Stupid boy!

I looked across neighbouring rooftops, shielding my eyes against the brilliant sunshine. True it was a bit breezy but I did my usual loin-girding bit and set out towards the local pocket park, barely a quarter of a mile away. Needless to say, the sun had gone by the time I reached my destination; the wind had not. I recalled the Spoonerism regarding the highly religious person sitting in a bath. I too had started with a soul full of hope and although I hadn't exactly got a hole full of soap I did feel thwarted. Stupid boy!


I decided to make the best of it and investigate a few grass tussocks. Generally these reveal a few creepy-crawlies, taking advantage of the fact that even when there is a sharp frost there exists deep within the tussock a micro-climate at the plant-soil interface. But not today. True I did find a click beetle, Agriotes obscurus, and it was a new species for the site but it was a long way short of the entomological treasures I had visualised. Incidentally, despite the specific name of 'obscurus' it is a very common species.


Perhaps a large flat piece of concrete would be more productive?

Not a visually beautiful sight but this sort of stone will often reveal a

treasure. Not today! Stefen Hill Pocket Park. 16 January, 2020

 

Ever the optimist I turned it over revealing only masses of slug eggs and an out-of-focus millipede. Had I left these eggs unconcealed a bird would have made short work of them so I replaced the stone a.s.a.p.

Eggs of a slug, but which species?

To identify of the slug was beyond me but the millipede was a different matter. I recognised it as a White-legged Snake Millipede, Tachypodiulus niger. This is a very common species but can be confused with Cylindroiulus londinensis. Back home I examined its 'tail' (telson) and confirmed it was the former and was therefore not new to the park.

White-legged Snake Millipedes are very common everywhere it seems.

Stefen Hill Pocket Park. 16 January, 2020

The ubiquitous spider Neriene peltata completed the days findings. A pretty miserable 'bag'.


Teasing aside strings of wet and muddy grass roots in a strong, cold wind had turned my hands a rather fetching shade of forget-me-not blue. I decided to call it a day and set off home.


Wayside gardens showed that tiny flower buds had formed on Box, Buxus sempervirens, bushes. (The leaves are sometimes blistered and discoloured by the fly Monarthropalpus flavus. I much check from time to time.)

The flower buds on box bushes are easily overlooked.

Christchurch Drive, Daventry. 16 January, 2020

The flowers won't open until May (and even then they'll be inconspicuous) but I convinced myself that they were heralds of spring and so completed my journey much cheered.

The fragrant and the foul

Today involved a routine visit to Byfield but a visit to the village pocket park was not included. However I did get the opportunity to stretch my legs with a general walkabout.


Dropping Chris off at her friend Julie Ferguson's house I set out to do a spot of shopping and was pleased to see en route a fine growth of Winter Heliotrope, Petasites fragrans, growing through a stone wall. 

This Winter Heliotrope has insinuated itself via rhizomes, through a garden

 wall. Bell Lane, Byfield. 15 January, 2020

This North African plant cannot be described as breathtakingly beautiful and it was undoubtedly introduced for its very fragrant, vanilla-scented, flowers. It is apparently sterile but spreads rapidly via rhizomes and has in places become a real nuisance. Should this householder wish to eradicate the plant it will probably prove to be a difficult task. It is closely related to our native Colt's Foot, Tussilago farfara, also an early flowerer.

Seen from a distance the flowers are rather dull, but in close-up  they

do have a certain attraction.

So much for the fragrant. A little further on I passed a clump of Iris foetidissima. I have often mentioned this plant as it is very common in the Byfield area. Its specific name refers to the pungent odour released if a stem is crushed, a smell which has caused it to be known as the Stinking Iris or the Roast Beef Plant. Foul indeed!

Yet untouched, the berries on this Roast Beef Plant may go if we

encounter a spell of nasty weather. Byfield, 15 January, 2020

Its berries, though tempting in appearance, have been left untouched. Is this because it has been a mild winter or are the berries rather distasteful? I suspect it is neither of these things. So tempting and abundant are the offerings of local bird feeders that thrushes and others perhaps simply can't be bothered.

