Kentle Wood: umpteenth visit (with addendum)

A blazingly hot day yesterday (9 May) with a high phew! factor. I risked sunstroke and took a walk around Kentle Wood. Although I have called it visit number umpteen I haven't been there for quite a long time.


The approach to Kentle Wood, beyond Daventry Recycling Centre is certainly not scenic and yet can be full of interest. Several plants of Common Vetch, Vicia sativa, provided a splash of colour.

Common Vetch was common on the approach to Kentle Wood.

9 May, 2020

As I approached the entrance I saw my first hogweed of the year - or at least the first one in flower. The umbels of this plant, Heracleum sphondylium, are immensely attractive to a wide range of insects so I'll be keeping an eye on developments.

Hogweed is just coming into bloom. Near Kentle Wood. 9 May, 2020

A Kentish Snail, Monacha cantiana, clung to the stem of a stinging nettle, patiently awaiting the evening dew or, better still, a shower of rain. It may not have long to wait: the forecast is ominous! I brought it home for a better picture - but this species always has a chalky,washed-out appearance.

Stinging nettles are extremely nutritious (nettle soup anyone?) and, like the Kentish Snail, a number of creatures have developed ways of avoiding being stung and are thus able to benefit - nibbling, galling and mining the leaves and stems.

The gates were locked. Surely a reaction to the Covid19 virus and yet to lock them seems a strange decision. Anyway, risking severe injury to my fundamentals I climbed the gate. The main ride stretched before me.

An inviting walk leads into the woods.

Immediately beyond the gate a young oak tree (almost all the trees are in fact young) was hosting literally hundreds of bugs, all of the same species. It was once again Harpocera thoracica, the same species which had been present in 'Meadow X' a few days before. So abundant were they today that they crawled over my arms and shirt.

Harpocera thoracica posed awkwardly on my wrist, making a 
photograph tricky. Kentle Wood, Daventry. 9 May, 2020

Many other people had straddled the gate to enter and yet they were easily avoided on the broad tracks. Red Campions were present in small numbers. They will readily hybridise with White Campions to produce a taxon with pink flowers and these were decidedly pale. However I know of no white campions in the Daventry area so I doubt they were hybrids.

The Red Campions were very pale.

An abundance of insects were present and I was kept too busy securing specimens to use my camera. I paused to photograph a large crane fly. With its green eyes and streaky wings it was easily recognisable as Tipula vernalis. This is very frequent at this time of the year.

The cranefly, Tipula vernalis, at Kentle Wood. It occurs widely

around Daventry. 9 May, 2020

The only other insect I photographed was a male St Mark's Fly, Bibio marci. I expected to see quite a few in flight but was a week or so too late (St Mark's Day was 25 April) and all I found were the corpses of several males. I suspect that as adults the males feed very little, if at all, but are simply looking for an opportunity to mate. Having done that they die, their life-cycle complete.

The shrivelled corpse of  a St Mark's Fly, one of several on leaves.

Kentle Wood, Daventry. 9 May, 2020

It was mega-hot by 1300 hours and it was time to beat a retreat. I got in the car and drove home listening to a CD of Fearful Symmetries by John Adams. No one uses saxophones like John. Brilliant!

Addendum

I gathered a few insect specimens for closer examination later. New additions pushed the number of insects, etc. recorded up to 546. A specimen of the tachinid fly Phorocera obscura was present and appears to be the first record for Northamptonshire.