25 Monday May 2020
I’ve seen a few Grass snakes before but only when I’ve been on organised reptile rambles so I wasn’t entirely sure whether this quite small, sadly deceased creature was a Grass snake or a Slow worm. My Twitter pals quickly confirmed it was indeed a snake.
I found it in a local lane during this morning’s walk. It must have been basking in the sun when it was run over by a passing vehicle. Isn’t its skin amazing?
24 Sunday May 2020
Posted in flowers, nature, wildflowers
The occasional smatterings of rain we’ve had in the last few days have eased, ever so slightly, the drought conditions hereabouts, and the flush of new growth that was evident during this morning’s early walk through the fields at Cosmeston included my first Common spotted orchids of the year. Superb!
23 Saturday May 2020
This juvenile Robin was hopping along the path in front of me yesterday, busily searching for snacks, staying a few hops ahead but not too concerned about the much larger ‘wildlife’ behind it.
Its mottled brown colouring helped to camouflage it while it was still in the nest and continues to protect it now that it’s out foraging on its own. It almost ‘disappeared’ completely when it eventually ducked into the bushes alongside the path, though I could still see its beady eye watching me.
Juvenile Robins don’t get their distinctive red breast feathers until they’re a few months old and undergo their first moult. By that time, hopefully, they’ll be ready to fight off or rapidly flee from the territorial disputes their adult colouring might prompt.
22 Friday May 2020
Tags
bird nesting spots, bird nests, birding, birdwatching, Blue tit, British birds, coal tit, odd spot to nest
Birds have some odd ideas about what constitutes their des res. Last year’s winner in the weirdest places to nest stakes was the Blue tit pair who’d chosen to raise their brood in a cigarette disposal unit on the wall of a public toilet block.
So far this year, the leading contenders are the Coal tits whose cheerily cheeping young are huddled cosily into an air ventilation duct underneath a local church.
21 Thursday May 2020
I’d hoped the sunny skies and warmth would bring out more butterflies during yesterday’s exercise walk but they were few and far between at Grangemoor Park, and I think that’s weather related.
Earlier this year, we had almost constant, often heavy rain that saturated the ground and turned everywhere to mud, and now the ground is being baked dry and hard by a subsequent lack of rain. This cycle seems to be having a marked effect on plant growth and insect emergence – at least that’s what I’m seeing, or, rather, not seeing.
The good news at Grangemoor, though, was the abundance of Latticed heath moths, more than I’ve spotted in one day before. Though they do have a habit of flitting very quickly away just as I get ready to take their photo, they are lovely creatures, and seeing so many certainly made my day.
20 Wednesday May 2020
Tags
British hoverflies, Buff-tailed bear hoverfly, bumblebee mimic, Cogan Wood, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Criorhina floccose, hoverfly
Bear? There are bears in south Wales? No, don’t worry, this Buff-tailed bear is a hoverfly (Criorhina floccose), a new find for me, from my first visit to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park in weeks (due to the Corona virus, the park was closed from 23 March until last Saturday 16 May). I initially thought this hoverfly was a variation of one of the other bumblebee-mimicking hoverflies, Merodon equestris, as they can be found in a wide variety of colours. But my record has been corrected by Mr UK Hoverflies himself, Roger Morris, and I now know the tufts of pale hairs at the sides of its abdomen are one of the main diagnostic features.
These hoverflies are fashioned to mimic Common carder bees – see comparison photos below, hoverfly on the left, Common carder bee on the right. I think the hoverfly deserves an A for effort!
Criorhina floccose is usually found in woodland – I found this one in a sheltered clearing in Cosmeston’s Cogan Wood, and there’s only been one previous record in my local 10-kilometre square. Now I know what to look for, I’ll be keeping an eye out for more.
19 Tuesday May 2020
Red admiral, that is. Last year, this was the first butterfly I saw, and it was early, in January. In fact, I saw two of them before January 2019 came to a close. This year it’s taken four and a half months but, finally, on Saturday, when I was enjoying a lovely wander along a local path, admiring the tall frothy loveliness of masses of Cow parsley, this little beauty floated towards me and settled, very obligingly, on a bramble bush right next to the path. Butterfly bliss!
