Floral Ticks, Invertebrates and bits

Having posted all those pics of Croft Pastures I then didn't get around to highlighting what I'd gone there for. I had a few plant targets after seeing that Graham Calow has posted photos to NatureSpot. Mainly small and not very photogenic plants at that. A couple of the key species at this site were good to see locally, but I have seen them before on the first PSL get-together in West Sussex.

Bird's-foot

Subterranean Clover

In the small area where this clover was growing, I also saw Annual Knawal, a small and not very inspiring looking thing, but was too late in the season to find any remaining Upright Chickweed (but good to know where to look). Also in this small area were a couple of interesting lichens including this:

Cladonia rangiformis

There is a steep-sided 'cliff' along one side of the reserve. One of the plants that has established and spread around the cliffs is Reflexed Stonecrop, not yet in flower but identifiable.

One that hasn't been identified yet is undoubtedly a garden escape, though it was growing freely and in profusion! Appears to be a spurge of some sort.

One I walked past on my first short visit, was this Common Cornsalad - easily overlooked as again it's a straggly ugly plant with tiny flowers.

A much nicer looking and more obvious flower was the Meadow Saxifrage carpeting parts of the reserve ..

I also saw, but failed to get photos of, Wild Clary and River Water-crowfoot. Away from Croft Pastures, I also picked up another plant tick by shamelessly twitching some Dusky Crane's-bill in nearby Leire.

Plants aside, I've also picked up a few other bits around the weekend in the good weather.


One the Saturday, I spent a bit of time watching the River Soar from the roadside footbridge in Croft village. Turned out to be very productive as with a bit of patience, wearing sunglasses and switching to bins I managed to see enough detail to pick up four fish ticks. The most obvious, and pleasing, was Brown Trout - amazing really given how narrow and relatively shallow the Soar is at this point. Managed to get a very pants photo of the largest of the three seen ..

I also saw Perch, Roach and a good few bottom-feeding Gudgeon. Good to add a few more vertebrates to the PSL list. As it happens, I managed to add a couple more vertebrate ticks last night. I nipped over to Saddington Reservoir with the bat detector on a mission that turned out to be highly successful. Before it was too dusky I was already watching what I thought were Noctule Bats hunting, though at that point they were out of range of the detector across the other side of the reservoir. As it grew more dusky, I started seeing and detecting bats hunting low and directly over the water - Daubenton's Bat. Calls peaking at c47khz (all a bit subjective within a couple of khz I reckon). I'm sure the following gives the full sense of the occasion!

Whilst walking back to where I'd parked near the dam, I picked up a very distinctive signature peaking at c24khz - a very synthetic slow paced 'chip-chopping' - Noctule Bat. Well pleased with that. The sound is reminiscent of late 70s Human League - there is a sound-clip here.

So having added seven new plants, two lichen and and no less than six vertebrates to my list, it would be surprising if there were no new inverts included. There were, though only four.

Best were these two beetles ....

Anaglyptus mysticus - this one swept from hawthorn near to home on Friday evening ..

.. and then like buses I found this one openly sitting on bramble at Croft Pastures on Saturday

Thistle Tortoise Beetle (Cassida rubiginosa) - swept from low vegetation at Croft Pastures

Otherwise another beetle (Elodes minuta) which won't sit for a photo at all, and a bee that threw a seven in the pot before I could photograph it (Nomada ruficornis).

The Egret, On The Patch, & Monster Garden Tick

It's September - time to start the slow transition into generally apathetic birder mode for the next nine months or so. I decided to head off to Saddington Res this morning. Immediately after leaving the estate and turning into Springwell Lane I spotted a reasonable hirundine flock hawking over the hedgerow and tree line - 23 Swallows and four House Martins. On the way to the res I also passed two groups of Common Buzzards soaring on thermal columns - three in one near Countesthorpe and four near to Saddington - it felt like I was in Devon.

On arriving at the res, I immediately picked up the target - a Great White Egret roosting in a tree on the far bank. Great scope views but too far away for anything resembling a decent photo - I really need to sort out something to try digiscoping. After ten minutes or so the Egret had a short fly about and then came down to wade and feed on the tideline - still miles away - before flying over to roost again in trees along a channel. This time it was nearer - but still too far for the DSLR and pathetic lens I have. Anyone with a decent scope and adaptor would have got superb digiscoped shots from here.


Use your imagination - it's the white blob on the left of the grey blob

Also at the res were good numbers of hirundines including a handful of House Martins and Sand Martins, and a drake Pochard but nothing else of note - including the Green Sands that had been knocking about.

I then headed over to have a walk through my adopted Soar Valley South patch, following Route 1. I was really hopeful of picking up a Whinchat - but no such luck. Only birds of note were a pair of flyover Stock Doves, four Swifts hawking very high up, calling Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Bullfinch and more Common Buzzards. Loads of corvids and yet more hirundines.

Whilst walking around the patch I noticed a lot of these smart stripey hoverflies - I think they are Helophilus pendulus but I know there are a couple of similar species.


Helophilus pendulus?

Not too many butterflies about, but before heading home I noticed a large communal group of Small Tortoiseshell larvae on nettles by the car. I boxed a few up to try and rear through - I'll sort some photos of those another day.

After sorting out lunch for everyone I was happily browsing the tinternet to ID that hoverfly when there was one almighty fucking bang and the house was rocking - immediate thoughts were that either one of the industrial units nearby had blown up or something had crashed into the motorway. We then remembered that the annual airshow at Cosby was on - I've never fathomed how/why a village with no airstrip within several miles and no military connections has an airshow!

It then became clear that the almighty bang was a combination of the pyrotechnics at the site (about a mile from our house) and the Vulcan bomber flying about. Feck! I managed to grab the camera and just catch the bomber as it departed after it had passed over the house - what a monster garden tick.


Awesome

We decided to head over to Huncote Embankment and watch out for the remaining flyovers - and when we got there it was clear that loads of others had the same idea. The roads were littered with cars and people all no doubt brought out by the Vulcan. As we progressed along the embankment, we were treated to a really close flyover by the Red Arrows.



We then spent over an hour watching the Lancaster bomber, the Sally-B, a Spitfire, Hurricane and some yankee fighter - probably. Anyway they were entertaining.


Lancaster Bomber


Sally-B


Fighters

All the while, yet more hirundines were cruising past - I must have seen about 500 Swallows today. The superb finale to the flyover theme at Huncote was a Raven calling and tumbling into the quarry.