Horse chestnut leaf miner

Starting in May, the very small brown and white moths emerge from old horse chestnut leaves lying on the ground and fly up into the lowest branches of the horse chestnut trees.  You can sometimes see them resting on the bark.

Photo: wikipedia

They lay their eggs in the leaves and the larvae eat out a tunnel or mine between the upper and lower layers of the leaf.  At first it is pale green but as the tissue dies it goes pale brown and then the whole tree turns brown.  They seem to have started early this year.  I took this photo yesterday.

The moths usually have three generations in the UK but in favourable weather they can have five, each more numerous than the last.

The serious infestations are in late summer when the tree has done most of its growing.  So apart from the unsightly appearance these moths do not harm the tree.

The hope is that blue tits will hurry up and get used to eating the grubs.  They currently account for only 2 - 4%.

Photo: wikipedia

Tufted vetch - a purple scrambler

Tufted vetch is a very common scrambler in grassy places at this time of year.  The leaves are made up of ten or more leaflets and terminate in a branching tendril, three little wiry threads that twine round anything that will help them climb up to the light

The purple flowers are arranged in a long raceme, all on one side of the stem.

Woodbine

Woodbine or honeysuckle.  A fragrant and attractive climber in a hedge.

The long spur at the back of the flower is full of nectar.

When it grows in woods the leaves are the foodplant for caterpillars of the white admiral butterfly, and the bark is a favourite nesting material of dormice.

The leaves appear early in the year and can be identified by the pale, almost white central vein.

Honeysuckle twines so tightly round the young shoots of coppiced hazel and ash, that it can deform them.  The resulting barley sugar stems are highly valued by walking stick makers.

Ant video 2

The text for this video is on a separate post, "ant video 1"

Ant video 1

This is clearly not the video but that took up so much space that I have published it as a separate post.  It may still be too big.

If it works you will see five types of the species Lasius niger, the Black Garden Ant.

This occurred when I lifted up a large stone perched on a low wall.  This whole ant city was exposed.   The little workers busy themselves evacuating the pupae (which are sometimes wrongly called 'ants eggs') and the smaller larvae, and taking them to safety underground.

Some of the pupae have already hatched into winged ants: the larger ones are the females and the smaller ones are males.  If it hadn't been for the rainstorm that followed they might all have soared into the air on their nuptial flight.  

This is their one day in the sun, when after mating the males die and the females or 'queens' bite off their wings (like taking off their wedding finery), find an underground cavity and start a new nest.  

All the nests in the neighbourhood seem to magically choose the same day so that intermarriage between different colonies is guaranteed.These nuptial events cause panic among some humans 

"Help! Help!  Flying ants!"   

but it is only one afternoon.   Let them enjoy their afternoon of love - the ants, I mean.

Unfortunately this is the worst video of those I took.  Too much moving the camera about.  But it is the only one short enough to include on the blog.  Please excuse the tuneless whistling which I didn't realise I was doing.  

I'm appalled to discover I may be turning into one of those old whistling codgers.

Tulip tree

The Tulip Tree is not a native of this country or even the continent of Europe.  In its native North America it is known as the yellow poplar, though it is not related to the true poplars.  But it does grow well here and after several years, maybe 25, it produces its pale cream flowers, which are more like water lilies than tulips.

The name is probably due to the unusually shaped leaves which have four points - almost unknown in the leafy world.   They could be said to resemble the shape of a tulip.  

The flowers apparently are at their most impressive by moonlight, so if you want to venture out one moonlit night, the two photos above are of a tree in the Castle School Upper School grounds, just inside the fence.  Or there is the one shown below, peeping over a wall opposite the Hatch at the bottom of Castle Street. 

Unfortunately he flowers are often hidden among the leaves.  

Robin's pin cushion

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;

While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.     

 (Auguste De Morgan)

Is this a flower or a fungus or what?

Well if you look at the photo you can see that it is growing on the stem of a rose, which gives us the clue that it is a Robin's Pin Cushion or Bedeguar Gall.

It is caused by some chemical exudate from the larvae of a very small (4mm long) gall wasp.  This causes the gall to form as a home and a food source for the grubs, with no harm caused to the rose plant.  It usually occurs on wild roses.

The gall will contain several gall wasp larvae plus inquiline species, which are opportunist insects that also move in and make use of the shelter and food provided.  On top of that you can get parasites of both sets of grubs and then hyperparasites of those parasites.  It's a whole tower block of inhabitants.

Not fleas though.

'Robin' refers not to the bird but to Robin Goodfellow, 'the woodland sprite of English folklore' (wikipedia)

Hazel coppice regrowth

The hazel stools coppiced in February have already produced regrowth of over 2 metres.  (This is Alan, not a hobbit)

The re-growth of coppiced broad-leaved trees is what Oliver Rackham, renowned historian of trees and woodland in Britain, called 'the constant spring'.  The resilience of nature is a wonder.  The weeds in your path and the flowering grass in uncut meadows are indeed examples of this constant miracle.  

We are only now, as the abundance of nature is declining, realising that we cannot take this resilience for granted.

