Egrets, little and large

05 Tuesday Aug 2025

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cattle egret, Great white egret, Grey heron, Little egret, RSPB Lodmoor

This is a view of RSPB Lodmoor from the footpath that runs along the western edge of the reserve. With areas of open water and hidden pools, lush reedbeds and swathes of saltmarsh, it’s a wetland paradise for birds and, as well as having a resident population of water fowl, the fact that the reserve is right on the coast means that it’s also a mecca for migrating birds, and sightings of rarities are relatively frequent.

I’ll share more of Lodmoor’s birds in another post but today want to focus on the egrets. They are members of the Heron family and share Lodmoor with their Grey heron (Ardea cinerea) cousins, though not always harmoniously – I saw a couple of spats between the herons and egrets during my visits. There is a resident population of Little egrets (Egretta garzetta), which only arrived in numbers in the UK in 1989 and first bred somewhere in Dorset in 1996, per the RSPB website, but are now quite common in southern Britain. The photo below shows a Grey heron, a Great white egret and two Little egrets.

I saw my first Great white egret (Ardea alba) of the year during my visit to Lodmoor in June but it was moving around the edge of a distant, inaccessible pool, so I didn’t get a good look at it. This time, there were several Great whites around the reserve and, as you might guess from the photo below, I had my closest ever views of this handsome bird as it stalked around a pool, hoping to spear a fish or two.

While it was wonderful to enjoy such good sightings of the Great white egrets, the egret highlight of this trip came during my second visit to Lodmoor, and only happened because I got chatting to some other birders. One of them was convinced she had seen a Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) but it had subsequently disappeared behind the tall reeds. Luckily for me, within minutes the bird popped up again. Below, you can see two Great white egrets and the much smaller Cattle egret, with two Grey herons off to the right.

Like the Little egret, the Cattle egret is a recent migrant to Britain that has made itself at home. It was first recorded breeding here in 2008, and its population is expanding ever northwards from its initial strongholds in southern Britain. This particular Cattle egret remained distant and soon vanished again into the reed beds but it was a delight to have seen so many members of the heron family together.

Sunshine in a butterfly

04 Monday Aug 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

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British butterflies, butterfly, Clouded yellow, Colias croceus, Dorset butterflies, migrating butterflies, RSPB Lodmoor

I’ve been away for another mini break, staying once again in Weymouth, on Dorset’s south coast, for four nights, spending my three and a half days surrounded by birds and butterflies (also crowds of summertime beach visitors, though, fortunately for me, most of them weren’t in Weymouth for the same kind of wildlife as I was). With cool winds and lengthy spells of drizzle, the weather wasn’t as good as during my visit in early June, but I saw lots of lovely creatures that I will share with you over the coming week.

First up today is the first of four new-for-2025 butterfly species I saw, this gorgeous Clouded yellow (Colias croceus), a butterfly I don’t see in south Wales every year as they’re migrants from Europe and their appearance on our shores depends a lot on weather and wind direction and how their population is faring. This sighting was particularly welcome, as I had spent Tuesday morning wandering around the RSPB’s Radipole reserve in almost constant drizzle, then headed for an afternoon wander around RSPB Lodmoor. This little drop of sunshine fluttered up right in front of me when I got to Lodmoor, a sign of the lovely afternoon to follow.

Skullcap

03 Sunday Aug 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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blue flowers, blue wildflowers, blue-flowered wildflowers, British wildflowers, flowers of damp places, Scutellaria galericulata, Skullcap

I don’t know how I’ve missed this pretty little plant during my summertime walks around Cardiff’s Roath Lake; I think it’s likely that it had been strimmed in previous years, as, for no good reason, that’s what usually happens to the wildflowers around the lake’s edge.

This is Skullcap (Scutellaria galericulata), a plant with delicate blue flowers that is most often found growing, as at Roath Lake, on the banks of lakes, ponds, marshes, and areas of slow-flowing water.

The very strange common name apparently refers to the shape of the flowers, which reminded those responsible for naming the plant of the helmet worn by soldiers in the Roman armies. I’ve seen references to a helmet called galerum (from galerus, meaning a cap made of leather or skin) and also a metal helmet named galea; neither cap nor helmet look like the tube-shaped flower to my eye, but Skullcap is certainly a memorable name for a plant!

Beetle: Four-banded longhorn

02 Saturday Aug 2025

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British beetles, British insects, British longhorn beetles, Four-banded beetle, Leptura quadrifasciata, Longhorn beetle, yellow-and-black longhorn beetle

This is my second recent new longhorn beetle find, Leptura quadrifasciata, also known as the Four-banded longhorn – the reason for that name will be immediately obvious, I’m sure.

Interestingly, these beetles are associated with old woodland, though I found this one feeding on a Wild carrot flower (they feed on umbellifers) on the edge of Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park, a former landfill site. The nearest old woodland would probably be about a mile away in a direct line, quite a long flight for a beetle.

At first glance, Leptura quadrifasciata looks quite similar to the other yellow-and-black longhorn beetle, the Spotted longhorn Rutpela maculata, but the four bands on the former’s abdomen are quite regular and precise whereas the markings on the latter are more random and splotchy. My immediate impression of Leptura quadrifasciata was of a darker-looking beetle than Rutpela maculata, which always looks quite bright to my eye, and that’s actually what made me look closer; one of my ‘Oh, what are you?’ moments!

Weevil: Curculio glandium

01 Friday Aug 2025

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acorn weevil, British weevils, Curculio glandium, weevil, weevil larvae in acorns, weevil on Oak tree

How cute is this little weevil?

