HOLIDAY SNAPS

I was going. I was not going. Then I was. Now I'm back.

The chance came up to go back to the Brecon Beacons - this time to the North side of the National Park. And it rained. Again. Of course.

There was an afternoon when the sun shined. I noticed some good views in passing. I would return.

But it rained.

But there are always things to notice when the sun comes out between showers.

Like shadows. (Of foxglove?)

And views through barns.

Where light comes in through slats as well as through open doors.

When they get to the rusty stage, I have trouble distinguishing between sorrel and dock in pictures. I was in a rush at the time or I would have paid attention to the leaves.

There's drama in the morning; and in the evening.

Swifts are gathering on the wires ready for their autumn migration to Africa. Not that they are short of insects to eat yet. Each evening they swished backwards and forwards human-knee-high snatching at insects above the grass.

And that silhouette of a bird in the tree. It looks like a robin to me. What do you reckon? (You might have to enlarge to see.)

And on the wall in an outside loo - an Buff Ermine Moth. (Spilosoma luteum.) One of its antennae is broken.

Now I'm back I'll soon be replying to comments and getting ready to catch up with 'my' tree ready for the Tree Following box on the 7th.

Hope you have been having good holidays - whether in rain or drought or perfect weather.

(There ought to be a selection of greetings to cover the seasons. Why should Christmas hog it all? Happy summer everyone!)

* * *

P.S. A new recommendation. Take a look at this page about the life cycle of butterflies and moths. A breathtaking set of information and pictures. (Includes the caterpillar of a Buff Ermine moth.)

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NATIONAL INSECT WEEK

It's National Insect Week (23rd - 29th June 2014) - which is why all insects have gone away. On holiday, I suppose. Celebrating their smallness, their essentialness, their general interestingness. It's annoying though because I'd hoped to write you an interesting post - show some brilliant pictures - that kind of thing.

It was certainly sunny enough when I went looking. And when I went looking again. And a third time. Maybe they didn't like the cheerful breeze. Or, maybe, as I said, they'd gone on holiday. Having a special week having gone to their heads.

But I did find some.

There were masses of Swollen Thighed Beetles on white flowers. A bit small, I thought. Or maybe I remembered them wrong. Beauty expands in memory.

Swollen-thighed Beetle
(Oedemera (Oedemera) nobilis)
June 25th 2014

It's hard to catch their colours. Sometimes they seem blue; a bright, iridescent blue. And at others -they look green.

Broad Centurion Fly
(Chloromyia formosa)
June 25th 2014

The Broad Centurion Fly really is green. Or, rather, it has a green body. Its wings are brown.

Aphids and ants
June 25th 2014

Ants farming these blackfly on a broken elderberry twig are brown too. These I found specially interesting for I associate aphids with gardens, not with hedgerows. Hedgerows usually seem to hold themselves in a better, healthy balance. I'd hazard a guess this balance is disturbed when bushes and trees are trimmed back. It's only a guess though. I hope you can bear to look.

Large Skipper
(Ochlodes sylvanus)
June 25th 2014

This Large Skipper is another matter. A beautiful orange and a pick-me-up for those of you who need to recover after being confronted with aphids! The puzzle here is why it's called a 'Large' Skipper for it's only about half an inch across.

Riband Wave Moth
(Idaea aversata)
June 25th 2014

This Riband Wave Moth may have been just as beautiful when it was alive - but it's been caught in a spider's thread. (I wish spiders counted as insects because I found some interesting ones. Another time.)

There were bumble bees bent on being busy behind bramble twigs and leaves. I lurked for them a bit; then gave up. I'd already been chasing Ringlet butterflies up and down and was beginning to feel a little self-conscious. There may have been few insects but there were masses of walkers - mostly older women. Maybe National Insect Week coincides with a festival for feminine fitness for the post-sixty-fives. Some were walking in regimented hoards. No time to stop. Others were more on an amble - and a chat. It's hard to chase a butterfly and be polite.

Honey Bee
(Apis mellifera)
June 25th 2014

This honey bee was a bit easier to snap. It kept moving from blackberry flower to blackberry flower and not staying still even then but at least it stayed on the same bush long enough to show it was there. Imagine being able to fly on such thin wings!

