Hairy-Footed Flower Bee

Hairy-footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes.   Male.  West Wickham Common, 3 April 2016.

SOme early bees are out and about, and the one with the best name is the Hairy-footed Flower Bee.  It's about the same size as a bumble-bee worker, but it's too early in the year for the workers to be flying, so if you think you see one it might be this.  This is the male, a furry bee of a light buff colour.  This photo shows off the hairy feet pretty well.

Hairy-footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes.   Female.  West Wickham Common, 3 April 2016.

The female is much darker, but has a distinctive light tuft on its leg.

Both these bees are working through a patch of Red Dead-nettle, which is currently in full flower.   Other insects also come to these flowers; this one ..

Bombus terrestris, Buff-tailed Bumblebee.   Queen.  West Wickham Common, 3 April 2016.

is a bumble-bee.  It's a queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee, foraging to feed its first batch of larvae.  It is twice the length of the flower bees and could not be mistaken for one.

There are also some other mid-sized flyers around.  For example, bee-flies; as the name suggests, they are flies, not bees.  I didn't manage to photograph the one I saw on April 3rd, so here is a shot from 2014.

Beefly, Bombylius major.  Churchyard of the Church of St. Mary,  Kemsing, 12 April 2014.

It's the same size as the flower bees, and about the same colour as the male, but those stiffly held wings with the dark band are quite distinctive. 

Kemsing Down, Winter 2015

Kemsing Down, 15 December 2015

The weather forecast was for an overcast day, so as I had not had much exercise recently I decided to go up the 600-foot hill of Kemsing Down.  It was grey and drizzling.  This is what the Met Office calls "overcast," it seems.  (I have not been able to find out when the Meterological Office became the "Met Office".  It's not a very descriptive new name, unless it now employs metists.)

Kemsing Down, part way up, 15 December 2015

It was like this only part way up.  From the top:

Kemsing Down from the top, 15 December 2015

Complete with a diagram showing what you can theoretically see.  There was no activity on the hill.  I didn't find the sheep until I was nearly back at the bottom again, by a different route, though I could see they had been up there by the droppings and by the wool caught on dead bramble stems.

It was very slippery and steep, so I recommend good walking shoes to anyone who wants to try this in wet weather.

Well, that was fun, but rather samey.  But I was very happy to find some Winter Aconite flowering in the churchyard, next to the car park on the way to the hill.

Winter Aconite, Eranthis hyemalis.  Kemsing churchyard, 15 December 2015.

Like all churchyard plants, you have to assume that it was planted here at some time, but this seems now to be spreading and thriving.  This plant is supposed to flower in winter.  There were other plants there which were flowering out of their usual season - Primrose, Oregon Grape, Mexican Orange - but those were all clearly cultivated plants.

Kemsing final

Snail patterns on a Silver Birch cultivar.
Churchyard of the Church of St. Mary, Kemsing, with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

Some other things seen at Kemsing.  This first photo is the bark of a Silver Birch, a white-barked cultivar I think, with tracks where something, probably a snail, has browsed away the algae that grow there.  You can see the triangular marks of each swipe of its tongue.  The whole trunk was covered with these intricate patterns.

Galls on Sycamore caused by Aceria macrorhynchus, a mite.
Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

This is the leaf of a Sycamore with little bumps that are the homes of a mite called Aceria macrorhynchus. The mite makes the leaf grow these small hollow protrusions, a type known as nail galls, where it lives in comfort, making its entry from under the leaf.

Five lichens.  Ramalina fastigiata, Xanthoria parietina, Lecidella elaeochroma, Lecanora chlarotera, Physcia tenella.
Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

Trees standing out in the grass at the top of the hill were covered with lichens.  They grow in great competition with each other for living space, and in this photo there are five different species showing three of the various different typical patterns of lichen growth.

On the right, looking bushy, is a fruticose Ramalina fastigiata.  The yellow foliose lichen is Xanthoria parietina, very common on trees and walls.  At the bottom left is a small grey-green foliose Physcia tenella.

Crustose, and adhering firmly to the trunk, are Lecidella elaeochroma, with black fruiting bodies, and Lecanora chlarotera, with fawn-centred "jam tart" fruiting bodies.  These two form patchworks on many treetrunks. 

Rust fungus, Puccinia lagenophorae, on Groundsel, Senecio vulgaris.
Churchyard of the Church of St. Mary, Kemsing, with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

This is a rust fungus,  Puccinia lagenophorae, on the leaf of a Groundsel.  Magnified like this, it looks like a series of tiny flowers.  This Groundsel is suffering, but there were plenty of uninfected ones around.

Elder, Sambucus nigra, with variegated leaves.
Churchyard of the Church of St. Mary, Kemsing, with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

Finally, this is a naturally variegated branch of an Elder.  The yellow stripes might be the result of a virus infestation. The leaves normally look quite plain, like those in the background, which are on the same plant.  It's a pretty effect, though, and unusual.  The variegated forms you can buy for the garden have yellow or white edges to the leaves, nothing like these striped veins.

