Ant on Shield Bug on Human

I felt something land in my hair and whooshed it  out on to the path.  This is the Common Green Shield Bug, Palomina prasina.

 It is one of the many heteropteran bugs whose wings overlap at the back with a transparent patch.

It landed near some ants who immediately took an interest.  You can see one of them has already climbed aboard, hoping to fly business class.  The shield bug shook it off and moved on.  Maybe it felt a bit the same as I did when a shield bug landed on me! 

After its adventure, no doubt it was soon sucking the juice out of some plant or other with its needle like proboscis.

Smut and St George

St George's Day is 23rd April and there is a species of edible fungus called St George's Mushroom, which appears around that date.  Our mycologist Simon photographed these examples last week.

Simon also noticed something else.  I expect you recognise this flower, Red Campion, with a nice white middle.

but this one has gone black in the middle

It's because of a small smut fungus specific to campions.  Sneakily it fills the anthers of male flowers with its dark brown spores which pollinating insects then collect and spread to other campion flowers. 

 But here's the sneakiest bit:  it also invades female flowers and makes them produce artificial things called staminodes that look like the stamens of a male flower. These are also filled with fungal spores.  The pollinators are tricked into thinking these are pollen grains and transport them as well.  Such a clever little SMUT!

All photos by Simon Harding

Bluebells - a rising tide?

We don't yet have a sea of bluebells under our trees but we do have lots of clumps, which are gradually spreading, either by division of the bulbs to fill in the gaps, or by seed to start new clumps.

Cutting back the undergrowth helps them to compete but they are only in bloom for a short period - now, at the end of April.

Bombylius

Bombylius major, the Dark-edged Bee Fly, is one of my favourite flies.

If you're watching bees busily visiting a patch of flowers you may notice one in particular, making a loud buzz as it zooms round the flowers at high speed with a great, long schnozzle sticking out in front.  It isn't a bee, it's a fly.  

It has a brown furry body and, if it alights, you may see the attractive patterning on its wings.

Another relative, Bombylius discolor, the Spotted Bee fly is slightly less common.  It lacks this wing pattern and has black spots instead.

They are around until July but at their most common now.

By the way, 2019 is THE YEAR OF THE FLY.  During the year the intention is to educate the general public about the diversity, significance and beauty of flies and how they affect our lives.

For a fascinating and entertaining programme about flies listen to Erica McAlister on The Life Scientific on Redio 4.  She makes a really good case for these misunderstood creatures, that are so important in our world.  Google it or try this link   Erica MsAlister

Pear Blossom

I noticed these buds on a wild pear tree on 6th April 

and by 18th April they were opening out into this startling white blossom with the distinctive purple stamens.

 The tree is a welcome sight but it only flowers on the side exposed to light

Another way to distinguish pear from apple is that pear leaves are smooth and even shiny, compared to the textured leaves of apple trees. 

Peacock butterfly

Another sun-bathing butterfly on a tree stump

It's a Peacock, newly emerged from hibernation.

Soon she will mate and then search out some stinging nettles to lay her eggs on.

Holly blue

Sunbathing on this hazel leaf, this forget-me-not blue butterfly is a holly blue.  It is one of the commonest blue butterflies, the other being the common blue.  

They are easy to confuse but the holly blue appears earlier in the year and has a pale blue underside to the wings with tiny black spots.  A common blue  has a mosaic of grey, white, brown and orange on the underwing so that it is well camouflaged sitting on top of a cow parsley flower.

Common blue (RSPB)

Holly blues have two broods.  The springtime butterflies, which have overwintered as chrysalises hiding behind something like tree bark, lay their eggs on holly. 

 But when those eggs hatch into caterpillars and develop into chrysalises and adult butterflies, it will be IVY that they lay their eggs on.

How do they know what to do?

Miniature clock tower

Walking up Filnore Lane from the compost site towards Filnore Woods, I saw a patch of pale green scalloped leaves.

Looking closer I could see tiny, pale green flowers.

Looking even closer the flower is revealed as Moschatel or Town Hall Clock.  

It is like big Ben with a face on all four sides plus one on top.

Turkey for Easter

This stump of a birch tree is now being decomposed by a Turkey-tail fungus (Coriolus versicolor). 

On top of the stump, the fruiting bodies or brackets are jostling for space

While down at ground level the brackets are a bit wider.

It gets its name from the concentric rings of colour - like a turkey's tail.

In the midst of life . . .

Scattered feathers on the ground. 

In the midst of life we have death, and without the death of this bird we would not have a living fox.

