I had an e-mail today, asking me to verify a couple of records on Naturespot
and incidentally highlighting a leaf fungi on ivy - Boeremia hedericola. The photos were immediately
recognisable - I'd seen this years ago, wondered if it was a leaf mine,
realised it was fungal and then completely ignored it and forgot about it. So
today I nipped around the corner to the nearest big clump of ivy, literally
across the road from the Ash tree I nabbed some keys from on Tuesday. It
didn't take long to find numerous leaves with big roundish brown blotches on
them. Like this one ....
I grabbed a couple for a closer look and to get these quick shots. Here's the blotch
closer up ....
Stunning. I don't know why I bother looking at insects when there are these
fascinating things around. He typed sarcastically.
Blotchulism - sounds like it could be the name of some chilled out ambient track. It isn't.
That blog post title up there is just click bait - anyone landing here hoping
to purchase an x-rated swearing motion-activated parrot will be disappointed.
An empty moth-trap first thing this morning was no surprise, but at least it
was pretty much dry - just a veneer of drizzle and nothing to ruin the newly
cut eggboxes. After that the weather stayed dull and overcast with a bit of
wind thrown in. I had intended to get out later in the afternoon once I
cleared the decks of a few work-related bits, but that got initially scuppered
by some IT issue requiring an expert(!) to take remote control of my laptop,
and an hour and half of my time in the process whist not resolving the
issue, and then as I was getting sorted to head out it started drizzling and I
lost enthusiasm. But, as I looked out of the back door I noticed a fly settled
on the rain cover of our garden parasol. I grabbed a pot and managed to get it
under control easily - the fly obviously not up to speed and temp to evade the
effort. I recognised what family it was, and decided to get it pinned and see
if I could key it out.
Whilst I don't enjoy killing insects I do of course recognise and accept that
records generated have value and the impact on any species is absolutely
minimal. It's not like I'm creating a long series of something that is
immediately identifiable. I only really started to pin stuff last year, and am
in no way expert or proficient at it. I was therefore quite pleased to be able
to pot, euthanise and pin it with minimal effort - with the bulk of the time
being leaving in the fly in a pot with the ethyl acetate fumes for long enough
to be sure. Anyway, here it is in all it's hairy glory ....
Expertly pinned - no. Pinned well enough to be keyed - absolutely.
So, you'll notice that the thorax is liberally covered in yellow hairs - which
I recognised as being a key character of the Pollenia spp. - cluster
flies within the Calliphoridae. A quick search on-line yielded a
test key produced by Steven Falk. I opted to use this as it seemed to be a nicely laid out document with
helpful illustrations pointing out what bits of a fly to look at. So jumping
straight in to the section with the key to Pollenia spp. I started working it
through. I've paraphrased the couplets - there was more that could be checked
but I think I've picked out the key suite of features.
The first couplet asks if the abdominal tergites are black-ish grey without
any conspicuous dusting? As you can see above, the abdomen has a conspicuous
shifting pattern of dusting which eliminates Pollenia amentaria.
Onto couplet 2: this asks if the node at the junction of the humeral
cross-vein and subcosta on the underside has a tuft of yellowish hairs? A
quick squint at the diagrams and I had the fly under the microscope ....
So, in the area where the arrow is pointing (and you may have to take my
word for it as hard to clearly capture) but there is no tuft of yellowish
hairs here which eliminates Pollenia pediculata.
Onto couplet 3: mesonotum in front of suture with a median dark stripe? No,
which eliminates Pollenia vagabunda.
Couplet 4: is the outer posthumeral bristle missing, and does the facial keel
barely extend beyond the antennal sockets?
This is where things gets awkward for a fly novice: learning thoracic bristle
placement/names is tricky enough when you can see them clearly without an
entanglement of yellow hairs. But I think the two red dots are posthumeral
bristles, in which case the outer one appears to be there just behind ....
and [post-edit thanks to Seth], the facial keel (arrow in the middle of the
face) extends well beyond the antennal sockets .... so if I got these right it
eliminates Pollenia griseotomentosa. [This facial image has other features
which get mentioned further on.]