Kemsing Insects

Orange Ladybirds, Hazlya sedecimguttata, on Spindle, Euonymus europaeus.
Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

Most of the insects on our Kemsing Down trip were actually in hedgerows and a churchyard at the edge of the town, not up on the windy hilltop.  These Orange Ladybirds were in a hedge, as was this Harlequin, seen here on my hand:

Harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis forma succinea.  Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

This Beefly was roaming around the churchyard.

Beefly, Bombylius major.
Churchyard of the Church of St. Mary, Kemsing, with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

It is a fly, not a bee, though its body does look bee-like.  Perhaps this affords it some protection from predators.  But it's unmistakeable to human eyes, with that long proboscis and the dark pattern on its wings.

Also in the hedgerow:

Green Shield Bug, Palomena prasina.  Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

A Green Shield-bug, or Stink-bug.  It's a true bug, with sucking mouthparts.  It is well camouflaged against the leaves.  Close to, it has an amazing texture.

And some more from the hedgerow; here are three species of Hoverfly.

Hoverflies. Left to right: Melanostoma scalare (male), Epistrophe eligans and Meliscaeva cinctella (females).
Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

These don't have common names.  Many Hoverflies are striped and look dangerous.  That middle one, the Epistrophe eligans, looks particularly like a stinger, but they aren't, any of them.  They are faking it, and presumably it gives them some protection, like the Beefly.

I like Hoverflies.  They are colourful, there are lots of species, and there is a good chance of identifying them from their patterns, which you can't say of some other types of insect.

There is an easy way to tell males from females.  The big compound eyes of the males meet in the middle.  The females' eyes don't. 

Kemsing Speedwells

Germander Speedwell, Veronica chamaedrys.
Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

At Kemsing Down on 12th April we saw five species of lovely little Speedwells.  Their bright blue flowers always make me cheerful.  This one, Germander Speedwell, has its flowers in racemes, sprouting from a stem that curls up from among the top leaves.  It's the showiest species, here just starting out.  This plant was up on the hilltop, but the other species were further down near the town.

Common Field Speedwell, Veronica persica.  Saville Row, Hayes, on 13 April 2014.

I went to photograph some Common Field Speedwell, which was abundant, and when I got home, I found I had a different, superficially similar species ... still, it's abundant in most places, so I walked a few paces from my front door for this illustration.  It has single flowers rising from the leaf axils, and the lower petal - the small one - tends to be whiter than the rest.

So here's what I actually photographed on the day ...

Slender Speedwell, Veronica filiformis.  Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

(And even that wasn't a brilliant shot.)  A Slender Speedwell.  This species has kidney-shaped leaves without the prominent jaggies.  Growing in the same field were lots of these:

Thyme-leaved Speedwell, Veronica serpyllifolia.
Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

Thyme-leaved Speedwells. A different flower colour, but they have a similar shape.  The leaves are very different.  And finally, by the side of a path were clumps of this one:

Ivy-leaved Speedwell, Veronica hederifolia subspecies lucorum.
Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

Ivy-leaved Speedwell.  Broad leaves, and tiny mauve flowers that are almost invisible until you get right down and look. 

I like Speedwells.  Next time, some insects.

Kemsing Down Cowslips

Cowslips, Primula veris; thrum-eyed and pin-eyed.  Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

On 12 April the Orpington Field Club went for a walk over Kemsing Down.  One of the group was particularly interested to see the photos, so I will spread them over the next few posts.

It's a grassy hillside, on chalk, with some woodland.  The most prominent feature was the carpet of cowslips.

Kemsing Down's cowslips with some of the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

The top photo shows the two types of flower, called pin-eyed and thrum-eyed.  Pin-eyed have a high stigma and low anthers; thrum-eyed are the other way around.  This alternate arrangement of the stigma and the anthers means that it is very unlikely that a plant will pollinate itself or another similar plant.  The pollen gets onto the proboscis of a feeding insect in a position that does not match the plant's own stigma., but does match a stigma in the other alignment.  Primroses have the same arrangement.

This is an exposed and windy hilltop with a great view.

Cowslips, Primula veris, and the view from Kemsing Down.
With the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

And there were lots more flowers and insects ... in the short grass were patches of purple Common Dog Violet and, just coming out, the tiny yellow flowers of Crosswort.

Common Dog-violet, Viola riviniana.  Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, in closeup.  Kemsing Down with the Orpington Field Club on 12 April 2014.

The bird people were seeing buzzards and hearing tits and nuthatches.   More flowers next time.

(Closeups were taken with my EOS 6D and 100mm macro lens; the wider shots were taken with my iPhone 5S.  All were processed with Photoshop CC.)