Drone-fly

Hoverfly, Eristalis pertinax.  Lullingstone Country Park, 14 October 2011.

I took lots of photos of hoverflies last year. I think they are particularly beautiful flies, and there is quite a lot of variety among them. Some are tiny and delicate, some are big bruisers.

This one is medium-sized. Several hoverflies mimic more dangerous insects, and this has the common name Drone-fly because it resembles a honey-bee.  Even though it is not brightly coloured, it looks very elegant in different shades of brown.

I will post some more hoverflies in due course.

Small Elm

Trunk of small elm, edge of Gates Green Road, Coney Hall, 8 March 2011.

Having posted part of the trunk of a dead Elm tree a few days ago, I dug up this photo I took nearly a year ago of the trunk of a living one.

Although nearly all the mature Elm trees in England have been wiped out, and the disease is still making its way through Scotland, there are still lots of Elms around, in the form of hedgerows and low scrub. It seems that the bark beetles that carry the deadly fungus tend not to fly near the ground, so don't attack the low-growing young trees. But the taller ones in the hedgerow where I took this photo are dead.

The reason for this photo is, of course, the configuration of the bark. The mature trees show the same ridges, but on a large trunk they don't look so unusual.

Ladybirds

A crude montage of ladybirds photographed in 2011.

On the principle that I should photogaph anything that looked like an interesting invertebrate or plant, I ended up with shots of many different creatures last year. Only one of these photos was taken when we were actually looking for ladybirds. The others were on general walks, or just when I was looking around.  I have posted a few of these before, but not all of them.

Many of them are named for the number of spots they show, and it doesn't help that some of these have variable numbers of spots. But most in this montage are pretty typical of their species. The Harlequin is a special case; it has three basic colour forms in this country, and this mating pair shows two of them. So those two are Harmonia axyridis forma conspicua (black with two red spots) and succinea (orange-red with black spots).

The scientific names also get complicated when describing the number of spots. Although sometimes you see their scientific names with the numeric characters, that is not strictly correct; and, for example, the 24-Spot Ladybird should really be called Subcoccinella vigintiquattuorpunctata, not 24-punctata.

This isn't close to being all the British species, but even so, I was pleased to find I had as many as this.

Scadbury Park Field Trip

Hard Shield Fern, Polystichum aculeatum, left; Broad Buckler Fern, Dryopteris dilatata, right.   Scadbury Park, 21 January 2012.

On Saturday 21st January I joined the Orpington Field Club field trip to Scadbury Park, 300 acres of Local Nature Reserve, with woodland, grassland and the ruins of a historically important manor house.

In the middle of winter, I think there were pretty low expectations of interesting natural history. Nine people turned up, quite a small group for the OFC. But I had a good time; I found a dozen species of fungus and was shown some mosses. There were also some ferns in the wood. The top photo shows the difference between the leaflets of the Hard Shield Fern and the Broad Buckler Fern, both still showing plenty of green leaf. The Broad Buckler Fern has a frond which subdivides twice. The Hard Shield Fern does not quite do that; the pinnules have one thumb, more or less distinct, and are otherwise just toothed. It was interesting to see a Hard Shield Fern; two of us had just been shown a sample in our wildflower class the day before, otherwise I would certainly have not known what it was, and even then it had to be pointed out to me. It looks a lot like the much more common Male Fern.

There were some nice examples of fungi that I have either already posted or will soon.

Witches' Butter, Exidia glandulosa.  Scadbury Park, 21 January 2012.

This uninviting, jelly-textured black growth is Witches' Butter, Exidia glandulosa. It was all over a very large felled oak tree. There was also plenty of this:

Split Porecrust, Schizopora paradoxa. Scadbury Park, 21 January 2012.

A pored fungus whose pores are in separate little fingerlets. It is quite common on the lower sides of fallen trees.

This moss was available both wet and dry, which shows that when it dries up it shrinks into little spirals.

Bryum capillare.  Scadbury Park, 21 January 2012.

This next one is very common, and there are a few others that look quite similar so you seem to see more of it than you actually do. But it can be quite striking.

Turkeytail, Trametes versicolor.  Scadbury Park, 21 January 2012.

The common name Turkeytail seems quite apposite.