Couplet 5 asks: are the posterior thoracic spiracles brown or yellowish ....
Certainly look yellowish to me, which eliminates Pollenia labialis.
Couplet 6: palpi reddish-orange for apical third or more, or are they dark.
Referring back up the facial image, the palps (bottom arrow) are dark, which
eliminates Pollenia viatica.
So we're down to two species: both common. Couplet 7 has a number of features
that could be checked. One is the spacing between the eyes in males - again
referring up to the facial image, though it's a bit subjective, but the space
between the eyes is about the same as the width of the third antennal segment.
At least it's not half the width. Leg hairs and bristles come into play as
well: most pertinently, do the hind femora have yellow posteroventral hairs? I
mucked about looking all ways up but can only see dark hairs on the hind
femora .... which would be right for the eye spacing.
The couplet also asks if the mid-tibia has one or more anterodorsal bristles
.... it appears to have three.
So with eye-spacing being the same as the width of the third antennal segment,
the lack of yellow hind femoral hairs and the number of mid-tibial bristles,
Pollenia angustigena is eliminated leaving one option ....
Pollenia rudis, apparently also referred to as the Awkward Clusterfly.
Perhaps because keying the damned thing is awkward.
Pollenia rudis is almost certainly the commonest, at least here in VC55, but
good to properly look at it. Now to sort out the labels, which are going to
have to be temporary until I get back into the office and can get to a decent
laser printer - my ink-jet at home is not up to proper small font
permanent-print labels!
There's not much blogging going on just lately amongst my usual reads. In fact
nothing beyond how to securely parcel up fleas for posting. Here's something
else that is a bit awkward, absolutely compelling and definitely different
....
First an update on the colour-ringed Black-headed Gull from yesterday -
White 7MS. I got the recovery data through early this morning, very
quick and efficient! It was ringed as a 3+ year old male on 31/03/2018 close
to Copenhagen (København). There have been three sightings of it since then
prior to mine, all also near to Copenhagen, so my sighting it the first time
it's been reported outside of the Copenhagen area / in the UK. On the
following map, the eastern blue dot is Svanemøllebugten somewhere near
to where it was ringed, and the western blue dot is Utterslev Mose where
it has been subsequently reported. [I've also marked the FC København Parken
Stadium with a red dot, where I watched LCFC in the Champions League on
02/11/2016. Because I can.]
The only bit of the above that seems to not make sense are the co-ordinates
which I can't make head or arseholes of. They don't seem to match the site
names, certainly not for WCPS - assuming they are meant to be
latitude/longitude. Either way, it appears that in a straight line the gull has moved c588
miles from where it was last reported.
FC København. It was bloody freezing and, disappointingly, their fans did not
get the pyros out.
On to today. There is very little permanent open water on my patch, and what
there is is not much to speak of either. There is a smallish pit that is just
about viewable from Jubilee Park (red arrow pointing at it), the other pits
that appear on the map just east of it are not really viewable, maybe partial
views from the canal tow path to the north. The other water is a reasonably
sized balancing pool at Grove Park (red dot). It is enclosed by industrial
units on three sides, but does attract a bit of common wildfowl when not
frozen over. I decided to try and add a duck or two to the 5MR list, and more
likely add Little Egret to the patch yearlist.
First off I headed to Jubilee Park, where I immediately noted x5
Little Egrets poking around on the grassy area immediately by the
entrance.
The park was still very wet and muddy from the big floods prior to the big
freeze, and the River Soar was still quite high. So still no Kingfisher. The
pool was actually bigger than I remember it, presumably holding a fair bit of
additional water from the flooding. Here it is just about in view across the
River Soar and a bit of cow field.
