BENCH RETURNED

A stalwart team of six have managed to rescue the picnic bench from its kidnap site and return it to its rightful place where everyone can use it. 

Hopefully this notice will appeal to the kidnappers' better natures.

It reads

This bench is for all

the local community.

Please do not move it.

 

PETTY OR SUNNY

There are over 2000 members of the spurge (Euphorbia) genus. Here are two that I often find in my veg plot, that can be easily confused.  I found them growing next to each other in the crack at the foot of a wall:  Petty Spurge on the left and Sun Spurge on the right.

Sun Spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia) has bigger, yellower leaves and bracts arranged radially, like the sun.

  

Petty Spurge (Euphorbia Peplus) is a fresh  green but smaller leaved and the top is not so flat

  

Another common but much larger visitor to the garden is Caper Spurge (Euphorbia lathyrus)with a white stripe down the strap-shaped leaves, which grow in four vertical rows.  

  

When the seed pods are ripe they pop open explosively and spread the seeds over a wide area.

    

Like all spurges, the milky latex in the stems can damage your skin so beware.

 

WHITE BUT GREEN

My poor little brassica plants were getting eaten and I was sure it was slugs or snails but a closer look revealed happy green caterpillars.

  

I was pretty sure these were the progeny of small white butterflies and confirmed it by checking a row of yellow dots along each flank . . .

. . . and a faint yellow line down the middle of the back.

We have also had caterpillars of the large white butterfly who, like the small whites, enjoy nasturtiums as well as cabbages.

Quite a different colour scheme: black spots on a green background with a clear yellow stripe along the back.

 

YARROW

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is usually white in the wild but occasionally pink.  

  

Lots of it up where we have been scything at Filnore's top meadow.

There are many cultivated varieties of Achillea to grace our gardens, and the ferny foliage may also grace our lawns.

  

 

KNOPPER ALERT

Acorns ripening, hoping to grow into mighty oak trees.

But some have been invaded by the specific gall wasp that causes Knopper Galls.

  

They start small and green and envelop the acorn so that it cannot fulfil its destiny.  Eventually the gall turns brown and the tiny insect flies off to find a Turkey Oak for the alternate generation.

 

SOUTHERN HAWKER

This dragonfly is/was a Southern Hawker but do you notice something missing?

It should have four wings not two, and most of the the head and the thorax, where the wings and legs are attached, have gone, (like the picnic bench).

A little bird told me that the thorax is the most tasty and nutritious part.  I wonder who captured it.

 

BENCH DICOVERY

Good news!  The picnic bench has been located.  It had been stowed in the dried up pond at the top of the site along with traffic cones, pallets and a corrugated iron sheet being used as a base for fires.

 It is more or less unscathed but it must have taken some strength to get it up the hill and over the barbed wire.

 

BENCH THEFT

In July 2021 we bought a stout picnic bench to go under the oak tree in the welcome area.

This lasted until February 2023, when it was vandalised by some inadequate crackpots.

As a favour, Richard Jessop, the maker of the bench. made us an even more substantial replacement.

This has now gone, presumed stolen, though it must have been very heavy to remove.

IF ANYONE SAW ANY STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OR SUSPICIOUS VEHICLES BETWEEN 12.30 PM ON SUNDAY 13TH AND 2.30 PM ON TUESDAY 15TH, OR NOTICED THE BENCH WAS MISSING BEFORE THAT TIME ON THE TUESDAY, COULD YOU PLEASE CONTACT 

ALAN WATTS ON    filnorefriends.sec@gmail.com

 

DOES ANYONE KNOW

This plant is growing and flowering at Filnore Woods but I don't know what it is.  Can anyone help identify it?

  

It's pretty small but there is quite a large patch in the grass to the right of the path leading up to the pylon, if you want to go and check.

Make any suggestions for me to check up on in the books and on the websites.  I thought it might be lousewort but the flowers seem to be too small and the leaves aren't right.

Could it be a thyme?

 

FOREST BUG

In August shield bugs, so called because of their shield shape, have reached maturity.  They usually overwinter as nymphs, which look a bit like the adults but not so shieldy and often quite different colours.  Mating and egg laying are completed this month.  With global warming some are now overwintering as adults and possibly will produce two broods. 

This one perching on my trousers is  a Forest Bug  (Pentatoma rufipes) with its distinctive black and yellow border at the back, orange legs and mighty 'shoulders'.  The yellow/orange dot on the back is just above the exposed transparent wings.  As well as running quite briskly these guys can fly.  I had a common green shield bug on me earlier in the day but it was too fast-moving to photograph.

Forest bugs feed by sucking the sap of oak trees but they will also feed on alder, hazel, apple, cherry and even caterpillars.  They insert a sharp proboscis, usually held flat against their tummies, and suck out the juice.

Here's a common green shield bug.

 

BETONY

Betony's flower might be confused with selfheal but it is pink rather than purple . . .

. . . and the flowers are larger and more showy.

Betony's leaves are larger, oval to oblong and with a coarsely toothed edge.

 

MEADOWSWEET

Before the flowers emerge, you can test the leaves by crushing one and sniffing it.  If it smells rather medical, like germaline, you have Meadowsweet.

  

The flowers are much more fragrant and live up to the name.

  

 

SOLDIERS WILD ABOUT CARROTS

The very flat flowerheads of Wild Carrot usually have a red spot in the centre.  

They may also carry one or more Soldier Beetles. 

 These are sometimes known as blood suckers, because of their bright colours but they are completely harmless to humans.  

They like nectar and pollen but mainly they prey on other insects visiting umbellifer flowers like hogweed, cow parsley and wild carrot.

While waiting for prey they often improve the shining hour with a bit of mating.  In fact they do quite a lot of this and for this reason they are sometimes referred to as the bonking beetles.  I just caught a couple on the left of this photo.