Thistle Do

Terrible title pun and beautiful images supplied by Simon Harding.

Here we have a Burnet Moth and a Meadow Brown butterfly feeding on common creeping thistles 

and a Marbled White butterfly on what I think may be Saw-wort

All photographed this week at Filnore Woods

Summer flowers

 

Greater Knapweed (left) and Field Scabious (right) are two of our most popular butterfly and moth plants at Filnore.

 They both provide nectar for insects and the scabious leaves are food for several species of caterpillar.

Another good nectar plant is the Ragwort which is just coming into flower.  

It's also the food plant for the Cinnabar Moth caterpillars who absorb poisonous substances from the plant into their bodies.  this makes them taste nasty - for birds that is - so they are not afraid to advertise their presence with bold black and yellow hoops along their bodies.  This is warning colouration as opposed to camouflage, another form of defence. 

photo: Simon Harding

Agrimony or Aaron's Rod is yet another nectar plant.  My Reader's Digest flower book says, 'Flies and bees are attracted to the slender spikes of flowers by a scent reminiscent of apricots.'

In the pylon field we have a large clump of Great Willowherb.  Because it spreads by creeping stems it is forming a larger clump year on year.  It's pretty but we may need to curb it a little or it may swamp everything else.

Clovers

Red and white clovers flowering together

Pignut

Pignut is in the cow parsley family but is much smaller.  It grows happily in grassland and in woodland so we have plenty at Filnore Woods.  The basal leaves are finely divided and the stem leaves are really wiry. 

Pignut gets its name from the little tubers on the root, which are edible for humans as well as pigs and taste a bit like hazel nuts.

Essilor helpers

The Thornbury lens manufacturer, Essilor, have teamed up with us at Filnore Woods, and are providing extra volunteers to help with the conservation management work.  Here Rob and Jay from Essilor demonstrate their scything skills.

Buttercups

The two commonest buttercups are the Meadow Buttercup, which stands tall, and the Creeping Buttercup, which, well, creeps.  The leaves are quite different too.  The meadow buttercup, on the right in the picture below, has much more finely divided leaves than the creeping buttercup on the left.

Lacewing

(Photo:  Simon Harding)

Simon photographed this green lacewing (Chrysopa perla) at Filnore Woods.  It is probably hunting for aphids, its main food supply.  The larvae are also voracious gobblers of aphids so the female lacewing usally lays her eggs near an aphid colony.

The body is green with a row of black squares on the underside and the blue-green wings have a lacy network of black veins.

Check out Chrysopa perla on wikipedia, where there is a tremendous video of a lacewing searching for aphids and snacking on some flower nectar for afters.