I don't know what this is.
There are masses of them in the convolvulus flowers.
Maybe there are more elsewhere - but they show up well against the white.
They are 3mm long at the most.
June 25th 2014

And there are always these little insects on bindweed. What are they? I don't know. Just little black insects who like to live in convolvulus trumpets. Cheerful creatures. (I think.)

The slogan for National Insect Week is 'Little Things that Run the World'. Maybe this little black dot is supreme ruler of us all. I nodded respectfully. Took its portrait - and moved on.

Have you spotted any insects recently?

* * *

I've found a new site that may be of interest to readers in the British Isles (and fun to browse for others). As well as other information about butterflies and great help in identifying them, it has charts of which to look for each month. Here's a link to butterflies which fly in July.

Here's its home page - Steven Cheshire's British Butterflies

* * *

Here's the link to a previous National Insect Week post on Loose and Leafy. 'Followed Trees and Incidental Insects' (July 3rd 2012). There you can find a
Swollen-thighed Beetle -(Oedemera (Oedemera) nobilis)
Honey Bee - (Apis mellifera)
Garden Bumble Bee - (Bombus Hortorum)
Common Carder Bee - (Bombus (Thoracombus) pascuorum
Shield Bugs Mating - Palomina prasina
Darkling Beetle (Lagria hirta - I think)

* * *

With thanks, as ever, to iSpot for help with IDs.

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TREE FOLLOWING - FREDA IS FERTILE

Freda (for those of you who don't know) is the name I've given to the tree I'm following. I'm not in the habit of giving trees personal names but I don't know what this tree is. A pine - but what kind? It's very big. Very dilapidated. Older (I hope!) than me and in a public place. It would seem impertinent to call it 'mine'. So, for the moment 'Freda' it is.

I said big - too tall to get near the branches. I said old. Bits of it are dying. (Some have already been lopped away.) But, high up there, I can see another branch is on its way towards . . . will it sometime fall?

Some days, I think 'what a stupid tree to choose'. On others I enjoy the challenge. I am a detective. What is happening up there? This was caught in a spider's thread. I think (I think!) it's a male cone - a microstrobilus (also known as a 'pollen cone'). Compared with the more familiar female cones, from which the seeds will fall, it is tiny. The big, hard, cones which fall from this tree are four to six inches long; hard and heavy. This fragile little thing is barely half an inch. Yet from this the pollen will fall into the seed cone (female) and, if Freda is fertile, seeds will form. I'm saying this without much hope. In other years I've tipped seeds from the mature cones (a bit like sycamore wings only in ones instead of in conjoined pairs) and I've tried to grow new trees from them. Never has one germinated. Which means the title of this post might be all awry - wishful thinking and nothing more. How can we tell if she's fertile or not? Am I doing it wrong or would they never grow, even under someone else's care? Something else to find out! (Beware! This might not have fallen from Freda. It might have flown in from another tree; not even necessarily of the same kind. It's feathery light.)

So far, I haven't seen much animal life in the bark - but here's a snail!

And there must be spiders because their threads are everywhere. As well as male cones and dead woodlice (unpictured) they catch dead needles as they fall.

Most of the rest of the needles collect in the kerb - along with cherry blossom and litter. There were daisies too in the kerb and I'd planned to photograph them along with the needles - but when I came close I decided this Angle Shades moth was more photogenic. Of course this signaled the moment when cars and vans began to drive up and down this quiet street. I had to stand back - and hope the moth didn't fly away. It didn't. Nor did I get run over. Happy ending!

REMINDER!

The link box for Tree Following posts will open at 7am UK time tomorrow morning (7th May) and will stay open till 7pm on Wednesday 14th May.

Are you ready?

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IF IT'S NOT ONE THING, IT'S ANOTHER

Thorncombe Woods, Dorset. April 13th 2014
Not autumn - but spring!
We'll come back to the mosses, fungi and lichens another day.

So many Tree Following posts! So many comments! It's good to see the conversations:

trees of the same kind are leafing at different times - sometimes within the same garden - why?

was Venice built on alder?

is ivy inevitably bad for a tree?

are hawthorn leaves and buds really as tasty as bread and butter?