18 Monday May 2020
Tags
Bedeguar gall wasp, British wasps, Diplolepis rosae, Orthopelma mediator, parasite of Bedeguar gall wasp, parasite of Diplolepis rosae, parasitic wasp, Robin's pincushion
This is a tale of two galls. One gall (below, left) was created by the Thistle gall fly (Urophora cardui), the other (below, right) by the Bedeguar gall wasp (Diplolepis rosae). I harvested the first gall late last year, the second early this year and, when I brought that second gall home, I made a rookie error – I put it in the same jar as the first gall. Why was that an error? Because it meant that if/when anything emerged from the galls, I wouldn’t know which gall it came from.
A few weeks ago, in late April, creatures began emerging from one or other or both of the galls. At the time, because I found an empty pupa case poking out of a hole in the Thistle gall, I assumed the creatures had emerged from it – I wrote about that in What’s in a gall?, April 2020. It turns out I was wrong.
After writing that piece, I decided to place the galls in two separate jars and, as I wrote in a post last week, two different wasp species have subsequently emerged from the Bedeguar gall wasp’s gall, the gall causer itself (Diplolepis rosae) (above, left) and a second wasp (above, right), which turns out to be the same species of wasp I wrote about in April and which, at the time, I thought had emerged from the Thistle gall fly’s gall.
The empty pupa case is now a mystery but the second wasp’s identity has been confirmed as Orthopelma mediator, a parasite of the Bedeguar gall wasp. So, adding to the initial three that emerged, a total of four of these wasps have now hatched from that gall. Amazingly, there is only one previous record, from 1933, for this wasp in the Welsh records database but I don’t think that’s because it’s a rare find; it’s just that no one bothers to keep the galls to see what emerges from them and thus the wasp is under-recorded.
So, I hope I have convinced you that this is a fascinating process which you might also like to try but do remember the moral of this tale of two galls: if you decide to bring home galls to see what might hatch out, make sure you put each and every gall in a separate jar!
17 Sunday May 2020
Tags
British ferns, ferns, ferns on walls, Hart's tongue, Maidenhair spleenwort, Rustyback fern, Wall-rue
I’m steering away from wildflowers this week in favour of something a little different. As I often walk along the back lanes to avoid close contact with the people walking on our narrow pavements, I’ve been noticing the lovely ferns that adorn the shadier sides of the old stone walls of people’s back gardens. These are the four species I’ve found so far.
Hart’s-tongue (Asplenium scolopendrium)
The glossy, flat, undivided leaves of this fern make it the easiest to identify. Not surprisingly, the specimens I’ve seen growing on walls have been quite stunted compared to the large clumps I see in local woodlands.
Maidenhair Spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes)
I love the symmetry of this fern, which does very much resemble the Maidenhair houseplants I grew in times past, though they are a different species (Adiantum). It has also been a good lesson for me in fern structure – the small egg-shaped bits of green are not leaves – they are called pinnae, and the whole branch-like structure is, in fact, the leaf.
Rustyback Fern (Asplenium ceterach)
Old walls and other ‘human-influenced habitats’ are where these ferns are found most often. Their name comes from the fact that the undersides of the pinnae look rust-coloured when their spores ripen.
Wall-rue (Asplenium ruta-muraria)
As well as stone walls, this fern can be found growing in shady crevices on limestone rocks. Its name comes from its strong resemblance to the herb Common rue (Ruta graveolens).
16 Saturday May 2020
Tags
Bedeguar gall wasp, British galls, British wasps, Diplolepis rosae, gall on dog-rose, gall wasps, galls, Robin's pincushion
You might remember that, a few months ago, I posted about the (supposedly) empty galls of the Bedeguar gall wasp I’d found during a wet walk at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park (Empty pincushions, January 2020). A week or so after writing that post, I was back at Cosmeston and remembered to harvest one of the galls, which has ever since been sitting in a sealed jar on my kitchen windowsill.
Although the many holes in the gall made me think that all of its inhabitants had already hatched, I decided to wait and see if anything else appeared. Two days ago I noticed movement in the jar and, taking a closer look, found two different species of wasp had emerged.
This is one of them, and I’m 99% certain this is the gall causer itself, the Bedeguar gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae, the offspring of the wasp that caused the gall to form in the first place. These wasps are so tiny – just 3-4 mm long – that most of us don’t usually see them so I was very pleased to have this one emerge from its gall.
There is a bit of a story attached to the second wasp that emerged, and I am currently awaiting confirmation of its identity. As soon as I know more, I’ll write it up in a further post.
earthstar 
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