Celebrate

A jumbled post to round up a few bits ....

A few weeks ago I collected a tenanted Taleporia tubulosa case from Kinchley Lane alongside Swithland Res. I've never had much success with these before, either no emergence or just a grubby female. At last I had a bit of luck when this emerged on 12th May ....

I've run the garden trap a couple of times, but it's really not happening! Feels like one of the worst spring periods I can remember, certainly for a few years. I checked out a caddisfly from 9th May, and snapped a couple of NFY moths.

Limnephilus sparsus

Brindled Beauty

Silver Y

I recently got around to sorting out a vascular plant list for the garden, which is almost certainly not complete but includes everything I can attribute to a date/photo. I've added the paltry list to my Garden Lists tab, and almost as soon as I'd done that I've found a couple of new plants for the garden. We've completely let the garden go so far this spring, still thinking it would be dug up soon only to find that the landscaper who let us down last year has done it again - looking for a new one but there seems to be a real issue with materials etc which is hampering efforts. I know we should do it ourselves but I really haven't got the skills, energy or time to do it justice. In the meantime, the lawn especially is popping up wildflowers that have probably been there for years but never getting the chance to get their heads above the mower. The two new species are a Teasel growing next to the fence - likely from seed in bird-droppings, and a few spikes of Common Mouse-ear in the lawn (away from the Sticky Mouse-ear I found a couple of weeks ago that is more prolific).

Teasel

Common Mouse-ear

Sticky Mouse-ear

Despite my inability to get my head around the Vegetative Key that I bought early last year, I've gone and bought a similar key to grasses.

I gave it a whirl with some garden stems and got to Perennial Rye-grass, which is probably right but I was far from confident. I think I need to try and work through a couple of grasses that I know (or at least think I know) and take it from there. Crucially, this key requires non-flowering stems (tillers).

I need to go back and have another look at the hawthorn galls in the week I found as I may have cocked that up; there is a very similar fungal gall and the aphids I saw may have been incidental (on the leaf, not inside the gall).

Remember me saying good things happen for LCFC when Selby wins the World Championships? What a fantastic day out yesterday, almost like getting back to normality and a massive personal boost on coping with life post-surgery. Sealing the win and seeing the cup lifted by the Chairman Top Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha was emotional. A properly run Club with the fans and community at the heart. Hopefully we can seal a Champions League place and enjoy another European Tour next season ....

Speeding Well

Not had much chance to do anything during the week for one reason or another, and today it's turned properly wet (which is not a bad thing really). I have mooched about in the garden on occasion though and found a couple of tiny speedwells growing in the unkempt lawn.

First up this which is new for the garden (at least in the sense of me noticing it!).

Numerous flowering spikes of Thyme-leaved Speedwell barely poking above the level of the grass and clover leaves.

The other is not new, and is growing in the same area that I've seen it before but it is very easy to completely overlook and I've not noticed it for a long while. Most of the flowers were a bit faded and past their best, but there are others to come.

Wall Speedwell

Finding both of these reminded me that I'd photographed a larger Field-speedwell in the garden in April that I'd forgotten to check out.

The flowers seemed a bit paler and less blue than I usually see, but checking the plant again this week the seed pods seem to confirm that it is just Common Field-speedwell (which is also new for the garden).

Seeing as I was pointing the camera at small plants in the garden, I thought I'd see if one of the smallest on the front driveway was flowering. It was.

Procumbent Pearlwort with pathetic tiny flowers

Also new to the garden this week; I was on the phone and staring out of the windows when a Little Egret flew over heading south. A quick check with Neil Hagley confirmed what I expected - he has seen them several times heading over here! I think his home office view is pretty much looking west so he has a better view of anything moving north-south or vice-versa. My office window faces north-east with a big flowering cherry in the middle of the view, so unless I'm actually stood at the window and looking out it is very easy to miss something heading above the line of the embankment. Still, another garden tick that had I been at work would never have been seen (like last years Hobby and the Lesser Redpoll in April this year; Red Kite and Raven would also be included had I not seen them several times since including over weekends).

