to spawn and then die. It’s sad when any animal comes to the end of its life, but what a story & other life is sustained from the salmon carcass. In parts of Canada and Alaska whole forests gain massive parts of their nutrients purely from salmon dying at the end of the salmon run.

Will also explained that Salmon often develop skin infections during times of stress, which may explain the pale, ‘cotton wool’-like appearance of parts of its skin.

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277/366 A heartening splash

03 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

British butterflies, butterfly, Peacock, Peacock butterfly

I’ve been saving this photo, taken quite recently, on 22 September, for just such a day as this. We are currently under the thumb of Storm Alex, the Met Office having issued a yellow warning for heavy rain and wind gusts over 20mph until midday tomorrow. So, to me, this is the perfect day to post this gorgeous Peacock butterfly, a heartening splash of bold cheery colour.

201003 peacock

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276/366 A splendid Skylark

02 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Linnet, Skylark, south Wales coast, Swallow

With rain forecast for the following few days, I was determined to enjoy my meander along the coast, and it was certainly not difficult to do. So many Swallows, perhaps thousands, were swooping low over the fields, feeding up before heading out across the water, that I spent rather a lot of time just standing, watching, smiling at the sight of them.

201002 swallows (1)
201002 swallows (2)
201002 swallows (3)

There were Linnets too – one flock held more than 200 birds, and a smattering of Meadow pipits and Skylarks, though it wasn’t until I got back to town that I had wonderfully close views of one particular Skylark.

201002 linnets

It was rather incongruously poking about a large grassed area on top of the seaside cliffs, optimistically labelled a ‘park’ by the local council, which is usually devoid of anything but human and canine life. What a splendid bird!

201002 skylark (1)201002 skylark (2)201002 skylark (3)201002 skylark (4)

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248/366 The bramble eater

04 Friday Sep 2020

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, plants

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

autumn berries, birding, birdwatching, blackberries, bramble, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Pheasant, pheasant eating blackberries

A rustle of vegetation … an eye … who’s this lurking behind the ‘snipe paddock’ fence at Cosmeston?

200904 pheasant (1)

A female Pheasant? A common enough bird in the local countryside but not normally seen here in this dog-full park. She has quite short tail feathers and she’s not too bothered about my presence so I presume she’s a juvenile.

200904 pheasant (2)

It seems she’s quite partial to blackberries.

200904 pheasant (3)

Are there more of those delicious treats?

200904 pheasant (4)

Aha, yes, another ripe one.

200904 pheasant (5)

And, after scoffing those couple of berries, she wanders off in search of more.

200904 pheasant (6)

 

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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