Jubilee Bird Walk

Carrion Crow, Corvus corone corone.  Bird walk in Jubilee Country Park, 24 March 2012.

As it turns out, taking photos of birds does not require the same skills as photographing insects or plants, both of which I can do reasonably well. I suspect it requires patience, a really long lens, and a tripod. But maybe it just requires a different skill set.

Whichever is the case, on this bird walk with the Friends of Jubilee Country Park I ended up with a tiny number of photos that I would consider even half-way decent. I was using my EOS 60D with a 200mm prime lens and 2x extender. That's as much weight as I would care to carry around with me. I set a fast shutter speed and let the camera decide the aperture, on the basis that depth of field should not be a problem for small distant objects. But there were serious problems.


First, I had to find the birds. They sang loudly enough and I learned a couple of calls (such as Chiffchaff and Chaffinch). But mostly they were small and far away. Second, they looked the wrong way; third, they sat behind twigs, like the small, faraway Chiffchaff on the left, which was at the very top of a tree.  Finally, they kept moving around. Often, I would see a bird, but by the time I had raised my camera to my eye, it would have gone and I would be wondering why I couldn't focus on it. This only worked out well once, with the rather nice silhouette of a crow at the top, its pinion feathers stressed by the power of its flight as it took off.

The next shot shows the sort of target I had only too often.

Green Woodpecker, Picus viridis.  Bird walk in Jubilee Country Park, 24 March 2012.

It's a Green Woodpecker, foraging in the grass. I think it's a female, from the lack of a red mark under the eye. It's a pleasant sight when flying low over a field, and in fact the whole group was watching this colourful bird with interest; a row of binoculars.  I have been told that their droppings look like cigarette ash, but I have yet to see this for myself.

I did get a fair shot of a Rose-ringed Parakeet, a ubiquitous naturalised inhabitant which seems to love this part of the country.  At my last house they used to come to the peanut feeder in the garden.

Rose-ringed Parakeet, Psittacula krameri.  Juvenile or female.  Bird walk in Jubilee Country Park, 24 March 2012.

However, the point of this trip for most of the group wasn't photography, but to see the birds, and that they did, enjoying themselves on a beautiful morning. It was warm and sunny, and as well as the birds I saw some queen bumblebees, a Comma butterfly and a Holly Blue; a lovely spring sight. And at least these two Mallards did not present a problem. They were at Ray's Pond, and they were large, nearby and slow-moving.

Mallard, Anas platyrynchos.  Male.  Bird walk in Jubilee Country Park, 24 March 2012.

Mallard, Anas platyrynchos.  Female.  Bird walk in Jubilee Country Park, 24 March 2012.

The experts had noted more than 20 species of bird by the end of the walk.

Comma Underside

Comma, Polygonia c-album.  Hayes Common, 23 March 2012.

The undersides of butterflies' wings are completely different from the upper sides. Some are designed for camouflage against dead leaves and bark, like this Comma, which hibernates on branches or among the brown leaf litter.  The upper side is a vivid spotted orange; check out the second photo in this post from July last year.

In this photo, you can see how the Comma gets both its English and Latin names. The white comma, or letter C, stands out beautifully.

This was taken on one of my first spring walks with my EOS D60 and 100mm macro lens.  ( Must remember to wear old trousers for when I fling myself to the ground to take shots like this.)  As well as several Commas I saw a Brimstone and a Peacock. Things are waking up!

When looking for that old photo, I realised that I have been writing this blog for more than a year now. I started on 4th February 2011. I'll try to find some new things to put in it this year, or if not, at least better photos than last year. Better photos is always a target.

Spring

Prunus in flower at the edge of the wood.  Spring Park, 18 March 2012.

A small cherry tree in full blossom, another sign that spring is here.

Early Bees

Honey Bee, Apis mellifera.  West Wickham Common, 21 March 2012.

I have volunteered to do the weekly butterfly transects on one of my local commons this year, so I went up there on Wednesday to walk and memorise the route. While I was there I loitered by some gorse bushes. The sun was shining and I expected to see insects coming for the bright yellow flowers.

I saw these three bees.  There was no rain, and I was very pleased to be able to use my SLR camera again, with its 100mm macro lens and ring flash. I have been longing to get some interesting detailed photos! Of these three, two, like Bee Fly I showed recently, only appear early in the year.  Honey-bees like the one above will be around all summer.  This one's pollen baskets are chock full, and she is also covered with loose pollen which will fertilise the other flowers she visits.