New words - is your tree monoicous or dioicous? (Here's the Wikipedia link.)

April, for many trees, will be a month of particular change. By May - will all the snow have melted? Will blossoms have come and gone? Will southern leaves have fallen? How many bees will we have seen?

The next Tree Following link box will open at 7am (UK) time on 7th May and close 7pm (UK time) on the 14th.

* * *

New Forest, Hampshire.
April 17th 2014

Since the last post I've been pottering around Thorncombe Woods in Dorset and The New Forest in Hampshire - enjoying the mosses and lichens and fungi and flowers and insects . . . and (apart from a few familiar flowers) not knowing what any of them are. Some will appear in later posts - whether identified properly or not!

SLOWLY OUT OF THE WOODS AND INTO THE LIGHT

In the meantime, I keep finding myself looking at things other than what I've set out to find.

Hawthorn Trunk - April 13th 2014

I was planning to photograph bluebells in their variety - blue, white, pink, 'native' and Spanish - but found myself looking at the bark of a hawthorn tree instead

Snail on Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) - April 13th 2014

which reminded me of the shell of an ordinary snail

Aprill 11th 2014 - See the pollen sack?

and while I was looking at snails, a bee came by

I've been trying to understand how a bee puts pollen in its sack - I think it's like this . . . With its front legs it churns pollen into the air so it lands on the hairs of its back. It then licks the feet on its middle legs to make them a bit sticky, picks up the pollen with them and pops it into the sack which is attached to its back leg. Its back leg works as a pollen press, bending to squash the pollen tight so it's delivered back to the hive in the form of compressed pellets.

Bee experts - please mark my homework! Is this a right description?

April 15th 2014

Another snail

(do you see it on the Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber)) . . .

Holly Blue butterfly (Celastrina argiolus) - April 15th 2014

and near this other snail there's a Holly Blue butterfly (Celastrina argiolus) on an Alexanders plant

and not far from the butterfly, caterpillars of the Brown Tail Moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea) recently emerged from their gossamer tent and sitting around on brambles.

Which is where things go wrong. I never delete anything from my camera; ever; in case I delete something I don't want to delete. I'm good at mistakes. But videos take a lot of space, both on the card and on my laptop so . . . having taken several videos of caterpillars going in and out of their nest, and deciding one was so interesting I kept watching it over and over . . . and having decided it was so interesting and so clear and the camera held so steady I couldn't possibly want any of the other tries - I deleted it. I suppose there's virtue in consistency. Hey ho. Never mind.

So here's what remains -  a caterpillar pottering around in the remains of its nest. (April 16th 2014)

If it's not a bluebell, it might be bark; if it's not bark, it's a snail; if it's not a snail, it's a bee; if it's not a bee, it's a flower; if it's not a flower, it's a butterfly; if it's not a butterfly, it's a moth . . . or a twig . . . or a - there's always something to see!

* * *

Links

Identify Your Bluebells (Natural History Museum - take a look in the sidebar of that page for more bluebell info.

Identify Snails (UK)  (Bug Blog)
Key To Snails Which Live in and Around Bristol! 

Identify Gastropods (USA)  (The ID Tools site may be very useful to readers in the USA - and can be fascinating for those of us who live elsewhere too.)

Brown Tail Moths - This Wikipedia entry is interesting on two scores. (Probably more but there are two which stand out for me.) First - it shows what the moth itself looks like (very pretty) and says to look out for it in July and August. Second - it shows the impact the hairs of the caterpillar have on human skin. Which leads to the question - why did the woman in the picture have caterpillars wandering around on her neck? 

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BLACK OIL BEETLE - (Meloe proscarabaeus)

Black Oil Beetle (Meloe proscarabaeus) exploring my leg.
Females are larger than males.

I was in a micro-village where there are primroses, sheep, a red telephone-box and a Church with what I took at the time to be a Saxon tower but which isn't. This is where The Grand Old Duke of York took his ten-thousand men to the top of a hill and marched them down again. What on earth were they doing? Keeping fit? Trying to get their bearings by spotting the sea in the distance?

