Code in the Script

I managed to nip out for a quick wander in the square today, for the first time in a few days mainly due to shite weather, feeling a bit meh! or having something else to do.

I had no plan other than using my legs a bit. I took a camera, but forgot to take my cheapo spectacles making use of the camera a bit harder than it could have been. I got to the oak on the crossroads that I've mentioned before, and remembered that there was a fern growing at its base that I'd ignored last time I had a mooch around it. I grabbed a couple of snaps but no sporangia visible anyway - one to re-visit. Whilst bent down at the base of the tree, I realised that the lower trunk was liberally covered in lichenous lirellae. I refocussed and was looking at an abundance of one of the script lichens, growing like some lost code on the tree trunk.

I've seen this one before, but nowhere near to home - it live on trees in my in-laws North Devon garden.

Opegrapha atra

I also found a clump of liverwort on the trunk that I'd missed last time, which I am sure is Forked Veilwort although the photo doesn't really show it well.

The only new bird to hit the square list whilst out was a Grey Heron - still no Rook or Skylark.

Not Much

Haven't posted here for a while - mainly as I've had barely anything to post about. Cold, windy, busy etc. Moth trap hasn't been out since 5th March. Over the Easter weekend we went down to Devon where I fared a little better with new things, mainly lichens, but it was still very quiet as far as flying inverts go. I'll post a load of lichen stuff another day, but here's a few random shots.

Bracken Map - a common fungus on dead Bracken stems

Forked Veilwort - a liverwort

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage

A nice shot of the arse-end of a Coal Tit - it just wouldn't face the camera

Montagu's Stellate Barnacle

Black-footed Limpet

And a common maritime lichen, Collemopsidium sublitorale on Montagu's Stellate Barnacle

And while I think about it, found a few of these lizards around the hotel grounds during a business trip to Turkey earlier in March - I think it's Lebanon Lizard (Phoenicolacerta laevis)