There have been a few more hoverflies and bees in the garden, but it feels nothing like last year when I was hand-catching inconspicuous ladybirds etc. The heavy rains today and slight warming up over the next few days might make a difference. What won't help is that the verges around parts of the square were mowed yesterday, just when a load of grasses were starting to flower!

My IV chemo treatment has been stopped early to avoid permanent issues with hand and feet neuropathy, so the PICC line is coming out on Monday. The oral chemo will carry on for another three cycles but that's fine, no real side-effects from that. I expect that next week will be my last working from home so I will be trying to make the most of it. I've also got my first big 'test' of being away from home for a longer period next Saturday, as I've successfully acquired a ticket for the FA Cup final at Wembley. Will be very strange going back to a live football match - can't think of a better occasion for it. Hopefully the team will have woken up again by then ....

In Bloom

Somehow I've ended up with a few different things to blog about through one day's activity. But it's late so for now I'll just go with some simple shots of various white flowers - all but one from today.

I'll start with a couple from the garden ....

Common Chickweed - new for the garden

Wavy Bitter-cress

 

Three from the square ....

Garlic Mustard

Danish Scurvygrass

Field Pansy

This one is also from the square, but not yet in flower so I took a shot of the relevant bit ....

Three-nerved Sandwort

And this one is from Croft Pasture on Tuesday ....

Common Sticky Mouse-ear

And sticking with white flowers, but on a different scale, I realised today that I'd missed Bird Cherry off of the square list. I also found a Rowan today that I'd forgotten was on the A426 verge but it's now in leaf and starting to flower.

Bird Cherry

Stuff for separate posts: I gave the suction sampler it's debut today and within a short while had pots full of bits and bobs which I've sorted through, adding a decent 11 species to the square list - some of which that would almost certainly have gone unnoticed otherwise. I've also had some larval success of late.

A Toad in the Hand

Today has been varied. This morning my car was booked in for its first service, so it was duly emptied and had a cursory vacuum and clean out yesterday evening. My boot is perpetually full of ento and birding paraphernalia, plus boots, coat and I've still got a cheap telescopic fishing rod lying around from the 2015 Portland PSL meet-up! Anyway, as usual whenever my car is going in for service or whatever I emptied out all my gear. Nichola was off today too, so after the car was handed over we headed off to a hospital blood test appointment and then off for a pub breakfast. We had a few bits to get from B&Q and another nearby shop, and then headed over the road to Abbey Park, a large area of parkland in the City that has been used and abused by generations of Leicester folk since 1882.

We had a good wander around the northern side of the River Soar which runs through the middle of the park. There are large stone boundary walls around part of the park, which are good for a few plants that were no doubt originally introduced but now flourish in some areas and have spread.

Pellitory-of-the-wall

Wallflower - gone over a bit ....

Alongside the Soar, there is plenty of Canadian Goldenrod amongst the willowherbs and ragworts.

And there is a large area planted out with plants specifically to benefit bees and pollinators, including loads of Globe Thistles, Echinops spp.

I'll spare you the not very exciting shots of the dipteran leaf-miner that specialises on Echinops.

It was early afternoon by the time I picked up the car, and we had a couple of things to do so by the time I was able to think about going out somewhere it was getting on for 5pm. It was also very humid and looked like it could absolutely hammer it down. I decided to go out anyway, grabbed my bag, camera and a coffee and set off for Bagworth Heath - a reclaimed colliery and another site I've not spent enough time at for one reason or another.

As soon as I got there, the sky was looking ominous ....

Still, worth a shot. I opened the car-boot and instantly realised that I'd forgotten to re-pack my paraphernalia. Arse. No boots, no net and no coat.