As you can tell - this isn't a very academic blog. I expect I could easily find out but haven't lifted an internet finger in search of an answer. I wasn't there to study military history or research nursery rhymes, I was planning a stuck-foot post.

I thought this beetle would prefer to explore the grass
or a leaf but it took a lot of persuading before it would
get off my shoe.

A stuck-foot post is where you put your foot down and don't move till you've seen what you can see and photographed what you need for your blog. I invented the idea and set the rules for myself but I recommend you try it. It's wonderful what you can find if you give yourself the discipline of standing still. (You can twist and bend your body but you can't swivel.) 

It wasn't going well though. The light was all wrong. There was an interesting mound of moss but it was throwing off white glints so detail didn't show. There were some flowering dead nettles - which are pretty but dark and they weren't coming out well in photos either. There were some flat white stones embedded in the bank like bricks and . . . and . . . what was that . . . that black thing which moved?

The round dots which look like rivets in a heavy metal beetle
are the spiracles - through which it breathes.

This is the thing with a stuck foot post; first you realise there's always much more in any place than you might expect; and sometimes you discover (or re-discover because it can be a perpetual surprise) that when you're looking for one thing it may take a few moments before you notice others you didn't expect - and having once noticed them, they may turn out to be there in numbers and suddenly they are un-un-noticable. So - if hadn't rooted myself to that particular spot I might never have seen . . . seen . . . masses of Black Oil Beetles (Meloe proscrabaeus).

Mating?

That was the end of my stuck-foot post. Abandoning any attempt at standing still, I hurried along the bank. There were masses of the!. Now I'd tuned my eyes to them - they were everywhere! falling off blades of grass and stones (they kept falling off things) pottering into the road, mating, laying eggs (I think that's what they were doing) and generally living their beetley lives while not a car passed and I ran up and down being excited because, although they are not rare, I'd never seen them before - at least, not in these numbers.

Laying eggs? Or waiting for the right moment?

I may still know nothing about The Grand Old Duke of York - but did find out a little about the beetles. Having mated, each female digs burrows (maybe two or three) and lays eggs in them - up to a 1,000! When they hatch (generally a year later) they climb flowers and hang out with the pollen in wait for solitary, ground-nesting bees. ('Solitary bee' indicating the kind of bee which lives alone rather than one which is out on a mission by itself from its hive.) When one comes along (hopefully the right kind!) they climb onto its back and hitch a secret lift into the bee's burrow where turn into larva and eat the bee's eggs, pollen and nectar supplies. They pupate, turn into adult beetles, spend the winter in the bee's burrow and emerge in the spring to begin the cycle again - which is what they were doing when I came across them scurrying around in my stuck-foot post . . . and all along the bank below the hedgerow.

Although these beetles are densely black,
when the light falls on them in certain ways
they are of such a wonderful
blue its intense beauty is impossible to freeze.

There are five kinds of Oil Beetle remaining in the UK. Black Oil Beetle (which is what these are), Violet Oil Beetle, Rugged Oil Beetle, Short-necked Oil Beetle, Mediterranean Oil Beetle. Three others have become extinct and of the ones which remain Short-necked and Mediterranean Oil Beetles are at serious risk of becoming so. (I'm having trouble with the maths here - another source says three out of nine kinds of native oil beetle remain. This may be because small colonies of beetle are found from time to time so extinct/not extinct can be a bit nebulous. And it may be down to confusion between the different nations of the UK which sometimes confuse those of us who live here as much as they probably do outsiders!) 

What To Do If You See an Oil Beetle.

A moth for a bonus!
On the ceiling in my house.
March 30th 2014
Small Magpie Moth
(Eurrhypara hortulata)
Spring!

Run up and down and be excited of course. (But if one decides to climb your shoe and walk round your leg - stand still in awe!) (If one goes up your trouser leg - permission to feel a little less calm about things. A large brown cricket once boinged up mine and I unceremoniously panicked. I don't know why I panicked. Crickets aren't don't eat people. But I couldn't help it. Odd, we humans, don't you think?)