Finally for today, one of the group found this plume moth in a little bush. It was hanging on to a branchlet and being blown back and forth in the breeze, and this is the best shot I could get. I think it is a Stenoptilia, but to find the species you need to kill it and examine its genitalia under a microscope, something I do not wish to do. It's interesting to see one around in January.

Plume moth, probably Stenoptilia species.   Scadbury Park, 21 January 2012.

I have some more photos, some of them not properly identified; I'll post them when I have a better idea of what they all are.

Frog, Hopper

Young common frog, Rana temporaria, or toad, Bufo bufo.  Hayes Street Farm, 13 June 2011.

Two more photos from last spring. In June, I was walking through Hayes Street Farm past the lake which makes up a trout farm, and saw a whole crowd of these youngsters heading through the grass in the direction of the lake. It's likely that they came from spawn deposited in a nearby ditch.

A month earlier, on a reptile walk led by the Bromley rangers, I had seen the creature below; it's a Froghopper. It's one of a group of true bugs (insects with sucking mouthparts) whose young live in froth deposited on green plants, a phenomenon known as cuckoo-spit. I forgot about this one when I was making up my recent series of posts on bugs!

The top photo was taken with my Canon EOS 450D and 100mm macro lens; the bottom one with my Ixus 100.

Froghopper, Cercopis vulnerata, on bracken on a dry meadow.  Keston Common, 14 May 2011.

Rosebay Willowherb

Rosebay Willowherb seeds, Epilobium angustifolium. High Elms Country Park, 22 August 2011.

A photo from last Autumn. Rosebay Willowherb is also called fireweed. Some say it is because the seeds blowing away from the vivid flowers look like smoke from a fire. Others, that it likes to grow where there has been a fire.

It is certainly an early urban coloniser. In London, after World War II, it grew in the craters where buildings had been blown up in the Blitz. Where I grew up, near Newcastle, we often saw it where rows of houses had been demolished.

The flower of this species is what the crab spider I posted recently was sitting on.

Bark Beetle Galleries

Bark beetle galleries. Hayes Common, 25 December 2011.

Another Christmas day find was a fallen tree with much of the bark missing. In the wood below were these intriguing patterns.

These, known as galleries, were created by bark beetles while the tree was alive. The deep central groove was made by the parent beetle, which crawled along laying eggs on both sides. When the eggs hatched, the larvae ate away at the nutritious cambium, the part of the wood just below the bark. They radiated out from the central groove until they were large enough to pupate and then emerge as adults through holes in the bark.

The patterns made by bark beetles are said to be typical of each species, and these were probably the Elm Bark Beetle.  It was actually quite thrilling to find the remains of a large, mature elm that must have been lying there since around 1970.  The results are quite pretty, but there were so many on this tree that I can't help thinking that these might have killed the tree even without the fungus disease that they carried that wiped out nearly all the British elms. You can also see occasional holes where other beetles have bored more deeply.

Bark beetle galleries.  Hayes Common, 25 December 2011.

Burnt Gorse in Winter

Burnt Gorse in winter.  10 December 2011.

In the summer, this is a lush meadow, vibrant with flowers (including orchids), butterflies and bees. Late in the year, it is mown, so that until late spring it looks quite bare, though still green. You can see that this year even some of the large shrubs have been cut down.

If the meadow were not cut back in this way, it would very quickly fill with scrub and then become a wood like those which adjoin it.

This field is on the edge of High Elms Country Park. It is one of several that are managed as chalk grassland, in this way increasing the variety of plants and wildlife in the park.  I was told that the names of the parts of the park were taken from old tithe maps, and although their origin is not known for sure, Burnt Gorse seems pretty easy to work out.

This photo was taken with my iPhone 4s set to HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range. The phone takes two photos and combines the parts of each which contain the most detail. Without that technique, the clouds, the electricity cables and much of the skyline would not be visible. The drawback is that in parts of the picture there is a slight blurring effect; with a handheld device it is not possible for the two photos to be exactly identical. With moving subjects the motion is very obvious.  The iPhone also makes some adjustments to the photo (levelling and sharpening) which I prefer to do myself in Photoshop, perhaps to a different degree depending on the photo, but nevertheless it is a very handy thing to have if you want a quick shot of something.

Ganoderma

Ganoderma species. Bracket fungus.  Hayes Common, 23 December 2011.

