25 Saturday Jul 2020
Posted in flowers, molluscs, nature, wildflowers
I had to chuckle during this morning’s brief stomp between bouts of heavy rain. The local slugs, which I thought would be at home in such conditions, sliding on the grass, slithering over leaves, were more literally ‘at home’, sheltering in the deep flower cups of bindweed.
24 Friday Jul 2020
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, gull chick learning to fly, gull chicks, Lesser black-backed gull, urban gull nest
From an initial count of three chicks, the local Lesser black-backed gulls nesting amongst a neighbour’s chimney pots have managed to raise one to fledging. I’ve been watching it practising its flying skills over recent days and, finally this morning, it has left the shelter of its nest site.
Though it was pottering around the rooftops for a while, I can no longer see the chick. Now follows the dangerous time for this fledgling of learning to find its own food, finding shelter against bad weather, escaping domestic cats and dogs in the various neighbours’ gardens, and avoiding cars on roads…. Good luck, little one!
23 Thursday Jul 2020
Tags
British birds, British butterflies, Brown argus, Gatekeeper, juvenile Spotted flycatcher, mating Gatekeepers, Minnetts Field, Peacock butterfly, Siskin, Slade Wood, Spotted flycatcher
On Wednesday I ventured on to public transport for the first time in four months – suitably masked, of course – for a visit to Slade Wood, near Rogiet. This was a site where I’d seen Silver-washed fritillaries and White admiral butterflies last summer so I was hoping for more of those but, unfortunately, huge areas of the woodland have been felled over the winter months, which has destroyed a lot of the butterflies’ habitat.
I did still see a lot of butterflies on the Buddleja bushes – in fact, probably more Peacocks than I’ve seen in one day before, and I got some pics of a pair of Gatekeepers mating – but only spotted one Silver-washed fritillary (and didn’t manage a photo) and no White admirals. There was also a butterfly consolation prize in the form of a Brown argus, a butterfly that’s not common locally, which was in Minnett’s Field, a nearby meadow managed by Gwent Wildlife Trust.
Though the butterflies were a little disappointing, the birds were a huge bonus as I managed to find a family of Spotted flycatchers, with two adults and a couple of juveniles (below left), which I’d not seen before.
And the flycatchers were joined at their watering hole, a couple of muddy puddles, by two beautiful bright Siskin.
I may not have seen what I was expecting and I was saddened to see how many trees had been felled but I still had a wonderful day out. The sense of freedom was exhilarating, and Nature certainly didn’t disappoint!
22 Wednesday Jul 2020
Posted in nature, plants, wildflowers
This gorgeous thistle was a new plant for me when I discovered it in a local farm field a couple of days ago. It’s a Musk thistle (Carduus nutans), also known as Nodding thistle, and it’s precisely the nodding habit of its growth that alerted me to something new.
Its flowers, though a glorious and vibrant pinky purple, droop downwards, nodding on long spineless stems and, in fact, compared to the upright habit of other thistles I see, this one’s growth habit overall is very droopy. It’s a bit of a sloucher, though, as its name suggests, those flowers have a musky smell that bees find particularly attractive, and several butterflies seemed to like it too.
The Plantlife website provides some interesting facts about the Musk thistle: apparently ‘its fleshy stem is edible and said to be delicious after peeling and boiling’ and ‘medicinally, the leaves have been used as a tonic to stimulate liver function, whereas the flowers have been used to reduce fevers and purify the blood.’
21 Tuesday Jul 2020
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, juvenile Stonechat, Stonechat, Stonechat preening video
For the first time in who knows how long a pair of Stonechats overwintered at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park and, came the Spring, they bred, the first time this has ever been recorded at Cosmeston. The two offspring are now well grown juveniles and, if you’re lucky, the family can be seen feeding and flitting about together along the hedgerows and amongst the wildflowers in Cosmeston’s meadows. I caught up with them during a walk last Thursday and was delighted that at least one of the family was happy to be photographed and videoed.
20 Monday Jul 2020
Tags
bonking neetles, British butterflies, British crickets, British grasshoppers, Common red soldier beetle, Green-veined white, Long winged cone-head, Meadow grasshopper, Nettle weevil, Small copper, weevil
Some snippets from the insect world around me:
A sure sign that it’s now high summer, Common red soldier beetles (Rhagonycha fulva) can be seen everywhere, especially on the flowers of umbellifers, demonstrating why they are often called bonking beetles.