Then, if you are in the UK you could report your sighting to the Oil Beetle Survey on the Buglife Site. (You register first - see top right hand side of the report sightings page.)

If you are in Scotland - click here - you may come across the rare Short-necked Oil Beetle.

* * *

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The beetle photos were all taken on 26th March 2014

Buglife

Encyclopedia of Life - Worth Exploring

Encyclopedia of Life - Black Beetle Page

THE DOG WHICH SAT AT MY FEET

As I’ve mentioned before, many of the plants and bushes and trees on this blog have been photographed alongside what used to be a railway line. In some places it is now earth, or grass or stony ground. In others it has been tarmacked and turned into a comfortable footpath and cycleway. More and more people are travelling along it; in and out of town; or taking it in as part of the Southwest Coast Path which runs the 630 miles from Poole in Dorset to Minehead in Somerset. This is good. Of course it is; except I preferred it when hardly anyone went that way.

Last Saturday, I was walking along this section with a couple of friends when we found ourselves almost in step a few yards behind a man with a small, brown, broad shouldered, fighty-type of dog.

I went back to take this photo today. (June 24th 2011)
It began to rain so you'll have to imagine the sun is
blazing down and caterpillars are sun-bathing on the path.
Apologies for that.
None the less, you can see,among other plants,
Elder, Buddliea,Bramble
Holm Oak,Viper's Bugloss,
Alexanders,
Gorse, Hawthorn and Blackthorn
- all in just this one glimpse.

I don’t usually like this kind of dog. Their owners generally insist they are friendly; but, if they bite, their jaws lock and they don’t let go. Sometimes they are lethal. Sometimes they frighten me. Always I am wary.

This dog was a sort of exception. Whereas most dogs like this charge along on a long leash or run anxiously loose, this was well trained. It was not on a lead but when any other dog came by, the owner called to it and it walked by him on the side away from potential friendliness or confrontation until the passing dog had walked on to a safe distance. There was no barking, no chasing and sniffing. It was all very orderly.

It was also funny. Once the command had run out of purpose, the dog would trot round behind its owner in a kind of peep-o game.

“Where have you gone?” the man would ask, looking about - but the dog was always somewhere in the near circumference of his heels.

After a while, we were distracted by caterpillars - bright green and yellow ones - and lots.

When I am out with family or friends, they get annoyed if I spend too much time taking photographs of leaves and trees and tiny, familiar-but-interesting-to-me plants. The camera has only to appear and groaning begins.

In a post called 'One thing I have realised ', Jen at Muddy Boot Dreams amplifies on a comment I'd made after reading a post called 'What to do with all those pictures?'. I'd admitted that I don’t pay enough attention to snap-style photos . . . people, places, events; when I am old, they are the pictures I will treasure - not twigs here and pebbles there. None the less, I find it hard to take pictures of people. For one thing, I am not very good at it. For another, I shy away from taking portraits without permission. And I don’t like forced smiles, funny faces or set expressions either - so pictures for posterity are neglected . . . 

So, there we were, looking down at the ground in a communal kind of way. “Here’s a caterpillar. Here’s one. Here’s one. And another!” Until, in the end, I could bear it no longer. Out came my camera.

We’d forgotten the dog. The call of its owner to step aside from the path only gelled into sense when the dog trotted up and sat very goodly at my feet, right between my toes, right on top of the caterpillar I was focusing on.

I don’t know why he had chosen that moment to switch allegiance, or put himself in my confidence. But, there he was, happily sitting on ‘my’ caterpillar. I gave him a stroke (I think he was a he) called a friendly remark to the owner - and put my camera back in its bag.

* * *

Yesterday, I went for a walk on a track which leads off the old railway line - where there is nothing between it and the sea except eroded cliff.

(Today's photo shows a white, cloud filled sky and drizzle. The path looks a lot more tempting when the sun shines on it! Keep imagining blue sky and sunshine!)

See what I mean about yesterday's blueness?
But even then it was raining from time to time.
Surprising drops falling from an apparently cloudy sky.

The playground noise of happy children floated across the water. A flotilla of training boats was speeding towards the sailing club; experts leading the way, novices in the middle - and extra adults following for safety behind them.