Scarlet Tigers

Dramatic white and yellow splotches on a black velvet background - it's a scarlet tiger.

Photo: Simon Dicker

Why scarlet?  If you look at this mating pair you can just see a tiny bit of the scarlet underwing, which shows when they fly.

A bit too busy here though.

Ash Die-back

Although ash die-back disease prefers young plants, it will kill mature trees as well, especially if they are in a group - i.e. not socially distant.  

The classic sign is the clumps of new foliage growing out of the dying branches as the tree makes a last effort to survive.

I saw these infected trees along the footpath between the Mundy Playing Fields and the cemetery.

Self-heal

 This bright mauve flower spreads by runners and can form quite a patch.

If you get it in your lawn you've got it for keeps.

As its name suggests it was formerly used as a medicinal herb for anything from billhook wounds to sore throats.

Burnet moths

Simon Harding photographed these burnet moths nectaring on various flowers.

Though it's hard to tell if they are 5-spot or 6-spot burnets.

Simon also spotted a burnet moth caterpillar.

You can see it dozing on the flower stem.  They feed at night on birdsfoot trefoil.

Birdsfoot trefoil is in the pea family.  'Birdsfoot' for the shape of the seedhead and 'trefoil' because the leaves are made up of three leaflets.

Lime fruits

Not the citrus fruits but the seed-containing fruits, like berries, of the linden tree (Tilia sp).  There are several species of lime tree but they nearly all share two attributes:  

(a) the lopsided-heart shape of the leaves and 

(b) the fruits in a bunch on a stalk with a pale bract to help them fly.

On some trees the bracts almost look like flowers, they are so bright and numerous.

Froghopper

Now is the time of cuckoo spit. 

It is caused by the nymphs of a froghopper.  The adults are brown and jump about, but the young nymphs are yellow or green and stay put.  Here's one on a piece of fabric.  I found it tickling on my elbow; must have brushed it off a plant as I passed.

You can usually make out the little black eyes.

They suck the juice out of the plant but as it is under pressure it is propelled through the nymph who blows a few anal bubbles into it to create the cuckoo spit - a sort of very wet fart.  This provides a hiding place; as a predator, you know it's in there somewhere but not exactly where.

What a stinker

Stinking Iris (Iris foetidissima), aka Roast Beef Plant, has a pale, delicate flower that can go almost unnoticed.  It gets its name from the smell of the crushed leaves which some people say is beefy.  

They are flowering now in Vilner Lane Wood.  

In autumn they produce these pods of bright orange berries, which last right through the winter.

These were taken in December last year.

Meadow Cranesbill

On the patch of wild land between Tesco car park and Vilner Lane Wood, there is a cluster of meadow cranesbills in flower.  They are the source of many of our garden geraniums.

The leaves are finely divided and the violet coloured flowers have a sunburst of white veins in the centre behind the dark stamens.

Hemlock and Hogweed

Umbellifers are tricky to identify.  At first glance they all look the same.  

This month it is the turn of Hemlock and Hogweed to come into bloom.  

Let's concentrate first on Hemlock.  

There's a lot of it about at Filnore Woods especially up at the viewpoint.

The ferny leaves are pale with a slightly grey/blue tint

But the real tell-tale sign is the purple blotching on the smooth stems, 

which warns you that it is the POISONOUS Hemlock.

Blotchy photos by Alan Watts

Hogweed on the other hand has leaves that are divided but not fern-like,

a groovy stem, 

and a bigger, flatter flower head like a parasol .. .. ..

.. .. .. when compared with the taller, branching stems of Hemlock

Here is Alan taking those close-ups of the purple blotches on Hemlock, 

with a Hogweed plant just to the right of him.

Do you think he is tall and branchy or just a big flathead?

Just said that to help you remember.  Sorry Alan !!!!

Small Tortoise

Actually Small Tortoiseshell butterfly - Aglais urticae.  I can never get near these flighty little guys but Christian Tait caught this beautiful image.  He says he is lucky and quick, but I think he must be very patient and persistent - he's a graphic artist.

People often think it is a Red Admiral but that butterfly is black, white and red, while the Small Tortoiseshell is orange, with black and yellow on the leading edge of the forewings and little blue jewels all round the trailing edges of the wings.

The caterpillars feed on nettles and at first they stick together in a sort of web on the nettle leaves.  Then when nearly full grown, they go off on their own.

Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon

Goatsbeard is also known as Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon because the flowers close up about lunch time.  So if you want to see them you have to go in the morning

Photo: Alan Watts

The next day they re-appear as a seedhead like a giant dandelion clock - or a goat's beard, maybe?

Brown study

If you startle a brown butterfly into the air while walking through a grassy field at this time of year it will probably be a Meadow Brown.

As you can see it has an orange splash on each forewing with a little black and white eye-spot.

When it perches, low in the grass stems, the underside of the wing shows more orange and a lighter brown.  If you look very carefully you may be able to make out a tiny black dot in the middle of the wing.

It is one of our commonest butterflies and will even fly on overcast days,

 which is a cheery thing.

By the end of the month it will be joined by Gatekeeper butterflies - more on them later.