An almost abstract composition, a top-down view of a pair of brackets growing on a tree-stump which had been cut so low that I could not get the camera underneath to photograph the underside.  I saw this in my local woods.

Crab Spider

Crab spider, Misumena vatia, on Rosebay Willowherb.  High Elms Country Park, 14 July 2011.

Crab spiders lurk in flowers, waiting for insects to come and feed on their pollen or nectar. Usually, they are the same colour as the flower, so it is odd that this one should be white; or rather, it is odd that it should have chosen this flower. It is capable of becoming more yellow than this one is, but that wouldn't help it here.

I saw several of the same species on the same flowers, back in the midsummer of 2011. There is also a glimpse of one in this post: Hemp-Agrimony with Crab Spider; at least those flowers have a whitish element.

Winter Mothing

December Moth, Poecilocampa populi. Inside the back door to my garage on 5 January 2012.

Even though it is the middle of winter, I still put out my moth trap now and then. The generally wet weather means that I don't get the opportunity very often, but I know there are some moths out there.

On January 5th I went to put it out, and found the creature above sitting on the inside of my garage door. I had been hoping to see one for a while. It's a December Moth, with brown and gold markings that are very different from the pale November and Winter moths.

However, when I went to encourage it onto some ruled paper, I found that it was dead. I know I didn't accidentally bring it into the garage on my trap, because I examine all its parts very carefully before putting it away, so it must be a coincidence. It might easily have died quite naturally; it's one of the Eggar Moth group and none of the Eggar adults are able to feed.

So, I carried on putting out the trap, and the next morning there was a moth actually in it! All my earlier winter catches, the Winter Moths, the Feathered Thorn and the Scarce Umber, were on or near the trap and hadn't actually gone inside, as most of the summer moths do. So I was intrigued.

This glossy creature is a Dark Chestnut, and it was so shiny that it wasn't easy to take a good photo. This is the best I could do. It was quite docile, but definitely alive - you can see that it has shifted its wings a little between photos.

It's a plump little thing that comes out on milder winter nights. It is known to feed on sugar and ivy flowers, so would probably go for any sweet decaying berry too.

Dark Chestnut, Conistra lugula.  Noctuid.  In my moth trap in Hayes on 6 January 2012.

And finally, because the December Moth was never going to fly away, I took some macro shots of a wing and and antenna. You can see the ribbed supports for the fragile wing, and the tiny, hairy scales. I think some scales might be missing due to age and wear, but I am not sure; I need to see more specimens. On the antenna, you can just about see that in between the comb-tooth-like structures there are even finer hairs that completely fill the gap. These are what this male moth would have used to detect the female's pheromones.

Closeup of the wing of a December Moth, Poecilocampa populi.  8 January 2012.

Closeup of the antenna of a December Moth, Poecilocampa populi.  8 January 2012.

Wolf Spiders

Unidentified wolf spider, male, in the moth trap in Hayes, 31 October 2011.

Wolf spiders have yet another method of catching prey; they run after and catch it, like their namesakes. I haven't managed to identify the species of these examples, despite the fact that they look very smart and distinctive.

Like the jumping spiders, they have big eyes on the front of their heads and a couple of smaller ones on the top. Jumping spiders move in small jerky bursts; these creatures also run fast. They don't stay still for long.

Unidentified wolf spider.  Farningham Wood,  2 October 2011.

You can find them in many environments, including my garden, like the top specimen, which was in my moth trap one morning. I saw the second one in Farningham Wood during a snack break on a fungus-finding trip. It is conveniently perched on a dried leaf of exquisite beauty, in an alert posture. The last photo is one I have posted before; a wolf spider with its young on its back running under the grass on Riddlesdown Common.

Wolf spider hunting under the grass, carrying her young on her back, in the meadow above Riddlesdown quarry.
2 July 2011.

Midwinter in Upper Beechen Wood

Stereum species.  Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

This follows on from the last post, about the Orpington Field Club's trip to Lullingstone Country Park on 31 December. At this point we were in a wood, Upper Beechen Wood, at a high point in the park.

There were quite a few felled treetrunks lying around the path, and many of them had colourful or interesting fungi. The first photo is a small bracket only a few inches across, probably a Stereum species as it had no pores on its underside.

Oak Mazegill, Daedalea quercina.  Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

This one is larger, and grew up to about a foot across. It's called a Mazegill because of the appearance of the underside.

