wild life

On Penny's Piece this morning

as rare as a pig's bladder

another real local rarity is cornish bladderseed, seen here growing in profusion in the meadows.

cafe agrimony

It has been predicted recently that this will be a good year for peacock butterflies. They are attracted to hemp agrimony, a common wild flower locally and there were four on this one small patch to the side of one of the meadows at Greenscoombe. The moth below is a rosy footman (miltochrista miniata), described as 'local' in my reference book ie not that common everywhere. It is a very striking salmon orange colour.

narcissus spoticus

Spot, some pheasant's eyes and some dog violets

we're back

The swallows are back. I saw two last Friday (11/4). Usually these early birds fly on, but this year they are already investigating the nest they built last year in our neighbour's porch, and flying around the house (hence photo). I think this is the earliest that I have recorded them returning since 2005. There are some beautiful views now just before the leaves open and the canopy closes in.

vandals at Greenscoombe

It must be so much fun driving your 4x4 illegally into these woods and meadows and driving at speed across a rare and fragile landscape leaving your scat so every one can know you exist, after all you are more important than anything else on the planet.

run run Ron

Today's guest dog Ron (Warnham R, see link), retired racer, doing spirit of running with his friends.

autumn 13

 

images from our walk in Greenscombe woods today

in the woods

a lovely sunny luminous morning in Luckett woods

clouded arrival

Yesterday was a dreary wet day so I read the morning newspaper more thoroughly than usual. In it, Simon Barnes, sports writer and naturalist, wrote an article (link) in which he described the pleasure  of watching birds and butterflies with his young son, Eddie, who happens to have Downs.They are holidaying somewhere on the coast further west in Cornwall. He reported seeing several clouded yellows, an occasional migrant from Southern Europe, and not for the first time I felt quite envious of him. Lo and behold we saw several today on our walk, the first I have ever seen locally. They are very skittish and almost always fold up their wings at rest, which is a pity because the black edged pattern on the upper surface of the wings is quite striking.

There were also a lot of common (but not so common) blues around.

done fightin'

It is amazing that this tattered male silver washed fritillary could still fly but it could, and it was recharging for another day's battle. Its dilapidated state is in sharp contrast to the sharp edges and bright colours of a newly hatched red admiral.

one blue

the first and only blue I have seen this year. I have am not sure what the insect below is called but it looks very odd! I think it is called the garden pebble (evergestis forficalis) and is a common pest of cultivated gardens.

what it is all about

meadow brown (above) and ringlets (below) mating today

more from the bee's eye view

one of the smaller flowers in the meadows is eyebright (above), and like everything else this year bastard balm (below) is flowering very late. It is noticeable how similar the basic structure of these meadow flowers is, with a landing pad, and colour coded docking sites.

bee's eye view

The glades and fringes of the meadows were full of cowwheat today but there was no sign of any heath fritillaries. In fact we only saw three miserable meadow browns and a speckled wood in the entire course of a long walk. The meadows are also full of rattle but it has only grown to a few inches above the ground. There were some butterfly orchids (the smaller more fragile 'lesser' variety) and lots of marsh orchids. The structure of the cowwheat flower is fascinating, and the little fur collar on the hood is virtually imperceptible to the naked eye.

lbj's

We went in search of the green hairstreak butterfly today. We did not see a single butterfly of any sort, but there were lots of little brown jobs; this bird flew quite close to us for several minutes. It could be a willow warbler, a chiffchaff or a wood warbler. It had a sweet song which suggests it was a willow warbler freshly arrived from overseas, but it is notoriously difficult to tell one lbj from another. Unusually, the jay shown below flew towards us rather than away and displayed its very handsome blue chevrons.

a Spring walk 1

The mallard squadron returns. Two drakes and a female showing off their fancy specula (?). the speculum (in birds) is a bright patch of coloured feathers on the upper wing (see link), purple in the drakes and blue in the females.

Up in Greenscombe meadows there is little evidence of any meadow flowers yet, except for a few solitary daffodils that indicate what these meadows were used for many years ago.

spot of colour

a fritillary adding some vivid colour to a meadow full of devil's bit scabious and betony (below). To our eyes these butterflies seem very conspicuous; maybe they are advertising that they are highly inedible.

heath fritillary

at long last, a photo of a butterfly (a very tattered heath fritillary) on a butterfly orchid, it is a meadow icon. I am not sure why butterfly orchids are so named but I have never seen a butterfly on one before. There are a lot in the meadows this year. The butterflies were very docile after 48 hours of wind and rain which allowed some unusually close close ups. I have always liked the effect created by sunlight shining through the wings.

meadow magic

The sun brought out the butterflies today, they must be getting desperate! The range and balance of wild flowers in Greenscombe (I am never quite sure whether this is spelt with one 'o' or two) meadows are always slightly different year to year. This year there are lots of ox eye daisies, and dozens of butterfly orchids (great and small). There are dozens of heath fritillaries, so it seems that they are now well established in this tiny spot.

The characteristic feature of the heath fritillary is a black spot in section S2 of the underneath of the fore-wing. This is not visible in the bottom photograph (typical!) but at least it shows a good view of the patterns underneath the wings.