55/366 Three mini-beasties

24 Monday Feb 2020

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During yesterday’s brief interlude of sunshine, when I was out searching for wildflowers, I happened across these three little mini-beasts – I’m sure there’d be a lot more out and about if we just had a little more of that precious sunshine.

200224 Marmelade hoverfly

The tiny critter above is a Marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus), and the two below are, I think, Yellow dung flies (Scathophaga stercoraria). I think I can safely say there will soon be more Yellow dung flies flitting around.

200224 Yellow dung flies

54/366 Winter 29!

23 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by in nature, wildflowers

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Despite the appalling weather we’ve been having, the natural world obviously feels the coming of Spring as this week I’ve found 29 wildflowers in bloom, including firsts of Coltsfoot, Common corn salad, Spotted medick and Wood anemone.

The full list is: Alexanders, Coltsfoot, Common comfrey, Common cornsalad, Common field speedwell, Cow parsley, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Forget-me-not, Gorse, Groundsel, Hairy bitter-cress, Herb Robert, Hogweed, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Nipplewort, Oxeye daisy, Primrose, Red dead nettle, Red valerian, Shepherd’s-purse, Smooth sow-thistle, Snowdrop, Spotted medick, Sun spurge, Winter heliotrope and Wood anemone.

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53/366 A new leafmine

22 Saturday Feb 2020

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I was a woman on a mission today, and these are what I was looking for. They are the leafmines of the larvae of the moth Ectoedemia heringella, found on Evergreen Oak.

200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (1)

You’ve probably never heard of this moth and neither had I, until yesterday, when I read a tweet by George Tordoff, Senior Moth Ecologist with Butterfly Conservation here in Wales, that he had found its leafmines on an oak at Barry Island. His find was only the third record for the county of Glamorgan – the first two were found by County Moth Recorder Dave Slade, in Cardiff’s Bute Park. It made sense that the mines might also be found in locations between Cardiff and Barry, so today I went looking and found them on every Evergreen oak in Penarth’s Windsor Gardens. And my fellow Penarthian, Gareth, also went looking today and found several mines on the trees at nearby St Mary’s Well Bay. Success!

According to the UK Moths website, Ectoedemia heringella only arrived in Britain (in Greater London) from Europe in 1996 and has slowly been spreading out from there. The adult moths don’t appear until mid summer, and I may never see one, but at least now our records can help track their spread across the country.

200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (4)

51/366 Mystery seedpod

20 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in nature, plants

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This seedpod is a mystery to me.

200220 mystery seedpod (1)

I found it alongside the path through Grangemoor Park in Cardiff, just two dried up stems about 12 inches tall, with seedpods – four in total – at the tips of each branched stem. No leaves remained and I saw no other similar plants anywhere along the path.

200220 mystery seedpod (2)

The structure of the seedpod is glorious, so sculptural. I brought two pods home with me, and one has now split into quarters, with small brown seeds spilling out of it.

200220 mystery seedpod (3)

But what is this plant? I’ve tried looking online but found nothing that matches. Of course, the solution would be to plant the seeds but I do not have a garden. I could try planting a couple of seeds in a pot but I’d rather return the seeds to the wild where I found them. So, if there are any botanists or plant people out there who recognise this seedpod, please do let me know in the comments below. Thanks!

p.s. Thanks to Barbara Brown, of BSBI Wales, I now know this is a species of Datura, possibly Datura stramonium, the Thorn-apple. In this case, the seedpod has lost all its flesh making it look a little different from the images I’ve found online.

50/366 WWW : Flickers

19 Wednesday Feb 2020

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In the past on this blog, I published ‘world wildlife Wednesday’ posts, sharing some of the creatures I have been lucky enough to see in my travels. I thought I had mostly exhausted that topic but, last week, while going through my masses of photos, I found a few more. Which all goes to explain why today’s post includes two South American members of the woodpecker family, two flickers, both of which spend much of their lives on the ground, rather than in trees.

This first is an Andean flicker (Colaptes rupicola), photographed at Chinchero, a little town about 30 kilometres from Cusco, from the days when I lived in Peru.

200219 Campo flicker

And this second woodpecker is a Campo flicker (Colaptes campestris), seen near the small town of La Cumbre in the province of Córdoba, in Argentina.

49/366 Pieces of hedgehog

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

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I almost didn’t notice these hedgehog quills during a recent woodland walk. It was grey, the path muddy, the portion of well squashed hog sitting among a drift of brown leaves so well camouflaged.

200218 hedgehog (1)

I have no idea what befell the poor hedgehog. This spot was well away from any roads and I think the creature must have been long dead as there was no smell. Perhaps it had died in the woods somewhere, a dog had found the carcass, and brought it to the path to show its master.

200218 hedgehog (2)

As I scanned the surrounding area for clues, I noticed these two pieces of jaw, one upper and one lower, which a quick internet search revealed must also once have belonged to the deceased hedgehog. It was a somewhat gory but quite educational find.

200218 hedgehog (3)200218 hedgehog (4)

48/366 First Coltsfoot

17 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by in flowers, nature, spring

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A new Spring flower has appeared in my local area, this time six bursts of the bright sunshine yellow that is Coltsfoot, the flower that appears before its leaves. I had just been sheltering, rather ineffectively, from a short sharp shower of rain when I spotted the flowers beside the path ahead of me. What a delight!

200217 coltsfoot (1)200217 coltsfoot (2)200217 coltsfoot (3)

47/366 Reflections

16 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by in nature, weather, winter

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Storm Dennis has dumped a huge amount of rain across Wales this weekend, on to ground already saturated by the rain from Storm Ciara and, sadly, this has led to severe flooding in some south Wales communities. I am fortunate to live in a town which, although by the sea, is mostly built upon the clifftops, between 30 and 70 metres above sea level, so we have escaped with just a little surface flooding. And that, as you can see, can provide some very attractive reflections.

200216 reflections after rain (1)200216 reflections after rain (2)

46/366 Sunbathing

15 Saturday Feb 2020

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Obviously, these photos were not taken today, as Storm Dennis is currently blasting the British Isles – though, in truth, here in south Wales we are not getting quite as much rain as I expected, nor are we being battered as severely as we were by the fiercely gusting winds that accompanied last weekend’s Storm Ciara, for which I am extremely grateful.

200215 common green shieldbug (1)

My photos of this Common green shieldbug (Palomena prasina) were taken a week ago, on a warm (for the time of year) sunny day. And, as I have just read in a tweet by SEWBReC, our local biodiversity records centre, that ‘Now is a good time of year to spot shieldbugs sunbathing on (rare!) sunny days’, I thought I would make this little sunbather my critter of the day.

200215 common green shieldbug (2)