Category Archives: trees

180/366 Poplar fluff

28 Sunday Jun 2020

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I’m not good at tree identification but I think this is most likely a Hybrid Black-poplar (Populus x Canadensis agg). It’s growing in a local park alongside the river – they like wet landscapes, and are frequently planted in parks and gardens but have also become naturalised in much of Britain.

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What caught my attention with this tree was not the leaves or the bark or the shape but its seed fluff, which is so abundant at the moment that it’s covering the nearby path like snow in summer.

Poplar trees are dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female trees, and you can tell this one is a female because it’s producing the seeds, with all that fabulous white fluff attached.

174/366 Mitey galls

22 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by in insects, leaves, nature, trees

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When walking along a narrow path between fields last week, I turned to face into the neighbouring hedgerow so that two other walkers could safely pass behind me. In so doing, I noticed these galls, which I think are Aceria campestricola (also known as Aceria ulmicola).

These growths betray the presence of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of the tiny mites that have caused these galls to form.

These particular galls can only be found on specific elm species, which in Britain include English elm and Small-leaved elm.

161/366 Mite galls on Lime leaves

09 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in insects, lichen, nature, trees

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These stopped me in my tracks!

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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.

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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.

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116/366 A gall and its parasites

25 Saturday Apr 2020

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This must be the largest Oak apple gall I’ve ever seen – it was at least 1½ inches across, and it had attracted the interest of several small wasps, though these are not the wasps that created the gall in the first place.

200425 oak apple gall

I assumed that they were parasitic wasps about to use their long ovipositors to inject their own eggs into the gall, and it turns out my assumption was correct. Thanks to the British Plant Galls account on Twitter (@BritGalls), and to another Twitter user’s tweet, I’ve learnt that the tiny wasp in the photo below is a member of the Chalcis genus of wasps, probably one of the family of Torymidae. They are ectoparasites: their larvae feed on the larvae of the Oak apple gall wasp that created the gall in the first place.

200425 parasitic wasp

112/366 The May tree

21 Tuesday Apr 2020

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It’s that time of year again, when the Hawthorn blossom scents the air with its distinctive perfume and carpets the ground with its snow-like blossom.

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My Flora Britannica reminds me that Hawthorn, also known as the May tree, was ‘the ancestor of the Maypole, the source of May Day garlands … and one of the models for the foliage which wreathes the faces of Green Men carved in churches and inns.’

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For lots more fascinating information on the Hawthorn, check out my previous post here.

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107/366 In my tree

16 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in birds, nature, spring, trees

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It’s amazing how much time you can ‘waste’ trying to take photos of all the birds that spend time in a tree. I know because I’ve spent several hours doing just that. I can watch the tree as I sit at my desk/dining table or on my living room sofa (my kitchen/dining/living room is just one big room) so it’s easy to spot birds arriving or to hear them singing and calling, but it’s not so easy to sneak over to the open window to take photos because, obviously, if I can see the birds, they can also see me! So, my clothes drying rack was moved in to service as a not-very-effective bird hide.

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First up was a Blue tit – always cute and very chirpy. As the tree – some kind of ornamental cherry – is now quite leafy, it’s hard to get a clear shot and, of course, the birds don’t exactly pose for me.

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Next, and returning continuously throughout the day, a couple of Goldfinches. Their cheerful twittering has been a joy in recent days.

200416 3 goldfinch

Surprise of the day was this Willow warbler, a real rarity in my urban setting. It visited on and off for a couple of hours then, presumably, continued its migration path, heading north to the Welsh Valleys to find a spot to breed.

200416 4 willow warbler

And so to bed … this Woodpigeon had obviously had a hard day.

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93/366 Cat’s-paw

02 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in nature, spring, trees

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By sheer coincidence, author Robert Macfarlane’s ‘word of the day’ today on Twitter is cat’s-paw.

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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.’

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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.

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67/366 Wild word : dioecious

07 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by in flowers, nature, spring, trees

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Dioecious: adjective; (of a plant or invertebrate animal) having the male and female reproductive organs in separate individuals (Oxford Dictionary).

200307 Yew male flowers (1)

My example today is the Yew tree (Taxus baccata), which has male and female flowers on separate trees. The male flowers are out now on a couple of trees in my local park – the female flowers may also be out but I didn’t look for them. The males are rather more showy and obvious, especially when they’re not soaking wet and their yellow pollen is blowing in the wind.

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21/366 Siskin

21 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by in birds, nature, trees, winter

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On yet another very frosty morning, I met a friend to explore a woodland near Caerphilly called Coed y Werin, which I hadn’t been to before. And it was a delightful place, full of grand old trees, small streams and an iced-over pond.

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And we saw Siskin, birds that seldom venture into my coastal patch, though these were very high up, nibbling at the cones in the tall larch trees, so my photos are heavily cropped. But hopefully you can see the birds today – not like yesterday’s Snipe challenge.

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