There were ducks on it, albeit very few with c20 Wigeon and a handful of
Mallards sitting on the bank. The only duck actually swimming about was a patch
and 5MR yeartick ....
I wasn't expecting Tufted Duck here. A Coot and a
Kestrel were also patch yearticks, and there was a good gathering of c50
Black-headed Gulls but all far too distant to bother trying to look at their
legs. I walked the whole park, but it was pretty quiet and not a lot moving
about.
I then carried on up to Grove Park for a look at the balancing pool. There
were lots of ducks and geese on show there ....
You can perhaps just make out the c150 Canada Geese on the far side, and lots
of floating blobs in front and around the small willow tree island. After the
surprise Tufted Duck at Jubilee Park, six of them here were more expected. But
the remainder of the blobs were another c100 Wigeon and c20 Mallards. Another
Coot, a few Moorhens, five Cormorants and a patch yearlist tick
Grey Heron were also around. But no Gadwall, no Shoveler, no Pochard.
Never mind - I'll have another look here in a few days.
Afterwards I headed down the lane with purpose. Having found the Ash key fungi
yesterday, I was intent on finding
them closer to home. I also wanted to have a look at that Holly again now
there has been a reprieve on the mining fly, and the Ash fungi reminded me to
look for Holly Speckle too. I scored on all fronts ....
Phytomyza ilicis on live leaf, Trochila ilicina [Holly Speckle]
on dead leaf
We have lots of Ash near here, but as I found today the trees down the lane
seem to have lots of bunches of keys that are out of reach. I literally could
only reach one, and immediately found both species - they must be very common
I reckon.
Also down the lane, a regular patch of adventive Snowdrops (that have
been growing and spreading here for well over a decade) was in bloom. Here's
one of several clumps.
I got a moth trap working, and it's out tonight though I have low
expectations. After the deep freeze last week I think it will take a few days
of warmer conditions to coax a few early spring species out.
I couldn't think of any witty or tenuous musical links .... here's 5:25mins of
aural bliss.
.... and a certainly do not mean the Urban Dictionary variety.
Today for the first time since last Wednesday I manage to get out for a bit.
My sensitivity to cold due to the chemo was tested enough on Wednesday, but
from Thursday onwards we had absolutely baltic conditions - no more snow and
generally dry but with a biting wind. In fact on Saturday the outside temp was
only -2C during the early afternoon. The other thing I found on Wednesday is
that my boots were still pretty wet after several outings in rain, snow and
ice. They were starting go a bit mouldy. The problem is just down to being
left wet in a box in the car, which itself is sitting on the driveway unused for far
more than would usually be the case. I remembered this on Friday and got
them inside to dry out properly, and then gave them a liberal spraying with
some waterproofing spray. They were bone dry on the inside and I'm sure they
will last another couple of years of abuse. I usually buy a new pair every
four years ish - and against best advice I usually opt for a cheapish
pair of Karrimor or similar from Sports Direct, with leather uppers and the
usual mix of man-made layers that give them waterproofing but breathable
characteristics. All fine if you look after them. Which I don't.
Anyway I've digressed. This afternoon I had to nip to the GP, and from there I
went over to see my Mum. She lives almost diametrically opposite to us on the
other side of the City. To get there, avoiding the city itself, there is an
outer ring road. Essentially it doesn't matter which way I go, it takes about
the same time and distance. So on the way home I went anti-clockwise which
meant that I would literally pass Watermead CP South - a handy place to stop
for a walk with bins and camera, albeit outside the 5MR etc. By then the
temperature was a balmy 12C, a massive swing from Saturday.
For someone that is not particularly a fan of gulls, I seem to spend enough
time looking at them when I'm anywhere with them about. Today I was hoping to
clock an Iceland Gull that has been dropping in there occasionally - no luck
on that front. But bugger me, I did re-find that blasted hybrid.
There were plenty of gulls about, the vast majority being Black-headed. I was
surprised to see that a small section of the lake was still a small iceberg.
