11 Saturday Apr 2020
Another new butterfly species for the year, the Holly blue!
This individual is actually the second one I’ve seen – the first was up and over the bushes and trees too quickly for me to grab a photo but this little lovely was flying slowly from spot to spot along a grassy slope so I was able to enjoy its beauty and get a couple of images. There’s just something very special about blue butterflies and the Holly blue is usually the first of the year to emerge.
10 Friday Apr 2020
I took my exercise walk early this morning, hoping to avoid any Easter crowds along the coastal path and my strategy worked a treat. Well, mostly – I’d just spotted a locally rare bird and was taking some photos when a jogger came along and scared it off. That was the bad news (though I did still get the photos – and see the bird – for the curious, a Crossbill). The good news is that during my second encounter, with some dog walkers, when I snuggled off the path between some bushes, I spotted these little wrigglers.
They’re Lackey moth larvae, quite recently hatched judging by their small size, and now safely cocooned in their self-woven web. They were warming up under the sun’s rays before crawling off for their daily munching of the surrounding leaves of Blackthorn and Hawthorn. At night they return to snuggle together in silken comfort. I’ve seen these larvae several times before but today was the first time I’d noticed their egg cases.
08 Wednesday Apr 2020
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, Pararge aegeria, Pieris rapae, Small white butterfly, Speckled wood, spring butterflies
Actually, that title should really be three Small whites and a single Speckled wood but it’s a bit long-winded for a blog title. Suffice to say, my butterfly list for the year has grown by these two new species in the past two days.
I think this Speckled wood (Pararge aegeria) is a female – their markings are, apparently, larger and more distinct – but I’m not entirely sure. Working out details like this is something I’m aiming to improve this year.
The Small whites (Pieris rapae) here are two females and a male (below, right). The males only have one spot on their wings and, in this first brood of the year, the wing markings of both sexes are lighter than they will be in the later, summer broods.
I am dizzyingly delighted to be seeing more butterflies flying now. They bring me comfort and joy, something I’m sure we could all do with at the moment. I hope you are all managing to find small moments of comfort and joy in your daily lives as well.
07 Tuesday Apr 2020
Posted in insects, nature, spring, wildflowers
Two’s company.
Three’s a crowd.
Uh oh!
Four’s … an orgy? The Gorse weevils I observed during yesterday’s exercise walk in a local park were blatantly ignoring the social distancing rules. Please don’t act like Gorse weevils!
05 Sunday Apr 2020
Posted in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
#wallplants, #WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, spring wildflowers, wildflowers growing on walls
This week’s WildflowerHour challenge was to find wildflowers, in bloom, growing on walls. You might think walls would be inhospitable places for plants to grow but it turns out that rather a lot of our British wildflowers relish life on a wall. It’s certainly a good place for a plant to find shelter, and a wall might also supply reflected or stored heat so, for those plants that are able to push their roots into tiny cracks and crevices and don’t mind a life of hanging around, a wall can be an ideal habitat.
Here are the wall-bound wildflowers I found during this week’s exercise walks: Daisy, Dandelion species, Forget-me-not, Groundsel, Herb Robert. Ivy-leaved toadflax (this seems to be growing in abundance on every local wall!), Red valerian, and, my favourite, Yellow corydalis.
04 Saturday Apr 2020
Tags
It only takes a few sunny days and warming temperatures to bring out the mini-beasties. These are some of the bees and bumbles, flies and hoverflies I’ve spotted over the past week or so. Oh, and I mustn’t forget, my first 7-spot ladybird of the season.
02 Thursday Apr 2020
By sheer coincidence, author Robert Macfarlane’s ‘word of the day’ today on Twitter is cat’s-paw.
He writes about them: ‘nickname for catkins of the smaller willows/sallows (Goat willow, pussy willow, grey willow); among the earliest signs of spring; first grey & silky, then growing a glowing aura of tiny flowers. Often brought into houses at Easter/on Palm Sunday.’
I had already decided that today’s post would be on this same topic so here are the photos I’ve been collecting over the past week or so. These are of different trees so it’s quite likely they are not all the same species of willow (and I’m useless at working out which is which), but I love the way the catkins develop from soft furriness to beautiful bursts of yellow, and the insects love them too.
01 Wednesday Apr 2020
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, Grangemoor Park, Nettle tortoiseshell, Small tortoiseshell, spring butterflies
Today’s fascinating information on the once common, now less so Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) is taken from Peter Eeles’s magnificent publication Life Cycles of British and Irish Butterflies (Pisces Publications, 2019). If you like butterflies and don’t have this book, you really should get it, as it’s jam-packed with amazing detail and fabulous photos.
In the section on the Small tortoiseshell, Eeles reports on the variety of names it has had over the centuries: the Lesser Tortoise-shell Butterfly (James Petiver, Musei Petiveriani, 1699); Small Tortoiseshell (Benjamin Wilkes, Twelve New Designs of English Butterflies, 1742); and Nettle tortoiseshell (William Lewin, Twelve Papilios of Great Britain, 1795).
Eeles also notes that, in Scotland, in the past, this lovely creature was called the Devil’s butterfly and the Witch’s butterfly, though he doesn’t explain how it got those unfortunate names.
This particular Small tortoiseshell was the highlight of yesterday’s exercise walk around Grangemoor Park (luckily, Cardiff’s parks are still open, though this is the only one in walking distance for me). It was a joy to see, as we don’t get a lot of these butterflies in my local area, and I was delighted when it settled in a couple of places so I could get some photos.
31 Tuesday Mar 2020
Posted in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
The Bluebells are in bloom!
Sadly, these are not native Bluebells but they were growing in a semi-wild location rather than in a park. As I passed along the edge of one local park yesterday, I noticed the Bluebells inside are also starting to open their gorgeous flowers but, as the park is currently closed, I can’t get in to enjoy them. Are the Bluebells out yet where you live?
30 Monday Mar 2020
As many of us are doing during our Covid-19 lockdown, and as I don’t have the solace of a garden, I’ve been spending a lot of time staring out my windows. And one thing that has been entertaining me has been the antics of a pair of Jackdaws who are nest-building in a neighbour’s chimney. They’ve chosen a great spot, well weather protected and in the house of a woman who constantly has her bird-feeders full.
3 March. It was before the lockdown that I first noticed a little courtship grooming happening, and it was a couple more weeks before the couple decided to build a nest together.
22 March. Structural work has begun. Twigs, large and small, are being carted in from various neighbourhood locations.
26 March. A+ for effort. E for spatial awareness. I thought Jackdaws were meant to be smart birds.
29 March. Delivery of the soft furnishings has begun.
30 March. Today, activity seems to have stepped up a notch. Not only have I seen this wool (?) being brought in but both birds have been in the tree in front of my house, breaking off live twigs to take to the nest.
I’ll keep watching and bring you another update soon …
earthstar 
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