The local brook had failed to cope with recent heavy rain. I turned on my

heel and left. Byfield, 15 January, 2020

As I have said, I gave the local pocket park a miss, not least because as I approached I could see that the adjacent stream had breached its banks, flooding local fields. It looked as though conditions underfoot would be pretty wet so I turned back.

The only other feature to catch my attention was an old stump bearing a nice growth of the fungus Auricularia auricula-judae. Once known as Jew's Ear it is now more often referred to as Jelly Fungus. The specimens I found were more than usually robust and, being edible, would have filled a pan nicely. I didn't bother.

A robust growth of Jelly Fungus on an old tree stump. Byfield,

15 January, 2020

The 50 pence piece I used for scale may have been gleaming in the bright sunlight but the weather was distinctly chilly. I did my shopping and scurried back to the warmth and comfort of my car. Wimp!

Times they are a-changin'

Now and then I slip in a snatch of poetry - usually no more than a quatrain - into my blog if it seems appropriate. But what do we now do with regard to winter? In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries poets would rail against ice and snow and bitter gales; they would celebrate skating on the village pond. But those days are over, perhaps never to return. The fossil fuel companies will garner 'evidence' that climate warming is a myth, but anyone who takes the trouble to look at the true picture will know that winters will never be the same again.


So where does this leave the blogger, looking for winter scenes that are now just memories? One answer is to look for aberrant behaviour. Certainly botanists and entomologists are noting oddities. Ornithologists too:  Blackcaps were simply described in older books as 'summer visitors' but these warblers are now regularly seen throughout winter at bird feeders. Of course they haven't read the mendacious nonsense being pushed by oil companies. Strange that they have more understanding of reality than the American president!


Like the blackcap, our Strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo, hasn't been fooled. It has responded to mild conditions by producing a truss of flowers although it ought to have finished flowering some weeks ago.

Our Strawberry Tree has surprised us with panicles of its ivory

flowers. Stefen Hill, Daventry. 13 January, 2020

So far this year, although I have noted a few flies around, I have yet to see a bee, so the flowers are likely to go unpollinated. They are not the most conspicuously coloured flowers nor have I detected any scent (although bees can pick up scents well beyond the range of the human schnozz).

The flowers are much like those of Pieris, to which they are related.

I featured our Garrya elliptica around three weeks ago. Since then its catkins have lengthened greatly. To call this Californian shrub spectacular is over-egging it a little but right now it is now quite striking.

The catkins on our Garrya elliptica have reached 260 millimetres long.

Unlike the Strawberry Tree it is wind pollinated but as I only possess a male plant any pollen borne away on the breeze will be wasted. I'll keep an open for bees at the catkins but I'm not optimistic.

Bees often visit hazel catkins are for their pollen but I doubt they'll

be visiting the Garrya.

My mother often spoke of  '...patience on a monument' but until recently I hadn't realised (nor, I'm  sure had she) that she was quoting Shakespeare, the words being spoken by Viola in Twelfth Night. Anyway, that's what I need - lots of it.

Perseverance

My visit two days ago to Byfield Pocket Park produced little of interest so today I tried my luck at our local equivalent, Stefen Hill Pocket Park. I would like to say that the visit was packed with incident but alas...


Conditions were chilly but bright and the sunshine encouraged a few flies to bask on fence posts. This female was off before I could capture it but not before I had grabbed a photograph. It looks very much like Calliphora vicina, perhaps the commonest of our blowflies, and the wide space between the compound eyes shows that it is a female.

Some flies seem surprisingly resistant to cold. A calliphorid basks

on a fence. Stefen Hill Pocket Park, 10 January, 2020

One fly was a little less alert. This was Phaonia tuguriorum, my first fly of the year and one which is often among the earliest of the year. I also made an optimistic sweep of pine foliage and was rewarded with a Pine Ladybird, Exochomus quadripustulatus, a new record for the pocket park. It is a rather small, predominantly black ladybird with red spots, easily confused with some forms of the Harlequin Ladybird. I didn't expect to be coming up with new records this early in the year.


Ivy fruits were ripening steadily. Many were still green but others had ripened almost to a point where birds will be tempted.