This icy platform actually moved away from where I first saw it and drifted
further into the middle once gulls were landing and moving about on it.
There is no one spot that is worth watching out for a gull roost at this site,
they end up being spread over two lakes, the main one has an island in the
middle of it with gulls all around it (and on it), and the smaller lake is not
really watchable that late in the afternoon with the sun in your face - although
I tried. Added to that, the continual stream of people with bags of seed and
bread means the smaller gulls are in a constant state of greedy agitation.
Still, with a bit of ice on the water I turned my attention to looking out for
an colour-ringed birds and scored ....
White 7MS - Danish
I've sent off the sighting details, hopefully I'll get something back with the
bird's movements.
Regular visitors to this blog over the years will know of my disdain for
hybrid/domesticated/naturalised wildfowl. Look at the state of this; if we
could just get posh twats to stop releasing Pheasants and Red-legged
Partridges, stop mis-managing grouse moors and start targeting these ....
Proper wildfowl (and that is stretching it given the bread-crazed nature of a
lot of them) were few and far between: a pair of Goosander, a handful of
Wigeon and Gadwall on the smaller lake, no Shoveler or Pochard. I wonder how
far wildfowl got pushed out with the freeze.
Whilst walking around, I casually looked at some Ash keys following a post on
Facebook today. I was half-heartedly looking for the feeding signs of
Pseudargyrotoza conwagana, but inadvertently stumbled on a micro-fungi that is
not dissimilar to Holly Speckle. I brought a couple home ....
It didn't take long to search bioinfo.org and come up with a name for this -
Diaporthe samaricola. A further search then showed a two-for one - the smaller black speckles on the 'wing' are Neosetophoma samarorum.
With the temps up, and overnight temps looking unseasonally mild, I had
intended to get a light trap running. Only to find that neither trap I
currently have at home is working for one reason or another - a job for
tomorrow as the forecast for the next week and beyond promises some daft-for-Febrary temperatures.
Here's some 80s synth-pop cheese - I liked their singles, and always felt queasy
when I saw his shite haircut. Of course back then I didn't give too hoots
about the usage of 'Seagulls' ....
I've had a very quick play with the TG-6 today. There was a bit of charge
on the camera, and I just wanted to get a feel for the in-camera stacking mode
- the key feature I was keen to see working. I used out
of the box settings with the following exceptions: I turned the knob to the microscope mode and chose stacking, I set the LED to be ON to
use with the LED Light Guide that I bought to go with the camera, I adjusted
the stacking to the max x10 images and I set the stacking delay to 2 seconds (seeing
as the camera doesn't appear to allow the use of the self-timer delay whilst in stacking
mode). I set the camera on a tripod and set-up the daylight lamps that I
usually use for anything indoors. Tripod and lighting are key to decent images
whenever possible.
Anyway, I decided to grab a couple of likely specimens out of my box and point
the camera at them. A large-ish Tachinid and a small-ish weevil. I had the
camera on the max x4 optical zoom for these, but the camera was not as close
to the subject as could be possible. The following images are not cropped,
just re-sized and edited in the same way I do for all my images.
Linnaemya picta - can't get that DoF with my usual set-up
Neliocarus nebulosus - in all it's roundness
These are not finely-honed executions, they're first efforts without much effort.
First impressions are that:
the in-camera stacking is great!
getting the camera in position and enough light onto the subject is going
to be the tricky - it's like going back to the Coolpix 4500 I used a
decade ago in that respect
the LED Light Guide doesn't really offer much - not convinced by that at
the moment
I joked yesterday that I wouldn't bother reading the manual - I didn't need
to as it doesn't even come with one, you have to go online and download a
PDF.
I will have a proper play with it in due course. I
will try for some comparative shots of a subject using the TG-6 and P600 + Raynox, and I'll take some shots with different camera settings to see what comes out best.