But there were no green and yellow caterpillars.

Two other kinds though. They seemed to be sun-bathing on the parched, hard and cracked earth.

Here they are.

Oak Eggars - Lasiocampa quercus

Oak Eggar (Lasiocampa quercus) Caterpillar
23rd June 2011

Here's a link to see an Oak Eggar Moth

There was also a caterpillar of the Lackey Moth - Malocosoma neustia

Caterpillar of the Lackey Moth  (Malocosoma neustia)

A few weeks ago, they looked like this

April 27th 2011

(This is a link to the post where I show their tent-nursery.)

This is a link to see what the Lackey will look like when it's a moth.

* * *

A short while back Laura at Patio Patch (in relation to the post about a walk to the sea and back) asked what we would have come across if we had gone further. What’s there depends on the tide so I’m beginning a series of posts about what you would see if you went to a higher path (parallel to the rocks and little coves) so you can look down without getting your feet wet.

This is the first of these posts.

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HEDGES, WALLS, WEBS AND HUMANS IN BLEAK AND DRIZZLEY WEATHER

Clearly, the season is turning. Some days, everything is crisp and warm and breezy. Other days, it's grey and drizzly and cold and webs in the bushes become sinister. For most of the time, they are almost invisible. Come the rain and it turns out the place is covered in them.

It's raining. Webs are full of drips.
Leaves are limp.
Haws are red.
Alexanders seeds are black.
(Not because of the rain.
Black is their colour.)
I could have brightened the image,
made it look as if the sun was shining
- but then you wouldn't see what
this bundle 
of bushes is really like
on a dull, autumn afternoon
- messy, wet and muddley.
It's not pretty!

It's a mixture and a muddle. Leaves darken and drop, berries brighten. Much dies. Other plants pop back for a final fling. Some flower unseasonably. I'm always excited by these. The seasons sometimes feel relentless. They, and the whole of nature with them, plod along the groove and there's nothing we can do except live through what comes. When a primrose rebels against autumn and waves a flag for spring by flowering in September - I salute it! When it whithers I grieve more for it than for the rest of its family when it drew back earlier in the year. 


But there are other plants which grab their chance to re-surge and, like bad memories, do their very best to stay through winter. New Buddleia is already on a fight-back, springing out of drains and bursting out of walls. If previous years are anything to go by, ground elder will soon march up to join the newly growing nasties. There's a silly song 'Old judges never die, they don't even fade away.'. I think it's by Instant Sunshine - someone will know (? ? ?). Nettles are old judges in the hedge rows. They grow threadbare and lean a little but stay. New nettles grow up round them. Little barristers.

In the photo (above) of the web smothered hedges, you'll see a window in the upper right hand corner. Humans (as well as spiders) live round here. How else would the hedge be there? And where am I? I'm on an old railway line which is now a path for pedestrians and a cycleway. (I've taken against cyclists. Pensioners on racing tanks too. I think The Council should take the names of pedestrians going onto the path and check them off at the other end to make sure they've survived!) Back to the point. That window in the corner decided me to make this a wall post as much as a hedgerow one. An 'oh look humans are here after all' sort of essay instead of pretending we are the only two-footers on Earth as I usually do.

So . . . here is a 'not a hedge'.

 I drew attention to the vegetation in this wall in a previous post and wondered whether it might fall because of it. A while after, the buddleia was cut away but plants know where they like to live - Aspleniums find it an especially congenial home. This wall is north-facing and right on a dull, lots-of-traffic road. If I were a gardener and this were my garden, I'd welcome them. (Until the wall fell down!)

Buddleia too!

Lichen likes a stone wall and will be here all winter (for ever!?).

On the old railway line itself, in front of a platform (in effect, a the foot of a wall) - this.

And on the opposite platform . . . what it one day will be?

Here is some other new life.

Cheerful weather!
September 22nd 2010

Disgusting if you look close. Some caterpillars are nice. These are not. En masse, they are horrid. Their nest is about four inches long and strongly built. If you want to see them, you'd better click the picture.

And here's how the seasons are muddled in with each other. The same nest, a few days later.

Winter seems closer when it rains!