Many ivy fruits have yet to ripen...

Is this succession of fruit a deliberate strategy that has evolved to ensure that only a percentage is available at any one time so that most are consumed?

...but others are darkening nicely. Stefen Hill Pocket Park.

10 January, 2020

As with Byfield, this pocket park has its patch of snowdrops. The scapes (see note) are a little taller and the flowers perhaps a little more advanced. As galanthophiles will point out (at some length), snowdrops are very variable.

Snowdrop flowers are on the point of opening.

Stefen Hll Pocket Park 10 January, 2020

To be brutally honest there was little to get worked up about but I was pleased to find, just about at the point where I had given up hope, a colony of the fungus Nectria peziza. It was growing in a typical situation - a rotting tree stump. 

Orange Spot growing on a rotting tree stump. Stefen Hill Pocket Park.

10 January, 2020

It looks almost as though an insect has laid a batch of bright orange eggs. Predictably it is known as the Orange Spot Fungus. It is moderately common but less so than its relative, the Coral Spot Fungus, often found on wooden sheds and fences where the timber is damp.

So all was not lost and I went home to strawberries with lashings of cream happy.

Note   A scape is a leafless flowering stem with all leaves around the base. Daffodils provide a good example.

News? Wot news?

It is when writing a blog at this time of the year that I am reminded of the enterprising newspaper seller (outside King's Cross station it is said) who, in order to boost sales, put up a notice reading:


                         THE KING:
                          NO NEWS


It seems that his papers sold like hot cakes to gullible people who wanted to know what was going on. Of course, as the notice said, there was no news of the king whatsoever. The story may be apocryphal but in this blog I too confess that there is nothing whatsoever.


Yesterday (Wednesday, 8 January) with wild and unjustified optimism, I paid one of my regular visits to Byfield Pocket Park. It is sited where Byfield railway station once stood but there is little now remaining of the original structure. I was pleased however to find that someone had unearthed an old iron rail fastening component, known I believe, as a 'chair'. This was used, with a combination of bolts and wooden blocks, to make the rails secure.

An iron 'chair' has been unearthed to help edge a footpath.

Byfield Pocket Park, 8 January, 2020

It had been used in a wooded area to delineate a footpath in lieu of the usual flat stone.


Speaking of stones, I carefully turned over a few bricks in the hope of finding some Carabid beetles, shiny black creatures which, as kids, we called 'rain beetles' (in the north of England these were often known as 'rain clocks'). I was out of luck and my investigations revealed only woodlice.

Oniscus asellus with a few specimens of Porcellio scaber, found when

turning over a brick.  Byfield Pocket Park, 8 January, 2020

Around the edge of the photograph the woodlice are mainly specimens of Oniscus asellus; they are rather shiny with a pale edge to the 'shell' (See note). In the very centre of the picture are some darker specimens with a matt finish and no pale edge. These are Porcellio scaber. The name is very descriptive: porcellio, little pig and scaber, scabby (they are covered with tiny tubercules). Everyone is very familiar with both species for they are exceedingly common. I carefully replaced the stones and continued on my way. (Incidentally those woodlice which roll into a ball when disturbed are Armadillidium vulgare, a species which seems to prefer drier conditions and has dozens of vernacular names.)

A few paces further on and I almost stepped on a carpet of snowdrops. This was a surprise as ten years ago there were no snowdrops at all in the park. They had probably been planted by Dave and Emma Marsh, former wardens of the park.

Snowdrops, 99% certain to be Galanthus nivalis.

Byfield Pocket Park,  8 January, 2020

Currently the flowers are only on bud but in a few days some of the blooms should be fully open. Conditions are mild for January and some early bees may soon be on the wing. The nectar will be much appreciated. It is probable that all snowdrops found in Britain (about twenty in all) are introductions but it is difficult to be confident about this. The commonest species by far is Galanthus nivalis, and this is probably what we have in the pocket park.

Note The plates which run across the back of a woodlouse are known as pereionites. They are made of chitin reinforced with calcium carbonate (lime). In areas where the soil is acid, and therefore lacking in lime, woodlice (and snails too) may be rather scarce.