Bombus lapidarius queen.  Bumblebee.  West Wickham Common, 21 March 2012.

Queen bumblebees like this one won't be seen after they establish their nests. Until then, they forage, as their smaller workers will continue to do later on. You can see that this one is tonguing up some pollen from the gorse flower's anthers.  Her tongue is protected by harder mouthparts to either side.

Hairy-footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes.  Female.  West Wickham Common, 21 March 2012.

This one could be confusing. It looks rather like a bumblebee, but there are no all-black bumblers that I am likely to see, and anyway it was too small to be a queen. In between flowers, it hovered, so I thought I had one of those hoverflies that imitates bumblebees. But when I saw it close up I could see by its eyes, wings and antennae that it was definitely a bee, not a fly.

I had to look it up to discover that it's a Hairy-footed Flower Bee, and that only the females are this colour; black, with yellow hairs on the hind legs.  These only fly in the spring. This photo shows her hovering. I was lucky to get this shot because she didn't stay around for long.

Bee Fly

Bee-fly, Bombylius major, on gorse.  West Wickham Common, 19 March 2012.

This is a hasty snap taken with my Ixus 100. I was so pleased to see a Bee Fly, something I have only seen once before, early last year, that I quickly took as many as I could of the fast-moving creature (while longing for my EOS 60D!).

Bee flies are true flies that look like bumblebees. Their nimbus of honey-coloured fur and long penetrating proboscis are quite distinctive as they whizz from flower to flower. It was a sunny day and I also saw honeybees and two different species of queen bumblebee on the bright yellow gorse.  Spring!

One Tree Hill, March

Llama in a field near One Tree Hill.  17 March 2012.

This was yet another rainy day out. I miss my big camera when I see things to photograph on which I could use it well, but it would be silly to take it out in the rain. So these shots were all taken with my Ixus 100. These, and many more taken on this trip, are in an album here: One Tree Hill, Feb 2012.

One Tree Hill is south of Sevenoaks, on the Greensand Way, and is mostly woodland on soil of varying degrees of acidity, depending whether you are up on the ridge or down below it. We walked a circuit that took in both.

Bluebell in flower.  Hyacinthoides non-scripta.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

This was the first reasonable shot of a bluebell I have managed this year. It's too early for them to be out in my local commons, but here one is, on the roadside half an hour's drive to the south, just far enough to make a difference. There were other early flowers here too.

Ivy-leaved Speedwell, Veronica hederifolia. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

This tiny plant was growing in crevices in a high wall, and among the grass at its base. I was tickled to see this as we had covered Speedwells in my wildflower class the day before.

There were also several mosses which our Bryological expert identified for us.

Homalothecium sericium.  Silky Wall Feather-moss.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

This one was on another wall by the roadside.

We saw quite a few Sweet Violets by the footpath, both white and purple varieties, though it's no doubt correct to call this colour violet!

Sweet Violet, Viola odorata.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

We were circling the edge of the wood below the ridge, with trees up the bank on our left and fields and houses to our right. Soon we passed two llamas in a field (one is shown above). And we encountered an unexpected hazard. There were several badger dung-pits by the path, easy to tread in while concentrating on the flora. Badgers make these shallow pits to mark the boundaries of their territory.

This walk was familiar to some of the group, who were keen to show us these highlights:

Leaf rosettes of  Early Purple Orchids, Orchis mascula.  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

Leaf rosettes of the Early Purple Orchid, which will soon be flowering.

Life-sized model tiger. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012

An unexpected sight, created by a local sculptress. This beast used to be much fresher-looking.

Green Hellebore, Helleborus viridis. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

There was a whole patch of these Green Hellebores. Compare this with the cultivated Hellebore I showed a few days ago: Christmas Rose.

Near our lunch spot was an unusual sight: two blobs of a Myxomycete, or slime mould, looking just like tasty helpings of blancmange. I cut through the edge of one but there was no sign of any structure within, just more milky pudding, by its looks.

Myxomycete, perhaps Enteridium lycoperdon. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

I will try to confirm the identification, and if I can I'll edit this note accordingly.  Myxomycetes are very odd creatures, neither animal, plant, nor fungus, with the ability to rove around hunting food at one point in their life cycle, a bit like The Blob from an old Steve McQueen film, but hungry for bacteria rather than people.  They put out spores like a fungus at another stage. When I first encountered slime moulds at University it was as though science fiction had overlapped with real life.