Photo: Jean Murray

Post about Post 10

Like post 9 and post 6, post 10 had rotted at the base and broken off.  We shall have to invest in some new treated softwood posts soon, but for now a temporary repair will suffice.   

A spade and a saw and a post-holer are all the tools needed.

A new hole is dug in the ground with the post-holer.

The rotten end of the pole is sawn off.

The post is re-inserted in the ground and the soil shovelled back in the hole with the spade, and tamped down.

Good as new - but a bit shorter.

Red deadnettle

Red deadnettle has pink flowers but it's the fresh leaves at the top of the stem that are red, - at least they are when growing in a sunny position.  Inside a shady wood they tend to be green and the plant grows taller.   

White deadnettle grows a lot at Filnore in amongst the longer grass but red deadnettle is more frequent in cultivated land or even clinging to a wall.  

Marble galls

Now, before the leaves open, is a good time to spot the marble galls that often occur on young oaks.  They are caused by the larvae of a tiny gall wasp.  As the grub nibbles at the bud where the egg was laid the oak tree produces this gall in reaction - green at first and then turning brown.  

The new adult female emerges from the gall in September or October and finds a place to shelter over winter. You can see a hole where she emerged.  Then in spring she will be ready to lay her eggs in new oak buds.

Useful sticks

We undertake coppicing in our woodlands to let in light and give the ground flora a chance to grow.  But a useful by-product is the wood we harvest.  These may just look like a load of sticks at first,    

but after careful selection, trimming and sharpening, these five foot stakes are ideal for hedge laying or dahlia stakes (£2.50 for 5).

We have sold over 150 this year so far.

We have been able to supply eight foot long beansticks at £6 for 10

four-to-five foot bushy peasticks at £1.25 for 10, which are also excellent for supporting herbaceous perennials if you push them in before the plants get too big  

These will be sold as medium plant stakes when ready (£3 to £4 for ten)

The smaller straight bits are sorted into similar lengths .. .. ..

.. .. .. and bundled as short plant stakes (£1 for ten)

We also use the short ones as pegs to fix these longer, thicker poles in place when making steps on the site or edging the woodchip paths.

And the left-over knobbly bits make good firewood.

Cowslips and dandelions

This is the season when dandelions have their first flush.  They are everywhere.  

Because they are so common it is easy to take them for granted but if they were rare we would rave about them.

Cowslips are rather less frequent so it is good to see they are still with us at Filnore on the slope up to the pylon, like this one seen yesterday. 

Hopefully our attempts at restoring all the grassland will result in the re-appearance of cowslips in the cowshed field, where they used to be plentiful.

Early butterflies

This orange tip butterfly is the latest species to be seen at Filnore this year, photographed by Alan Watts on 1st April.  This shows the beautifully patterned underside of the hind wing but you can just see a twinge of orange on the concealed  forewing, showing on the left hand side, which shows it's a male.  The females are just white.

The foodplant of the orange tip caterpillars, cuckoo flower, is just appearing this week.

Several butterfly species hibernate and are therefore able to get off to an early start in spring.  The pale yellow Brimstones are usually the first.

Peacocks have also been spotted

and even some commas.

These last three species have been seen but not photographed 

so the photos are from wikipedia. 

If you see a butterfly at Filnore Woods that you can identify, please let us know at filnorefriends@gmail.com.  This will help us to see whether we are providing a good habitat for them.

More tree clues on the ground.

Following my 'clues on the path' posting of 27th March, here are some more photos of bits and pieces on the ground at Filnore Woods, which tell you about the trees above.  

Last year's ASH keys have been dropping in profusion since autumn and baby ash trees are germinating all over.

A lot of trees produce catkins, which is a bit confusing, but you can distinguish them a bit by when they appear.  The hazel catkins are pretty well all gone by now  but  these long, green ones are from the ALDER trees at post 20 near the 'white house'. 

Round near post 15 in the old tree nursery 

HORNBEAMS are shedding these knobbly, yellow jobs

(Poplars also have catkins, usually red, but they are still on the trees for the most part.)

Another give-away is that pale green confetti which is the fruits of the ELM.  

You can see the seed as a dot in the centre of each one.

White confetti, particularly dense on the path above the steps near post 6, is made of millions of tiny BLACKTHORN petals

And its bigger relative, the WILD CHERRY drops whole flowers.

These yellow flowers are from the NORWAY MAPLE .. .. ..

.. .. .. but most of them are still on the tree.

And last of all, whatever makes these young shoots of HORSE CHESTNUT 

fall off on to the ground?

Well it's squirrels.  As far as they are concerned horse chestnut shoots are better than asparagus and they are not fussy about where they drop the tops of the shoots they have nibbled.