This is Curculio glandium, also known as the Acorn weevil because it lives in Oak trees and the female of the species uses her long snout, her rostrum, to drill a hole in to the middle of an acorn, in which she then lays her egg using her ovipositor. It seems a difficult place in which to live but the weevil larva (sometime there’s more than one larva in each acorn) feeds happily inside the acorn through the cold months of the winter. I’m always a little dubious about information from Wikipedia but the entry there (scientific papers are referenced) says the ‘larvae are freeze avoidant, preventing their internal body fluids from freezing during the winter’. Presumably that means they have their own version of anti-freeze. The larvae emerge in the Spring to pupate, and the life cycle begins all over again.

Fly: Xyphosia miliaria

31 Thursday Jul 2025

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British flies, fruit flies, gall flies, gall-causing flies, thistle gall flies, Xyphosia miliaria

Isn’t this a lovely looking little creature? Meet the fruit fly, Xyphosia miliaria, which seems to have a couple of common names: Mottled thistle fly (presumably because of its patterned wings) and Orange thistle picturewing. The adult flies can be seen on or around thistles any time from May through to September. Like Urophora cardui (see More galls, part 2, October 2017) and Urophora stylata (Urophora stylata gall flies, only recently published, on 2 July), Xyphosia miliaria causes galls to form on its host plant, though this little fly pierces and lays its eggs within the plant’s flower head not its stems. Also, unlike the Urophora species, which specialise in a single thistle species, this little fruit fly isn’t fussy about which thistle species it uses as a larval host.

Beetle: Grammoptera ruficornis

30 Wednesday Jul 2025

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beetle, British beetles, British insects, British longhorn beetles, Grammoptera ruficornis, Longhorn beetle

This is one of two new longhorn beetles I’ve found recently, not because I was specifically searching for them, just pure happenstance. (The second species will appear here on Saturday.)

This first is quite small for a longhorn beetle, is a dull brown and has wing cases covered in silken hairs, which, as you can see, make it look quite shiny. Adult longhorn beetles feed on the pollen and nectar of flowers, in the case of Grammoptera ruficornis, the flowers of Hogweed and Hawthorn in particular. The Naturespot website entry for this beetle warns that there are three similar-looking longhorns but, fortunately, the other two species are rarely seen and there are particular features of their antennae that can be used to separate the species.

Galls: Aceria fraxinivora

29 Tuesday Jul 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, trees

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Aceria fraxinivora, Ash key galls, British galls, Cauliflower galls, galls caused by mites, galls on Ash keys

Over the years I must have looked at hundreds of bunches of Ash keys (so named because the clusters of seeds on Ash trees look like bunches of old-fashioned metal keys hanging together) yet this was the first time I had noticed these odd woody growths on any of them. The growths, which start off green but later turn brown, are known by the common name of Cauliflower galls – I think you can see why. The galls are caused by the mite Aceria fraxinivora, a mite so small you can’t even see it with the naked eye.

Despite their diminutive stature, by piercing the Ash’s cells to feed, the mite causes the surrounding plant cells to expand and multiply, thus forming the galls you can see in these photos. According to the Plant Parasites of Europe website, the galls sometimes occur on the stems and leaves of the Ash tree (the website has photos of these) but they are most often found on the flower heads, presumably because those cells are easier to access for the hungry mites.

Leafmines: Phyllonocnistis unipunctella

28 Monday Jul 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, trees

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British leafmines, leaf-mining moth larvae, leaf-mining moths, leafmines on Poplar trees, Phyllonocnistis unipunctella

You could easily mistake the leafmines of the tiny moth Phyllonocnistis unipunctella for the dried trails of a snail after it had meandered around a leaf’s surface. This is due to the moth’s larvae mining just underneath the upper epidermis rather than more deeply within the leaf structure (and that can occur on the upper or lower surface of the leaf, though I’ve only found upper surface mines so far). The larvae also do not leave a trail of frass in the mine; I’ve not found any explanation for where that disappears to!

The fact that they mine so close to the leaf surface means the larvae are clearly visible within their mines, as you can see in my photos here. And, once they’ve munched as much leaf matter as necessary, they pupate in a silken membrane they create under the rolled down edge of the leaf, which you can also see in my images.

According to the British Leafminers website, Phyllonocnistis unipunctella uses three species of Populus as its larval plant: Black poplar (Populus nigra), Lombardy poplar (Populus x italica) and Black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa). The mines shown here are from Black and Lombardy poplars found in a local park. You can see the adult moth, a pale silvery creature with a single dot near its tail end (hence the epithet unipunctella), on the UK Moths website.

Tansy

27 Sunday Jul 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, summer colour, Tanacetum vulgare, Tansy, yellow flowers

This is the only Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) plant I know of and it’s in an odd location, growing as it does on a grassy slope on the Cardiff Bay Barrage. Who knows how it got there but it seems to be thriving and its golden-yellow button-like flowers make for a stunning display of summertime colour.

Those flowers also provide welcome food for insects at a time when many other plants are shrivelling due to the heat and lack of rain. (In case you’re wondering, the bee is a Colletes species but cannot be positively identified without closer examination – I did try asking an expert.)

I always enjoy reading the interesting snippets of information my copy of Flora Britannica provides about our various wildflowers. This is what Richard Mabey writes about Tansy:

Tansy’s leaves are pungent and bitter, and at one time they were eaten at Eastertide, to kill off the ‘phlegm and worms’ which the Lenten fish diet gave rise to. They were mixed with eggs, milk and flour, presumably to make them more palatable, and from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, a ‘tansye’ was a generic term for any omelette or pancake-like dish flavoured with bitter herbs.