I managed to head out for a bit of a walk this afternoon after a GP Surgery
appointment, and I decided I'd head up to the northern stretch of Aylestone
Meadows within my 5MR. One thing I realised quite a while ago is that I should
have made an effort to sort out some sort of route-tracking app. on my phone
that would trace my steps and calc. the distances this year during my square
and 5MR walks. I remember this every time I'm out, when it's too late to
bother, and I guess there's not much point starting now. Today's walk was only
c2.5miles in any case.
Here's an aerial map showing the route:
The red dot is the starting point at the car park; I followed the River
Soar/Grand Union Canal along the cyan dots up to the King Power stadium;
retraced my steps to the green dots following the River Biam and a boardwalk
pathway, then back to the car park along the yellow dots.
I had my bins and camera, and set out in what were mainly bright and sunny
conditions albeit still very cold. By the time I turned my back on the KP and
headed back it was clouding over, and by the time I was on the yellow dots it
had just started snowing again. We've had snow flurries every day since Sunday
night, albeit mainly light.
The first stretch followed the tow path along the converged River Soar/Grand
Union Canal. As you'd expect from an inner-city waterway, there are more
graffiti-laden buildings, bridges and locks than scenic views ....
The melt evident on this bridge may be short-lived given the forecast -5C
tonight!
Before long the glorious vista that is the KP came into view opposite Freemens
Meadow Lock and the weir.
Up until this point, the bird interest was limited to say the least. Nothing
but the odd Mallard, Moorhen and Mute Swan along the canal, and no sniff of a
dashing iridescent blue streak. But, just whilst I was fannying about between
phone and camera, a Raven was briefly in view soaring over the KP, the
first new 5MR bird of the day. A quick scan on the water below the weir
revealed another couple of yearticks, 15 Teal and 5
Little Grebes - albeit requiring full zoom on the camera.
A fourth year tick was a bit nearer, though perhaps less photogenic in the
great scheme of things ....
I was a little bemused at the antics of one of the Moorhens, which was
hopping along a row of large orange buoys that act as some sort of barrier in
front of the weir - a bit like that shite TV programme Ninja Warrior. It only
stopped hopping when it got to what must have been a particularly appealing
pile of gull shite to peck at ....
I also felt obliged to point the camera at these majestic beasts, clearly a
cold-weather movement from the fields of East Anglia ....
The walk back was a little precarious in places, as the rivers had clearly
flooded big sections of the meadows previously, but there is a long stretch of
boardwalk that made for better walking once on it. The scenery was better on
this route, but with the cloud cover increasing and snow starting to fall
there was not much chance of adding anything else new.
When I got back to the car park, one of the clumps of Mistletoe (actually not
that common in Leics. but there is a fair bit here) showed expected movement.
During the time I've been constructing this image-heavy post, the delivery man
has brought the TG-6 I ordered on Monday. I've got plenty of time to not read
the manual (I've never read any camera manual), plug it in and see what's what
before I'll have a chance to poke it in front of some small invert or other.
Tonight though, fittingly given the walk today, I'll be watching LCFC
(hopefully) making their way to the FA Cup quarter finals. I can't believe
that it is almost a year since I last sat in my seat at the KP (Man City,
22/02/2020). I did not go to the last home game where fans were present, Aston
Villa on 09/03/2020 - it was a Monday night, I'd been busy and the writing was
on the wall about impending closures and lockdowns - I just didn't fancy it
and watched at home. Since then I've seen more LCFC games on TV than would
normally be feasible as every game home and away has been televised. Whilst I
want my team to succeed, in a weird way I will be massively disappointed if we
were to win the FA Cup (the only top level domestic trophy LCFC have never
won) in a season when no fans can experience and enjoy the spectacle.
The canals and the bridges, the embankments and cuts
They blasted and dug with their sweat and their guts
They never drank water but whiskey by pints
And the shanty towns rang with their songs and their fights