Here are some beautiful mossy rocks from near our lunch spot:

Mossy rocks. One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

(In the rain, of course.)  And the last pic for today is some little ponies we saw earlier. I think these are Shetlands, though I am no horse expert.

Small ponies.  Shetlands?  One Tree Hill, 17 March 2012.

There are photos of most of the things I have mentioned, and several others, in this album: One Tree Hill, Feb 2012.

Two Early Moths

Hebrew Character, Orthosia gothica.  Caught in my moth trap in Hayes on 9 March 2012.

I have been putting my moth trap out over the winter, on days which seem milder than most, and catching an occasional creature. Now, in March, some more moths are turning up.

This first one is the Hebrew Character, named after that wing marking which looks a little like the Hebrew letter Nun, נ, and has something of the style of the Hebrew alphabet.

Some would disparage the second one as an LBJ, or "little brown job." But that does it a disservice. The wings, though muted in tone, are clearly marked and the whole thing looks very smart.

Common Quaker, Orthosia cerasi.  Caught in my moth trap in Hayes on 11 March 2012.

I picked up a rough piece of bark in Scords Wood and I have been using it as a background for some of my moth photos. So far it's quite effective.

Pupae

Pupae of the Eyed Hawkmoth, Smerinthus ocellata.  Orpington Field Club AGM, BEECHE, 10 March 2012.

At the Orpington Field Club Annual General Meeting, one of the interesting features was these moth pupae brought in by one of the members.

When moths that have been trapped are kept in jars for study (to be released unharmed afterwards), sometimes they might lay eggs. If you keep those eggs and feed the larvae when they hatch, they will grow, pupate, and eventually emerge as adult moths.

This member had managed to rear three different moths this way. Not bad going for someone who only started trapping moths last year.

Pupae of the Poplar Hawkmoth, Laothoe populi. Orpington Field Club AGM, BEECHE, 10 March 2012.

There were many more than those in the photo; I just took two representative examples from each tray. The Hawkmoth pupae were impressive, over 3 cm long, and they can wriggle, flexing at the joints between segments, which must be a shock if you're holding one.  The caterpillars are correspondingly large and hungry, and must be fed each day with fresh leaves.  Goat Willow would probably do, though, no surprise, the Poplar Hawkmoth likes Poplars.

The Muslin Moth pupae below are much smaller; the caterpillars will eat several herbaceous plants.

Pupae of the Muslin Moth, Diaphora mendica. Orpington Field Club AGM, BEECHE, 10 March 2012.

Beech Fingers

Beech roots like a hand groping into the ground.  Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

A startling formation of roots, looking a little like a hand groping into the ground, probably more so than an oak tree I posted last year. I know two people with some fingers fused on one hand, so this might look more lifelike to me than to most.

Lumpy Bracket

Lumpy Bracket, Trametes gibbosa.  The Knoll, Hayes, 18 January 2012.

This is apparently quite a common fungus, but it had me stumped, just because there are so many different fungi in the books that I missed it;  and the actual specimens hardly ever look exactly like the books' photos. This one is growing on the top of a Beech stump in one of my local parks.

The scientific name comes from a Latin word meaning humped or hunched, which you can also see in the word gibbous, applied to the moon when it is more than half full. And it often does have that big lumpy hump in the middle. The green shade is where algae have grown on the surface, which is hairy when it is young, giving purchase for the algae to grow.

It is tough, with a texture like stiff rubber.

Lumpy Bracket, Trametes gibbosa, showing the underside.  The Knoll, Hayes, 18 January 2012.

I was able to pull up the edge like this, but it took some force, and it snapped back into place when I let it go. The pores are large and conspicuous, and indeed this is the same genus as the Turkeytail, which has visible pores, and is not a Ganoderma, which are large brackets similar to this in general appearance but with what looks to the eye like a plain white underside.

In places, the pores are visible at the top of the fungus. You can see some on the left of the first photo. I think this must be where slugs or snails have browsed away the top layers.

Lumpy Bracket, Trametes gibbosa.  Cross-section.  The Knoll, Hayes, 26 January 2012.

I went back on another day with a very sharp knife and cut out this wedge. You can see that the pores are nowhere near the top on the untouched growth.

