Stefen Hill yet again

Stefen Hill again today, with a visit to the pocket park. Like many of us I am not exactly spoilt for choice. To be fair the park is currently looking lovely with the trees gradually putting on their foliage.

Trees in Stefen Hill Pocket Park are extremely attractive at the moment.

19 April, 2020

The photograph shows that the horse chestnut is now in full leaf, the taller tree behind it, an ash, still has some way to go. The smaller, silver-leaved tree to the left, is an aspen, and it also has some way to go. Over the next weeks and months the leaves will be nibbled, tunnelled and galled by a variety of creatures, all of which I will try (unsuccessfully in many cases) to identify. Most under threat is the horse chestnut, whose leaves will be rendered hideous by the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner, Cameraria ohridella.

Horse chestnut leaves are at present unblemished and their flowers are

beginning to open. Stefen Hill Pocket Park, 19 April, 2020

Currently the loveliest of all is a very ornamental crab apple. I suspect it is the variety known as Golden Hornet, a hybrid of uncertain parentage.

Malus 'Golden Hornet' (probably). Stefen Hill Pocket park.

19 April, 2020

I was very surprised to find an unfamiliar insect in my net after sweeping some unpromising-looking grass. It looked like a stonefly but beyond that I had no idea. These insects, members of the order Plecoptera, are water-dwellers in their nymphal stage and, as we only have one small pool in the pocket park I was not convinced that it was a stonefly at all. There are no modern identification keys on line but eventually I managed to download on old monograph published by the Royal Entomological Society way back in 1950. It came up with an answer - Nemoura cinerea. Beside a river or large lake this would have not been a surprise, but here...! Anyway, it brought the pocket park total up to 294 species. Should be 300 by the end of the month.

A stonefly, Nemoura cinerea, was a surprise. Photograph via

Wikipedia

To achieve this target I may employ my umbrella. Last year I used it from time to time but I ought to make more use of it. One sharp tap is all it needs. The method is of little use for flies but can be very productive for bugs and beetles.






Here is me using my umbrella to catch insects in the

pocket park last year