Finally the field season is upon us again! But it wouldn’t be England if the weather didn’t change constantly and threaten awful conditions all the time.
I made a couple of trips out over the weekend in Surrey and south west London with the intention of finally getting to use my sweep net. Saturday was spent at Denbies hillside which was a bit of a wash-out considering the intention had been to look for butterflies. Still we retreated into the woods at first and did a bit of botany in the rain. There were some visually interesting patches of native bluebells and wild
Yellow Archangel (definitely not the same story in many London woods I know). A local in our group putting us onto a patch of at least 100
Early Purple Orchids was really neat. They’re in top condition at the moment which is a bit late season but not unexpected with the cold spring. A large kind of bedstraw I had assumed before were large individuals of goosegrass was pointed out to be
Sweet Woodruff. On the insect front, the only thing of note in the woods was a male
Bibio sp. fly on a rotting stump.
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| Early Purple Orchid in fine form |
We peered out from the edge of the woodland onto the open chalk downland just as the rain started to die away. Lots of
Common Milkwort in flower here already amongst the short grass. A smattering of
Cowslip in bloom in the lush fields at the bottom.
Wayfaring Tree (another new plant for me) in bloom in a few spots of scrub with dogwood growing around it. A single male longhorn moth -
Adela reaumurella was found on low vegetation – a little disappointing as, on a sunny day, you can expect to see small clouds of these pretty moths dancing just over head height by the trees. Some rather damp sweep-netting in the scrubby bits brought out a single female
Dilophus fly and a lot of small green
Phyllobius weevils. I took one home and keyed it out to
P. roboretanus which I think I may be able to ID in the field in future (I’ve left notes at the bottom if anyone’s interested).
Roman Snails turned up a lot around the many rabbit holes on this hillside; I’m guessing the soil is looser here which aids the snail’s own burrowing. This was the first time I’d seen live individuals, they’ve got a an almost pebbly surface texture to them and seemed to react to relatively distant movement (perhaps a function of their larger eye in comparison to the rest of our very small species?).
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| Funny how these are a protected species here and food across the channel. Does this mean if we eat them there'll be more of them? Have I solved world hunger? |
Some log-rolling turned up a couple of other snail species all of which was new stuff to me:
Rounded Snail (
Discus rotundatus – best Latin name ever!) and what I believe is
Plaited Door Snail,
Cochlodina laminata (it was a long, “left-handed” snail without any obvious surface striations, which I think makes it a Cochlodina sp. of which there’s only one that’s found in the UK). The birds also put in a good show with
Buzzard,
Sparrowhawk,
Kestrel and
Yellowhammer flying through or over the valley.
Down the bottom of the hill we looked under a couple of tins and saw a
Common Shrew, one
Adder, 3
Slow-worms and several ground beetles. Around this much scrubbier area we also found a female
Scorpionfly and I was shown yet another new plant,
Glaucous Sedge, which I believe I should be able to ID in future. Breaking open a small piece of rotten wood revealed none of the hoped-for beetles but the tunnel of some sort of leaf-cutter bee. While fascinating to look at the individual cells wrapped up in leaf matter, I felt rather guilty for potentially ruining several future bees at once. I placed the two halves back together and propped a log on top to hold it in one piece. Hopefully they’ll make it through. Finally, before heading home to dry, I found a large Empid fly that I suspect is
Empis tessellata but I'm going to have to plead ignorance on this one:
2 days later I headed off with some friends with a rough itinerary of Hounslow Heath (for adders), a bluebell wood on the North Downs and maybe Denbies again to show them the orchids.
Once again, the weather gods saw fit to tease us. The morning’s sunshine shifting to overcast then drizzle as we arrived at Hounslow. Despite this the insects were still about in good numbers although it did make looking for adders difficult. Nomada and Andrena bees were seen along the concrete track.
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| Andrena something. Bees are a really difficult group but I really should know better |
Large male Bibio flies seemed to be everywhere on the vegetation and when the sun finally peeped out again, boy did they dance! Clouds of them went up; ridiculous, lazily dangling legs floating behind each fly. As it dried out a little under still-grey skies, the sweep net found more Phyllobius weevils, a Rhynchitid weevil -
Neocoenorrhinus aequatus, an impressive looking
Caloptilia moth in orange and gold, a
14-spot ladybird and an odd black moth which I think may have been
Epichnopterix plumella (would be the first Psychid moth I’ve seen if true). Eventually the others also found an adder after a lot of staring carefully at gorse and bramble clumps.
The bluebell wood was, well, a wood full of bluebells. I don’t really understand the British obsession with it. It’s certainly pretty but once you’re over the initial spectacle of the sea-of-blue effect there’s often not a lot else to look at; especially in a wood like this one with an otherwise poor ground flora. I think the others had a similar feeling as, after taking the obligatory photos, the conversation turned to the poor weather and our empty bellies. Half an hour later we were in a country pub.
Denbies was also looking dreary as we arrived; Leith Hill across the Mole valley was lost in cloud. I led our small group into the woods and showed them the orchids to much oohing and aahing. Out onto the open hillside again we found crows mobbing something. “Very dark for a buzzard.” “Surely it shouldn’t be that silhouetted?” “It’s a
raven!”. And there was the closest to London I’ve ever seen a wild raven. Apparently there are two in the area, and although we only ever saw the same one with a missing primary on one wing each time, it was certainly showing some loyalty to the site, coming back again and again. Fingers crossed for some breeding attempts. The sun started to break through and many more insects began to make themselves known including two lifers:
Dingy Skipper and
Lesser Bloody-nosed Beetle (They looked almost exactly the same as
T. tenebricosa but about 2/3rds the size and with a metallic blue sheen –reasonably abundant across the hillside). At a pond at the bottom of the valley we found plenty of
Bugle and
Cuckoo Flower.
Orange-tip and
Speckled Wood butterflies flew by, the first
Large Red Damselfly I’ve seen this year and the pond itself was chocka with tadpoles.
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| Lesser Bloody Nosed Beetle being a generally awesome creature. Check out those feet! |
We’re forecasts sunny weather this weekend so hopefully I’ll have more and better photos to share soon!
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| Ever notice how permanently sad slow-worms look? |
Beetling nerdcore:
antennal insertion visible from above (separating Phyllobius from Polydrusus) and no teeth on any of the femora (this reduces your list of Phyllobius sp. to just 3 – P. viridicollis, P. virideaeris & P. roboretanus). P. viridicollis is a generally northern species and almost bald of scales so easily eliminated. P. virideaeris and P. roboretanus are separated on several features which can seem a bit vague at first. P. roboretanus is meant to have a “hatchback” profile to its abdomen with the elytra whereas virideaeris has a gentler slope to the tip of the elytra. More details can be found here: http://www.thewcg.org.uk/idaids/roboretanusvirideaeris.htm although a feature I found useful in the key I used (Morris, 1997) was down to the degree to which the distal end of the front tibia flares before meeting the tarsal segments.
