Pottering About

Today was my first full day back at work since 10th January. I did spend a few hours working from home whilst I was off, and went back on short days last week, but it's not the same. Physically fine, it's more about remembering how to use my brain to juggle several things/people at the same time. Anyway, whilst I was there it was lovely and sunny. As I left it looked like it might cloud over a bit. As I got home it got duller .....

There was enough time to go out and have a look around, but with the sun gone and the light going I decided to not bother and just had a potter about in the garden instead. It seems like it's been quite a while since I actually had a poke around in the garden with the camera, and I was reminded of a few things ..... like .....

It's been a few years since I bothered properly looking at the slugs in the garden, and there may well be new species that I've not seen here before. I've not even scrutinised the 'yellow slugs' properly since the arrival and spread of Irish Yellow Slug in the county. I found a clump today but typically they remained scrunched up and I couldn't coax one to properly stretch out for a better look. I'm pretty sure that all of my garden yellows are now Irish Yellow Slug, but need to check. They're not going anywhere, I just need to remember to get myself in gear and go out collecting a load of slugs from the garden one warm damp night to properly look at them all.

Ambigolimax sp. - 'Greenhouse Slug' or 'Balkan Three Banded Slug' ??

Limacus sp. - (probably) Irish Yellow Slug

This photo also shows how productive lifting a pot can be, if you can be arsed to catch and check all the flat-backed millipedes, woodlice and earthworms ......

Pot and slab lifting also produced a couple of usual suspects.

Leistus fulvibarbis

Orchesella cincta

An out of focus Orchesella villosa

It was around the time of the last couple of shots that I remembered a couple of other things: springtails are massively abundant and ought to be looked for/at more than they have been, and bloody hell I can't actually see and focus on the camera screen properly when shooting hand-held anymore and can't see if the subject is in focus. I need specs.

Other bits didn't need looking for, they were just there.

Brown-lipped Banded Snail

Oddly coloured Green Shieldbug

Marchantia polymorpha - all over the place in the garden now

Ubiquitous Scarlet Lily Beetle - back again to destroy my Snake's-head Fritillaries

I noticed that there are more white Fritillaries this year

In other news, that grubby female Psychid from yesterday is still alive and kicking ... and not egg-laying.

Soldier, Soldier

Nipped back over to Huncote Embankment today for a very quick visit during one of the longer dry spells. Lighting was either too bright or too dull, and there was a constant breeze, so the most interesting things got potted up for later shots or recorded without. Best thing today for me was my first (at least in the sense of recognising and recording) soldier fly. This one ...

Common Green Colonel

I also found this weevil on Oxeye Daisy, but it was a bugger to get a shot of with it's annoying habit of moving and flying off.

Microplontus campestris

I also found some small beetles that are a very odd shape, maybe a Mordella/Tomoxia sp. to be checked out. Also some Hop Trefoil which I didn't get a good shot of.

Finally, the liverwort in th garden has some into 'fruit' with it's reproductive gametophores ....

Marchantia polymorpha

Garden Ticks

The garden lawn was, up until early afternoon on Saturday, more of a burgeoning meadow. Lots of flowering grasses and a few flowers thriving following the very wet period and then a couple of dry and warming up days. I spotted some tiny speedwell type plants right at the edge of the lawn where it meets the patio, and worked out that they were Wall Speedwell - a new one for me. Just as well I noticed them and managed to get a few shots as Nichola promptly got the mower out and mowed the dry half of the lawn (still damp at the bottom, though the standing water has at last drained/dried). There are still a few there though as the plants are very short and the mower was set high.

Wall Speedwell

I also noticed a small 'carpet' of green stuff on the soil surface of a large plant pot that has got my tiny Oak sapling in. I realised shortly afterwards that I was looking at my first liverwort species, and soon after incorrectly identified it as Crescent-cup Liverwort. I have since been advised that it is actually Marchantia polymorpha (many thanks to David Gould).

 

Marchantia polymorpha