Down the hill, the path back to the visitor centre was separated from a bridleway by a rough wooden railing, on which were many lichens and some mosses.

A lichen with many black cilia, probably Parmotrema reticulatum.  Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

This one puzzled those on the trip, but one of the iSpot people thinks it looks like Parmotrema reticulatum. You can see that many black hairs or cilia are growing around the edges. This form, with leafy lobes and a distinct underside, is called foliose.

Ramalina farinacea. Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

This form, with a bushy appearance and no distinct upper or lower side, is called fruticose. You have to be careful with these; some species look like this, but on closer examination turn out to have a distinct underside. They are only pretending to be fruticose.

Finally, a pretty moss with lots of fruiting capsules.

Cape Thread-moss, Orthodontium lineare. Lullingstone Country Park, 31 December 2011.

This identification is conditional.  If, when it dries up, the "leaves" curl and twist, it will be something else entirely, not deserving of a name which says it has straight teeth.

Lullingstone Country Park in December

Strange growth on a Silver Birch.  Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

On the last day of 2011 the Orpington Field Club walked around Lullingstone Country Park. It didn't rain, which pleased us all.

I wondered what we might see at that time of year. It has been unusually mild, but even so, it was the middle of winter. And mild weather works both ways. The bird-watchers among us could normally expect to see winter migrants, but there were few signs of them this year.

We actually found half a dozen plants flowering around the edges of the car park, some quite pretty; Common Field Speedwell, Scentless Mayweed, Groundsel, the indefatigable Annual Meadow Grass. And this Wild Carrot was flowering way out of season; out in the fields there were only the dried flower-heads of the summer's growth.

Wild Carrot, Daucus carota ssp. carota.  Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

I am showing the fresh leafy growth and a large bud; there were open flowers elsewhere. Out in the fields we only found two other plants in flower, both looking lonely; a Common Ragwort and a Yarrow. Once we reached the woods, though, there were many interesting sights, including ancient trees and fungi. I thought that this spectacular oak, still very alive in part, looked 1,000 years old, but web sources suggest that 700 years might be a better estimate.

Ancient oak tree.  Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

The odd growth on a Silver Birch shown at the top puzzled us; to the eye it might have been a squirrel's drey, except there was nothing to support it. I think it is a large burr or outgrowth, perhaps caused by an infection or a parasite.

It was good to find a nice fresh specimen of this next item, a gelatinous fungus called Jelly Ear. Perhaps you can guess from its scientific name what it used to be called. It is quite common on old Elders.

Jelly Ear, Auricularia auricula-judae. Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

Here's another sight that we puzzled over. There was a whole grove of trees with lighter lines snaking up their trunks. It seems likely that this is where snails, or perhaps slugs, have climbed the tree and grazed on the algae growing on the bark.

Strange marks on trees.  Slugs or snails grazing on algae?  Lullingstone Country Park,  31 December 2011.

I have some photos of fungi, lichens and moss from this trip that I will post next time.

If you don't know what it is ...

Witches' Butter, Exidia glandulosa.  Fungus.  Hayes Common, 23 December 2011.

If you see something growing in the woods, but you don't know what it is, there's a good chance it's a fungus. Here are a few unlikely lifeforms I saw over the Christmas period.

The first photo is of some small black gelatinous blobs that were growing along the length of a fallen twig. These are called Witches' Butter, and it's clear that witches get a bad press amongst the namers of outdoor phenomena. I recently heard that little plastic bags of dog faeces left hanging on fences are being called Witches' Knickers.

Next is something I mentioned in a recent post; it looked like a yellow jelly bowl full of wood ash. In fact, at first I wondered if someone had tried to burn it. But no; it's a Commmon Earth Ball.  I approached it with some caution.

Common Earth Ball, Scleroderma citrinum. Keston Common, 24 December 2011.

The outside has patches of green algae, and the ashy substance, of which there was lots, is its spores. I had no idea at all what this was, and had to be told.

The last one for this post looks as though someone has splashed white paint on a piece of standing deadwood.

Elder Whitewash, Hyphodontia sambuci. Hayes Common, 25 December 2011.

It's another fungus, called Elder Whitewash. The wood is a dead section of an Elder, Sambucus nigra, a shrub that produces flowers and berries that both make tasty wine.