Also caught copulating, these Green-veined white butterflies (Pieris napi) were being annoyed by a third of their kind, trying to get involved in the action.
On the subject of butterflies, the second brood of Small coppers (Lycaena phlaeas) is now on the wing. This stunning specimen was only the second Small copper I’d seen this year, so was a very welcome sighting.
There’s nothing cuter than a weevil. This one is, I think, a Nettle weevil (Phyllobius pomaceus).
I found this odd: a colony of ants, farming a horde of aphids on this ragwort plant, have extended their nest up the very stem of the plant.
To finish this post, first, a Meadow grasshopper (Chorthippus parallelus) nymph and …
… another nymph, also often a meadow dweller, this time a cricket species, a Long winged cone-head (Conocephalus fuscus).
19 Sunday Jul 2020
Posted in nature, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Common centaury, Common mouse-ear, Eyebright, Fairy flax, Hedge bedstraw, white-flowered wildflowers
Many of the local wildflowers currently in bloom have small, white flowers. These are some of them …
Fairy flax (Linum catharticum): this is the smallest, a tiny delicate plant that appears to shake and quiver even in the lightest breeze. It is also known as Purging flax as, in past times, herbalists prescribed it as a laxative.
Hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo): not the bedstraw that was used to sweeten the smell of straw mattresses (which is the yellow-flowered Lady’s bedstraw), but its close cousin, which can be found scrambling along hedgerows, particularly on calcareous soils.
Eyebright (Euphrasia sp.): I didn’t know until I checked this plant on the Plantlife website that the various species of Eyebright are semi-parasitic, stealing the nutrients of other plants, like grasses.
Common mouse-ear (Cerastium fontanum): A type of chickweed, which many gardeners will know as a persistent ‘weed’, this little plant gets its mouse-ear name from its hairy leaves that grow in pairs on either side of the plant’s stem.
Common centaury (Centaurium erythraea) is usually pink flowered (see the variations below) but many of the plants I see locally, like those above, have white flowers. The Plantlife website gives the fascinating information that centaury is ‘named after the centaur Chiron, who, according to legend, discovered its healing power and used it to cure himself from the effects of a poisoned arrow.’
18 Saturday Jul 2020
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly in Oak trees, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Favonius quercus, Oak butterfly, oak tree, Purple hairstreak
The key to where to locate this gorgeous butterfly, the Purple hairstreak, is in its scientific name Favonius quercus – quercus is the genus of the Oak tree – and I suspect that there are many more colonies of Purple hairstreaks living in our old Oak trees than we currently know about, as these butterflies spend much of their time unseen, high in the leafy boughs, feasting on honey dew.
There is a colony at Lavernock, and I’ve seen these butterflies at a couple of locations along the road that leads to Lavernock Point, but they were the only local sites I knew about. So, you can perhaps imagine my delight when, during Thursday’s walk at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, I came face to snout with a female Purple hairstreak, which had ventured down to head height, and was happily running her yellow proboscis over the honey-dew-covered leaves.
This was the closest I’d been to one of these lovely creatures and had previously seen neither the purple sheen on their open wings nor the yellow proboscis. I was in butterfly heaven!
17 Friday Jul 2020
I am constantly reminded of how transitory life can be for the smaller creatures that share our planet. Take, for instance, the Ringlet butterfly. The adults usually emerge in the second half of June and only a few survive into August. In their few short weeks of life they experience a frantic rush to reproduce …
… a time full of danger from pecking birds, of collisions with damaging foliage …
… before death takes them – unless, like this rather ragged creature, they are caught in a spider’s web, die prematurely but, in so doing, give life to another creature.
16 Thursday Jul 2020
Posted in flowers, nature, wildflowers
Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) is not a wildflower I see very often so I was delighted to find a few plants of it blooming in a local meadow during yesterday’s wander.
The First Nature website explains its scientific name: Achillea ‘stems from the belief that Achilles used flowers of this genus to cure his soldiers’ wounds; ptarmica … comes from the Greek and means to cause a sneeze’. And, as well as Sneezewort, it has a host of other wonderful common names, including Sneezeweed, Bastard pellitory, Fair-maid-of-France, and Goose tongue.
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