It was fine though. Nothing more than a light shower that I evaded by nipping into a wooded area, and anyway after the shower (and evidently a few that had preceded it), sweeping would have been pointless. As I walked around for a couple of hours, it gradually brightened up. Like Bardon Hill yesterday, this is a site I must get to a bit earlier in the season.

Loads of trefoils, vetch, clovers and yet more Canadian Goldenrod. I also walked around the ponds that are mainly used by fishermen.

There is a Sand Martin nesting bank and it was good to see it was still busily in use. Getting a shot of the said martins was nigh on impossible.

All around the ponds the grass paths were heaving with what I initially assumed were Froglets. Trying to get shots of them was harder than the martins as they did not sit still. In fact, the only method that worked was picking them up - they seemed to hesitate at the idea of leaping four feet back towards the ground ....

As I grabbed the first one I was surprised to see that it looked more like a miniature Common Toad. And then every one I picked up after that was the same. Not one frog in at least 20 that I man-handled out of the 100s that seemed to be moving all over the place.

There were few inverts active, apart from the still-ubiquitous Common Red Soldier Beetles. I pointed the camera at a couple.

Dicyphus epilobii

Episyrphus balteatus - I've managed to avoid pointing the camera at one of these since mid-May

By the time I left, the skies were clearing and tomorrow is shaping up to be a scorcher.

Mountain Quarry

Today has been overcast, humid and very windy. Not ideal conditions for photographing inverts or looking for plant life. Still I gave it a go anyway!

Here in VC55, one habitat we seem to have a fair share of is open space that approximates to heath, grassland or wetland on the banks of working quarries, in the depths of disused quarries and around the scraped out remains of gravel workings. One of these is a long-established and very deep working quarry taking out the middle of the biggest hill and highest point in the two counties - Bardon Hill.

Looking east-ish. That tower construction on right is near to the highest point.

Looking south-west directly across the quarry. It seems bigger and deeper than Croft Quarry.

It's an area that I've not visited for years, and have only visited on a handful of occasions anyway. It is certainly not a place I've ever gone to look for stuff with a sweep net or PSL mind-set. We did run moth-traps here a number of years ago, right up near the tower. Otherwise, it used to be the most regular place for Ring Ouzel in spring when it was a properly scarce passage bird here, before it started turning up in odd places that are easier to see and watch. I also remember one occasion walking/carrying/dragging Isabelle up to the summit in September 2000 when she was a month away from her fifth birthday, when Honey Buzzards were passing over the country and (relative to the county history) Leics. in stupid numbers. And not seeing one! That probably put her off birding for life.

It's not exactly a mountain, but it's a fair slog to walk up from either end where there is access from Whitwick.

There is a lot of regenerating heather and birch scrub, apparently after clearance of gorse and brambles. There are also large expanses of rough ground that are littered with various wildflowers.

What these shots do not show was just how windy it was, especially once I'd walked around from the eastern side to the northern side which was more open looking over the quarry.

Look down at the ragwort, and imagine getting a photo of the cudweed next to it ...

I spent a bit of time sweeping on the more sheltered side (which was still hard work with the wind that there was). Not a lot to show for it, apart from Tortoise Shieldbugs in higher numbers than I've seen anywhere else in VC55 including nymphs.

Also an apparent mirid nymph that I cannot name, posted to the Heteroptera FB group ....
Scrub that, it's actually an adult Rhopalid - Myrmus miriformis. Thanks to Maria Justamond.

There were a few interesting plants (as in plants I either hadn't seen before or hadn't seen for a while - not genuinely interesting!). Getting photos was only possible if they were in good shelter behind huge boulders or bushes. The best of these was Wood Sage, which I've not seen before and seems to be restricted to Charnwood in VC55, though I found plenty of it here.

Blue Fleabane seen but evaded a decent photo. Otherwise I snapped these ....

Common Fleabane

Centaury

Havin had a look around, it is definitely a site I will try and get to at a better time earlier in the season in the future.