Bryophyte bonuses

Nelson had his column and I have my blog. Nelson could doubtless pen an article on the behaviour of the urban pigeon but I am rather bereft of ideas.


I have been given a pair of wooden half-barrels and intend to use one for alpines. Accordingly I have filled one with a free-draining compost and will hopefully acquire some suitable plants shortly. In the meantime I have purchased some sempervivum plants for another pot. Most sempervivums currently on offer are varieties of Sempervivum tectorum, a species commonly known as the House Leek. The epithet tectorum is derived from the Latin word for a rooftop and the plants were often grown on house roofs in the belief that they would ward off lightning. In one pot was a flourishing little colony of the Common Cord-moss, Funaria hygrometrica.

A pot of Sempervivums showing bonfire moss together with some

liverwort spilling over the edge. 7 January, 2020

It is sometimes called 'bonfire moss' because, apart from being a pest in plant nurseries is often colonises the site of a recent bonfire - why I have no idea. Its leaf cells are particularly large and partly for this reason, added to the fact that specimens are usually easy to find, it is a popular species for use in elementary study of botany (and of course bryology in particular).




A closer view showing the capsule ('fruit') on long setae.

The bonus liverwort was, almost predictably, the very common Marchantia polymorpha. Like the moss, it may be of some interest to the bryologist but is a real nuisance around plant nurseries and in greenhouses. On the flat thallus cup-shaped structures are visible and in these the shiny green gemmae will develop. These are reproductive but purely vegetative structures which are probably splashed out of the cups by raindrops. 

On the flat green thallus of a liverwort the slightly darker gemma

cups can be clearly seen.. 7 January, 2020

I will need to carefully go over the pots of sempervivums prior to planting in order to remove all traces of moss and liverwort. Happy days!

First of the year: 2020

A Happy New Year to all my readers.


Not the easiest time of the year to be writing a gardening or wildlife blog unless, as I have mentioned, you are a birder. Some thirty or so years ago I would be up before sunrise, drag on a pair of my wife's tights and dress up warmly, take myself off to Pitsford Reservoir and indulge in some winter birding. For some unaccountable reason I have not been tempted during recent years (and warm though tights were, it was a real problem going for a pee).


Anyway, today wasn't too bad as winter days go. The morning was cold but sunny;  a day to enjoy the apricity. If only I had an insect or two to report on! I spent a few minutes examining the Mahonia 'Charity' growing beside the car park in Byfield. It was in full bloom and presented a lovely sight - but insects were there none.


Nearby, in the garden of our friends Lynda and Damian, a garden rose was displaying a familiar leaf mine: it had been created by a moth, Stigmella anomalella.

The sinuous mines of the moth Stigmella anomalella.

Byfield, Northants, 4 January, 2020

Known rather unsurprisingly as the Rose Leaf Miner it is very common but is the first record for that 2 x 2 km grid square. The moth had been busy for every leaflet bore a mine and yet the plant seemed perfectly healthy. William Blake famously wrote: 


                             O Rose, thou art sick!
                             The invisible worm
                             That flies in the night,
                             In the howling storm,
                             Has found out thy bed
                             Of crimson joy:
                             And his dark secret love
                             Doth thy life destroy.
                           

But the Rose Leaf Miner does not appear to attack the petals so is not the 'worm' to which Blake referred.* (In fact he may have been obliquely writing about homosexuality - but that is another story.)

All the leaflets had been affected.

The mines had been occupied last year, so this was hardly a sign of spring and I await our crocuses (croci as is the odd-sounding alternative plural) to put in an appearance. In our garden the only plant currently in bloom is Garrya elliptica. I love the silky grey catkins of our (male) plant, but colourful it ain't.

The catkins on our Garrya have lengthened greatly over the last month.

Stefen Hill, Daventry, 4 January, 2020

Over the last three weeks the catkins have been growing at something like a millimetre per day and act almost as an horological device.


Roll on!






* Historically 'worm' was a general term for all sorts of creepy-crawlies: silkworm, ragworm, wireworm, woodworm, slow worm and even ringworm (a fungus).


Tony White.  E-mail: diaea@yahoo.co.uk