Toys Hill, March

View from Scord's Wood, 3 March 2012.

On another rainy and drizzly day the Orpington Field Club walked some of the trails around Toys Hill, looking in particular for mosses and liverworts.

We saw quite a few. I had seen some of the mosses before, but I was surprised by all the different liverworts, which are so inconspicuous and moss-like that I have probably seen them many times without realising it. I will put about a dozen moss and liverwort photos, as well as these and other photos from the walk, in this folder if anyone wants to see them all: Toys Hill photos.

Here is a sample.

Atrichum undulatum.  Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

This is one of a group of mosses that grow in clumps with a robust and starry appearance. Some, the Polytrichums, have opaque leaves and have hairy caps over the young spore capsules; these have translucent wavy leaves and hairless caps.

Mnium hornum with capsules.  Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

Mnium hornum is a common moss. This clump is full of spore capsules.

Diplophyllum albicans, a leafy liverwort. Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

Some liverworts have flat lobes, and some are leafy, like this one, and hard to tell from mosses when they have no spore capsules. When they do, you can see that the capsules are rounded and dark brown or black, and the setae that bear them are fragile and temporary.

Lophocolea species.  A liverwort that smells of disinfectant.  Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

This Lophocolea is spreading over a tree stump, and you can see some of the round capsules and whitish setae. This one is also unlike a moss in that if you drag a fingernail over it, it smells strongly of disinfectant.

We also saw some fungi, including one I had not seen before:

Bitter Oysterling, Panellus stipticus. Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

This fungus was supposedly once used to stem the flow of blood. We also saw many more of the Scarlet Elfcups that I first saw back in February; some of these were noticeably larger, as much as 5cm across.

Scarlet Elf-cup, Sarcoscypha coccinea.  Scord's Wood, 3 March 2012.

I would not want you to think that we only saw mosses, liverworts and fungi. The woods were full of new growth. There were hillsides covered with bluebells, but only a few scattered plants were in flower. Primroses flowered by the paths, and there were small specimens of the so-called Golden Saxifrage in many places.  I didn't get decent photos of any of them.  There were ferns, including this one, which was on a clay bank:

Hard Fern, Blechnum spicant. Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

Its fronds are branched once, with simple pinnae, unlike many of our ferns which are branched twice or three times. And Hazel catkins were abundant.  The tree in the centre of the top photo is full of them.  On the way back we passed an old water tower, which has been converted into a bat tower. There is a superb echo if you hoot into the doorway, and few could resist having a go.

Investigating the echo in the Bat Tower. Toys Hill, 3 March 2012.

As we approached the car park, the sun came out! But once again, because of the rain I didn't take my big camera. I wished I had it for a lot of these closeups. The two scenic views were taken with my iPhone, and the rest with my Ixus 100.

Christmas Rose

Christmas Rose, Helleborus niger, in my back garden in Hayes on 24 February 2012.

A single photo of a flower in my back garden that, as with many unobtrusive flowers, is quite lovely when looked at close up and in detail.

Moths in February

Three Chestnuts, Conistra vaccinii, trapped in my back garden in Hayes on 24 February 2012.

With a brief spell of unusually warm weather for February, I put my trap out and found these winter fliers, dark brown and looking very glossy. There was also a micromoth in the trap, and I found another of the same in my house that evening. This one was on a lightshade.

Agonopterix species. Micromoth in my house in Hayes in the evening of 24 February 2012.

Just a tiny, rather undistinguished thing, but with some distinctive features. Unfortunately, there are several species with the same features, so I could only identify the genus. But there was another micromoth on the same night, this one on my window, looking more than most moths like a creature wrapped in a fur coat.  This one could be clearly identified (with the help of the iSpot site!).

Rufous-margined Button Moth, Acleris cristana,
photographed on my wall on 24 February 2012.

These two photos were actually taken the next day; it got away in the house and I found it later sitting on the wall. At last it was sitting still!  Moths often tuck their antennae under their wings when resting.  There are numerous variations in the appearance of this moth, but the strange tufts of scales on its wings are definitive in identifying the species.

Rufous-margined Button Moth, Acleris cristana, showing the wing tufts.  24 February 2012.

Both of these micromoths are only about a centimetre long.

Well, after weeks of catching nothing or occasionally one moth, it looks as though the season might be starting up again.