166/366 Wild and yellow

14 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature, wildflowers

Tags

Agrimony, British wildflowers, Creeping cinquefoil, Dyer’s greenweed, Evening-primrose, Prickly sow-thistle, Silverweed, Smooth sow-thistle, yellow flowers

It’s grey here in south Wales today, which is not a bad thing as we desperately need the accompanying rain, and it also makes me appreciate even more the days when vibrant, sunshiny, cheery yellow is the dominant colour of my day. Here’s some of the yellow that’s been brightening my walks in recent days.

200614 1 dyers greenweed

Dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria), found at several local sites, and the food plant for the larvae of a couple of rare moths, though I’ve yet to find any.

200614 2 evening primrose

Evening-primrose (Oenothera agg). There are several different species, which can be difficult to differentiate, and they also hybridise with each other, hence the ‘agg’.

200614 3 silverweed

Silverweed (Potentilla anserina). The Plantlife website has some fascinating information about this pretty plant – did you know, for example, that Roman soldiers used to pad their shoes with Silverweed to ease their feet on long marches?

Prickly sow-thistle (Sonchus asper). Most thistles have flowers in shades of pink-lilac-purple but not this one. I’ve included two photos, one to show the structural beauty of the flower, one to show the prickly leaves.

200614 5 smooth sow-thistle

Smooth sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus). Another sow-thistle, but without those pesky prickles, and with flowers a more lemon-yellow.

200614 6 agrimony

Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria), a plant of hooking-bristle seed heads, as you may remember from my earlier post Hooked, September 2019.

200614 7 creeping cinquefoil

Creeping cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans), a plant that thrives on waste and bare ground.

165/366 Major Rara

13 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

British soldier flies, Four-barred major, Oxycera rara, soldier fly

200612 Four-barred Major (1)

Thursday’s walk produced another new-to-me insect.

At first I thought it was a hoverfly I’d not seen before but, when I got home, checked my photos and then my hoverflies guide book, I realised I was mistaken, and this is, in fact, a Four-barred major (Oxycera rara), a tiny (7mm long) soldier fly.

The excellent Nature Spot website tells me these handsome little creatures are widespread in Britain, particularly in damp areas like wetlands and marshes.

200612 Four-barred Major (2)

164/366 ‘Flowers that fly’

12 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Tags

British butterflies, butterfly, Comma, Green-veined white, Large skipper, Meadow Brown, Speckled wood

‘… flowers that fly and all but sing’
~ from ‘Blue-butterfly Day’, a poem by Robert Frost

These are some of the ‘flowers’ that have been flying around me this week, causing my heart to sing.

Comma, one of three seen on Tuesday’s walk

Green-veined white

Large skipper, a butterfly with attitude

Meadow brown, from a count of 54 in a single meadow

Speckled wood

163/366 A Whitethroat family

11 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Common whitethroat, Whitethroat, Whitethroat fledglings

Another day, another family of birds, this time a family of Whitethroats that entertained me during yesterday’s walk.

200611 whitethroats (1)

I was alerted to their presence in shrubs and low trees alongside the path by the odd contact call they make, a kind of buzzing or churring ‘tzzeeet tzzeeet’.

200611 whitethroats (3)

So, I stayed still, watched and waited, and was rewarded with good views of the two adults moving frantically about in the vegetation, trying to find enough insects to feed their three hungry youngsters.

200611 whitethroats (2)

162/366 Jackdaw family update

10 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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Tags

birding, birdwatching, British birds, Carrion crow, jackdaw, juvenile Jackdaw

Though I’m someone who prides myself on my observation skills, I have to admit I’ve failed dismally with my local Jackdaw family. Do you remember I posted back at the end of March about their courtship and nest building (Dawdling, 30 March)? After that, I regularly checked their nesting spot and would see them popping in and out of the chimney pot but I never noticed any signs of them feeding chicks. Yet, a chick has now fledged, though it still seems a bit dazed by the world outside its nest.

A couple of days ago it was sitting on a window ledge of the church hall opposite my house. It sat there for ages, despite the adults trying to coax it down on to the roof below.

200610 jackdaw family (3)

Then I heard an almighty ruckus. It seemed like the entire local population of Jackdaws had descended on the hall roof, and they were all jabbering at once. Turns out a Crow had noticed the juvenile Jackdaw and was trying to get close to it, perhaps thinking it would make an easy meal.

200610 jackdaw family (4)

The young Jackdaw panicked and flew on to the hall roof but one of its parents immediately flew up next to it, and all the others started dive-bombing the Crow, which eventually gave up and flew off. Hopefully, the young Jackdaw has learnt a valuable life lesson and will stay out of harm’s way in future.

161/366 Mite galls on Lime leaves

09 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, lichen, nature, trees

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Tags

Eriophyes mites, gall mites, gall-causing mites, galls on Lime leaves, lime galls, Lime trees, mites

These stopped me in my tracks!

