Nuts! Who-ole hazelnuts

Hazel in flower already at Cullaloe and here are some nice nuts from last season. unfortunately I dropped them and lost them, so the fungus on them will never be identified. Unless I fnid some more I suppose

A big day in the east end

A trip out to the eastern leg of the reserve proved a big success at the weekend, with a particular focus on lichens. I started out by dropping into the area north of the paddock to check a hawthorn I knew had a lot of lichen. My intention was to record Platismatia glauca which I was sure must be there. On the same tree I also bumped into Pseudevernia furfuracea.

Phlebia radiata

Pseudevernia with its dark underside

The lettucy-looking Platismatia

Further along the eastern leg I checked out the Phlebia radiata just because it's so nice, but also found Diatrype disciformis there which I hadn't recorded before. As I walked along I looked down into the ditch on the right to see a Woodcock standing in the shallow water. It eyeballed me for a few seconds before deciding to make a break for it. A few seconds longer than I normally see them for!

My intention now was to check the wall for lichens, but what I wasn't expecting was a new fern and a new moss at the same spot. I barely covered a few feet of wall and also had some nice unrecorded lichens there.

Candelariella sp.

Asplenium ruta-muraria and Encalypta streptocarpa

Caloplaca holocarpa

Verrucaria nigrescens

Verrucaria nigrescens

On the way back I took some photos of a tree-trunk lichen which turned out to be Lecanora expallens. It is in an extensive patch but some small outliers allow the grey prothallus and mint green sorediate centres to be more apparent:

All in all a big day with several new lichen species addded plus one bonus fern and one bonus moss.

Gribbit

From a splendid morning yesterday I wish this frog photo had turned out better, but I only had my phone and the result isn't as nice as it could have been

As well as a Green Sandpiper and some nice Water Rails out in the open I also added a new lichen (Hypogymnia physoides) and found some heather growing in the middle of the mossy barrens. Will it settle and expand? Why not? On the other hand it's in an area I'd rather it didn't expand in. Everything changes sooner or later though.

Flowers

Before the next outbreak of flies, a nice flower - silverweed

and a new addition to the reserve list - Russian Comfrey, a hybrid between Rough and Common comfreys which has apparently all but replaced Rough Comfrey. I guess the genes from Common were just what it needed.

Subtle flowers

Some flowers are more subtle than others...

Crosswort

Alchemilla - Ladies Mantle

Common Sedge

Common Sedge

CommonSedge

Common Sedge

Cuckooflower

Another favourite popping up all over the place is Cuckooflower. Expect Adela rufimitrella to follow shortly

Carlingnose

A brief trip off-piste to Carlingnose at lunchtime found a nice showing of spring flowers as well as hoverfly Baccha elongata.

Top: Red Dead-nettle, Greater Stitchwort, Lesser Celandine, Field Woodruch
Bottom: White D-N, Shining Cranesbill, Garlic Mustard , Cowslip

Violet

Lots of dog violets are up on the reserve now, with a good many on the embankment (dam side) next to the road. Very pretty they are too.

Vascular surprise

The one thing I wasn't expecting on an outing to Cullaloe on the 28th December was to find a new vascular plant, but under the Willows, where I was searching for fungi, there they were - two serious bushes of Tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum) - not only a new species for the year but new to the reserve list! I did also find Fragrant Funnel (Clitocybe fragrans) and Blueing Bracket (Postia subcaesia), and an as-yet-undetermined corticioid fungus, but this was definitely a bonus.

Mudwort and Canary-shouldered Thorn

Finally with the water levels remaining lowered a bit I wandered around the far side to check for Mudwort (Limosella aquatica). The mud hasn't been exposed for long and there are only a few signs of its presence. Here it is:

Spectacular isn't it? Even more so when the flowers come (you will have to use a search engine of your choice to see for the moment).

More spectacular is this Canary-shouldered Thorn, one of two caught on the 20th

Lord of the Flies

Best plant this yar so far for hovers and other diptera has to be Angelica.Haven't seen huge amounts of Water Mint, but that too is supposed to have mystical powers. Knapweed and Meadsweet continue to do reasonably though.

A big weekend!

A big weekend at Cullaloe with Saturday seeing grassland monitoring plus a moth trapping event. Finally the 75th bird species of the year made it onto the list with a Kingfisher fishing near the sluice gate (it was also seen on Sunday).

The grassland site monitoring produced a couple of known species which hadn't been recorded this year - Greater Birdsfoot Trefoil (which I'm never sure how to spell) and Devil's-bit Scabious. False Oat-grass was also added, although I thought I already had!

A couple of hoverflies also made it onto the list from Friday after being keyed out over the weekend, and the moth night, despite being hampered by rain, turned in a monster result with double figures of new species. All that leaves a species total of 561 (list).

Rate of species addition to year list

Grassland monitoring

Unrecorded sedge that requires further investigation

Devil's-bit Scabious

Light Arches moth

Lempke's Gold Spot

Swallow Prominent

Pretty Pinion, Yellow Waterlily

So while browsing my Dayflying Moths book I discover the very nice Pretty Pinion, which looks a lot like my Blue-bordered Carpet .. oh dear!. Well Pretty Pinion is new for the reserve if not the hectad, so it'll do me.

This morning while looking for fungi (since the water level STILL isn't low enough for waders) I stumbled across a small patch of water lily - also new on the reserve list, and also very pretty

Weekend 28-29 June

Put out the moth trap and did a bit of hoverfly searching over the weekend. Moth trap did its part by turning up four new ones (maybe 5 - let's see!) and hoverfly netting turned up only already recorded species, except possibly one soldier beetle I still have to key out. I have also found Square-stalked Saint-John's Wort in a few places.

The mushroom turned out to be Amanita rubescens, which turned a lovely shade of pink on exposed surfaces when cut.

I also swept and keyed out the hoverfly Platycheirus granditarsis.

This leaves the current total at 497, without the soldier beetle, or the fungus on Aspen leaves, or the pondweed in the filter beds I just remembered, or the Willowherb there too ... looks like I might just make that 500 in the first half of the year!

New moths added:

Dark Arches

July Highflyer

Shoulder-striped Wainscot

Pandemis heparana

Slender St-John's Wort

My second SJW for Cullaloe, with this one being new (last year two individual plants of Square-stalked SJW found). This is the 992nd species for the reserve, so we're very, very close! I have a bug and a ground beetle in pots - hopefully I can do something with them. If I was giong to bet I'd say the next moth trapping may be the thing that pushes the count over the edge. Wonder what it'll be?

Moth trap revival and Branched Bur-reed flowering

After exchanging emails with Paul Batty last night a fuse was changed and my heath trap sparked back into life - hooray!

An hour at Cullaloe landed a couple of Sandy Carpets and a couple of Small Fan-footed Wave (I think). One other species I brought back which I haven't ID'd yet and of course a handful of Silver-ground Carpets. Also caught were a couple of Common White Waves. Actually, though I was running the trap in the car park area all moths were netted by walking the edges with a torch (as previous visit). The heath trap doesn't do well in the car park, at least at dusk.

Sandy Carpet

Small Fan-footed Wave

Small Fan-footed Wave 2

 

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This morning I checked the Branched Bur-reed in the filter beds, which is looking very healthy