A First Slime Mould

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Clearing away some leaf litter at the weekend, I found this dead leaf from the Beech tree covered in a neat pattern of white spots. Not a fungus, it turns out, but a slime mould. I couldn’t really find one looking quite like this on-line, so I didn’t yet work out the species, which anyway appears difficult, so it goes down as “Myxomycetes sp”,

These slime moulds are single celled animals, that cluster together and reproduce by forming these while spherical fruiting bodies, which ultimately release spores into the air. Surprisingly slime moulds are not static, but slowly move around in a search for food; apparently even being able to traverse mazes in pursuit of a suitable meal.

Trio of Beetles & Bugs

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Once again checking the composting bin after some gardening throws up some colourful creatures.

Star of the show is a snazzy iridescent green Cereal Leaf Beetle, which is new one for the garden, not that it seems especially unusual. There’s actually two species which you can only really tell apart by dissecting it (and then knowing what to look for), Oulema melanopus and O. duftschmidi. Both are considered pests in arable farms as they damage the leaves of cereal crops and reduce yield.

The other two are familiar species, a colourful Hawthorn Shield Bug (Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale) and a not-so-pretty (or, if you are a gardener, desirable) Vine Weevil (Otiorhynchus sulcatus). One of my gardening jobs was to dig up a rosemary that had slowly died over the last months - perhaps the Vine Weevil’s larvae were something to do with this, as the plant had previously been quite healthy.

Garden Favourites

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Nice to have them back isn’t it? Right now the weather has turned a bit gloomy and there’s a cold wind, but the inevitability of Spring can’t help showing through whenever the sun shows. Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock and even a precocious Holly Blue were in the garden last week, but so far no Brimstone’s seen, though these are often the first butterflies of the year. A few ladybirds have appeared too; so far all the 7 spot version. It’s gone a bit quiet on the bee front too, but I’m sure they’ll be back when it warms up a bit.

Small Blue Flowers

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Checking the weeds, I noticed a patch of Slender Speedwell (Veronica filiformis, #559). These might have been imported courtesy of the garden centre with some raspberry canes I bought last year. Speedwells are fairly similar looking, but this one flowers early, is a deeper blue than the Common Field Speedwell (Veronica persica) and has longer-stemmed flowers. Finally a few weeks later in May yet another species of Speedwell appeared, Thyme-leaved Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia, #573), this species has a spike of small, pale blue flowers. so there you go, four species of speedwell in one small lawn, all of which can spread and can become a nuisance. But they are pretty and my lawn is nothing much to worry about.

The Ivy-leafed Speedwell, Field Forget-me-not and Green Alkanet are also all quite invasive. The former, with its tiny flowers, grows in a thick carpet under shrubs. Field Forget-me-Not sprouts wherever it can, but especially between the paving slaps on the path. Its relative, Green Alkanet, grows in thick leafy clumps in the shady damp areas under the trees, giving you a rash on whenever you touch it. All these have a long flowering season, starting right now.

Pollinators & Plum Blossom

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A variety of insects are quickly appearing now the plum is in full bloom and the sun is out. The blossom is attracting pollinating flies, the first Drone Flies and this hoverfly, Meliscaeva auricollis (#558), a small dark species that is one of the earliest emerging hoverflies. There are some more bees about too, and a couple of Dark-edged Bee Flies (Bombylius major). The Bee Flies hover to take nectar, so I was happy this one actually sat still long enough on the sunlit wall for me to get a photo.

Some Spring Flowers

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Some of the early flowering plants in the garden are shown below. The Wild Garlic is a new addition, but making itself very much at home in the sheltered spaces under the trees. For some reason I don’t get many Lesser Celandines, just a few plants around the edges of the borders, but the Toadflax and Archangel grow everywhere. Together they all add some colour and some nectar/food for the insects.

A Different Violet

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Looking closer at the violets in the garden, I noticed that I have two different species. Alongside the Common Dog Violet (Viola riviniana, #26), I have Wood Dog Violet (Viola reichenbachiana, #556). This is sometimes also called Early Dog Violet, but it doesn’t seem to flower much earlier than Common. The easiest identification feature is to look st the spur at the back of the flower, which is white in the Common Dog Violet but the same purple colour as the flower in Wood Dog Violet. Putting the two side by side there are other more subtle differences in the flowers and the leaves: in my garden the leaves & stems of the Common Dog Violet have a purple tinge and the leaf edges are also different. The white form I found on a walk around the local woodland seems to be Common Dog Violet.

#555 Grammoptera ruficornis

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Several of these long-horn beetles appeared, attracted to the wall lights in my sitting room. They live under the bark on trees and presumably have come from the firewood stacked up ready for my log-burner. This species is identified from other similar beetles by the dark colour, reddish patches on parts of the legs & antennae and the elongated second segment of the antenna. Normally they fly in April-May, but as it’s nice and warm in the house they have emerged early.