200609 lime gall mites (1)

I’d enjoyed a nice amble around a local park and was on my way home when I spotted these incredible galls and just had to stop for some photos. The galls are caused by tiny mites that spend the cool winter months huddling in cracks on the tree’s bark, then head out on to the leaves when they sprout in the springtime.

200609 lime gall mites (2)

The mites are leaf-sap suckers, and their sap sucking causes a chemical reaction in the leaf, which in turn prompts the leaf to produce these small, conical, hollow growths. The mites are incredibly tiny – less than 0.2mm long apparently – so they’re almost never seen, whereas their cosy gall homes can grow to 8mm long and, when they’re as bright as these ones were, are very obvious on the leaves.

I’m not sure which mites these are as I’m not sure which tree species this is. One mite species, Eriophyes tiliae, is the gall causer on Large-leaved lime trees (Tilia platyphyllos), Common limes (Tilia x europaea) and some hybrid Lime species, and another mite, Eriophyes lateannulatus, causes very similar galls on Small-leaved Limes (Tilia cordata) and hybrid Limes.

200609 lime gall mites (5)

160/366 Peacocks in the nettles

08 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Aglais io, British butterflies, butterfly caterpillars, butterfly larvae, Peacock butterfly, Peacock butterfly larvae, Peacock caterpillars

’Tis the time of the larvae, in this case, the larvae of the Peacock butterfly (Aglais io).

200608 peacock caterpillars (1)

According to Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, a female Peacock lays her eggs in batches of about 400 in the centre of a patch of nettles growing in a sheltered position that enjoys full sun. After about two weeks, the Peacock larvae/caterpillars hatch and begin their journey to adulthood.

As they munch on the nettles, they grow, and as they grow, they need to moult their skins. They do this four times, each stage known as an instar, before they pupate. The process takes about 30 days in total, and each of the five instars looks a little different.

200608 peacock caterpillars (2)

During last Friday’s walk, I was lucky enough to find big colonies of larvae in two different places, and both groups had larvae of the third, fourth and fifth instars, all feeding together. In the photo above, the brownish caterpillars are third instar, the darker caterpillars with spines and spots are fourth instar, and the large caterpillar on the right of the image is fifth instar.

200608 peacock caterpillars (5)

Not surprisingly, I got a few nettle stings getting these photos but it was worth it. As some of the largest caterpillars looked very close to pupation, I’ll revisit one of these sites this week to see if I can locate any pupas.

159/366 Daisy power

07 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, daisies, insects on Oxeye daisies, Oxeye daisy, wildflowers

I walk past this magnificent display of Oxeye daisies quite often, and it always makes me smile.

200607 ox-eye daisies (1)

It runs alongside a local footpath, behind a wire fence that borders a school playground, and transforms an ugly bank of earth, which prevents footpath walkers from seeing the children at play, into a stunning floral flourish.

200607 ox-eye daisies (2)

You might be forgiven for thinking the flowers look a bit ‘empty’ – where are all the insects that love feasting on these wildflowers? Well, though sunny, this was quite a windy day, with huge clouds scudding rapidly across the sky, changing bright warmth to grey coolness in the blink of an eye. But, when I looked closely in the more sheltered spots, the insects were there, sometimes more than I expected on a single flower head, sharing the nutrient power of these glorious daisies.

200607 ox-eye daisies (3)

158/366 Britain’s most common butterfly

06 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Tags

British butterflies, butterfly, Maniola jurtina, Maniola jurtina insularis, Meadow Brown

The latest butterfly species to grace the fields in my area is the Meadow brown (Maniola jurtina). I actually saw my first on Monday but it’s taken a few days to get even half decent photos as all the butterflies I’ve seen have either been flying frantically from place to place and/or hunkering down in the vegetation so effectively that they’ve been almost impossible to see.

200606 meadow brown (1)

In his fabulous publication Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, Peter Eeles notes that, due to their colour differences, the male and female Meadow browns were once thought to be two separate species, the male named the ‘Brown Meadow Ey’d Butterfly’ and the female the ‘Golden Meadow Ey’d Butterfly’. In the photo below, the male is on the left, the female on the right.

200606 meadow brown (2)

Apparently, there are also colour variations in different parts of Britain, and scientists have officially identified these as four separate subspecies. The ones I see here in south Wales are Maniola jurtina insularis, which is the most widespread. Personally, I often have trouble simply telling male from female, and that’s something I’m going to try to improve during the next few months.

200606 meadow brown (3)

157/366 Tufty

05 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Acronicta rumicis, British moths, Knot grass larva, Knot grass moth, moth caterpillar, moth larva

This tiny tufty character was a surprise find during yesterday’s walk.

200605 knot grass moth larva (1)

I guessed it was a moth caterpillar but had no idea which, so posted some photos on Twitter. It only took a few minutes for my moth-er contacts to give it a name – this is the larva of the Knot grass moth (Acronicta rumicis).