555 Grammoptera ruficornis.jpg

Frogspawn, in the Pond

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I’d been hoping that the frogs might breed in my “pond”, and here it is! Not having a proper pond, I’ve installed a couple of ceramic basins, each about 2 feet across, with some rocks and plants+soil in fabric bags made from an old sheet. Half buried in the soil and tucked in a damp corner, this seems to be fine for frogs. Looking forward to babies in a few weeks! Other signs of sprint arriving this week, included a first Small Tortoiseshell butterfly in the weak spring sunshine on 13 March.

Frogspawn.jpg

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos, #403)

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Song Thrush is really a bird of this season in the garden, singing loudly every morning. They are more heard than seen, as when they are on the ground they are often skulking around the corners of the garden. They appear in January, sing from February, then after breeding totally disappear in August, only to return again in the mid-winter. Looking at the BTO Garden Birdwatch data this is a pretty typical pattern. The data also shows that there is a strong decline in the number of gardens where song thrushes are reported, down from 45-50% in the early ‘90s, to less than 20% now, so we’re very lucky to still have them.

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Plenty of Weather

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It’s a schizophrenic season. When the sun shines and the wind drops the birds are soon singing and bumble bees buzzing. A song thrush, robin, wren and greenfinches are all taking up territories, a noisy pair of Canada geese fly over most mornings and magpies are making a nest in the Beech tree. A calling little owl one still evening during the week, was new for the garden. But the rest of the time with gales, endless rain and the temperature dropping this week so we even had snow, the smaller species like tits, finches and sparrows have disappeared and the garden feeders are deathly quiet.

One excitement has been birds of prey with Sparrowhawk and Red Kite overhead, and even a passing Peregrine one day. I remember as a kid going whole years where I only saw three or four raptor species, so seeing three species on one day out of my window reflects a massive turnaround in their fortunes. I’m also lucky that my commute passes over the Cotswolds, so as well as enjoying some snowy scenes, I regularly see kites and owls along the road - this week I got great views from the car of Barn and Short-eared Owls around Hawling & Salperton.

Cotswold Snow.jpg

Chopping Trees

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Over the winter I did some work to cut back some of the trees in the garden. There’s a little row of Hazels, which I will coppice on rotation to keep them a manageable size. The Corkscrew Willow was also spreading too far, so I cut it back quite heavily - if it wasn’t for the kids liking to climb up inside the canopy I would have given it the full treatment back to the trunk. This should result in new fresh growth in the spring and ultimately benefit the garden wildlife.

A Glimmer of Life

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After the rain it was good to get out and do some gardening. It’s always good to know that the garden toads have made it through the winter. I live in hope that one year I’ll have some spawn in one of my basins - not long to wait until I found out if this is the year. Wood ear fungus has a good year, growing on the dead elder stump, where it’s been used to add some texture to soups during the winter. Finally a Common Plume Moth lurking in the herb garden was a surprise to me, but apparently this species does show up in all months of the year.

#306 Green Woodpecker

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Happy New Year 2020: Was great to get a photo of this Green Woodpecker that was digging around in next door’s lawn for a while this morning. While they are always around in the village, they are heard more often than seen, and seen flying through much more often than perching obligingly on the ground like this one. A nice garden bird to start the year with.

#306 Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)

#306 Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)

Quiet Season

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It’s not a great season for garden wildlife, but anyhow I added a couple of new species to the list. The damp weather probably contributes to a growth of Rose Powdery Mildew fungus on my climbing rose and this small crane fly, with mottled wings and stripey legs is Limonia nubeculosa, a new one for the garden.

Fungi on Bredon Hill

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Walking up Bredon Hill at the weekend, there was a fine array of fungi on view in the sheep-grazed meadows at the top of the Hill. They mostly appeared to be Waxcaps of different kinds, including Snowy Waxcap (Cuphophyllus virgineus), Meadow Puffballs (Lycoperdon pratense) and some dark-coloured leathery looking toadstools I took to be Melanoleuca species (probably based on habitat, M. melaleuca). Puffballs are edible, but I didn’t pick them; so are Snowy Waxcaps, but with these I’m just not confident enough in my identification skills to be sure I’m not eating something poisonous.

Squatting the Sparrow Terrace

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Our sparrow nest box had a once-in-every-few-years clean-out last weekend. Usually, we have 3-4 pairs of House Sparrows nesting on the house; two under the roof eaves and one in each end of the 3-chamber sparrow nest box (for some reason the birds prefer an end-terrace dwelling). Cleaning out the old nests we found a few squatters, including Harlequin Ladybirds, Yellow Mealworm Beetle larvae (Tenebrio molitor, #547) and a hibernating Small Tortoiseshell butterfly. The mealworms are the same ones that you buy as bird food, but I had no idea that a natural habitat of these darkling beetle larvae was scavenging around the bottom of birds nests.

On the exterior of the box, there was a good growth of Variable Oysterling fungi (Crepidotus variabilis, #548) on the front edge and underside of the plywood lid of the bird box. These are odd-looking brown fungi that don’t have a stem; the gilled canopy grows straight out of the wood. There was a nice patch of grey/green foliose lichen (#275 Physcia caesia) on the nest box lid.

The sparrows may not be around at the moment, but this female Sparrowhawk is regularly lurking about the garden, casting a beady yellow eye at the Woodpigeons.