Painted Lady

At long last the much vaunted arrival of .. one Painted Lady!. Well, one's better than none. Maybe there are more out there today with the sun continuing to shine

Inverkeithing guest appearance

Lovely band of the orange lichen Caloplaca marina along the rocks at Inverkeithing. Everyday things that you can take for granted. imagine how many millions of asco-spores are being churned out.

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.

Lovely lichens

A duo of completely different lichens - first up is Aspicilia contorta, which is a common concrete lover and which I found on the concrete buttress of the wall in the car park area. The last two pictures is on top of the wall and I believe is the older, more settled version where the "jelly tots" have all flattened down into tilework

The second is a lovely Cladonia chlorophaea with chunky soredia. This is from Mossmorran though, amongst the heather.

Lichens are go!

So this twig is from Kinross, but it gives an example of how speciose lichens can be in a small area. This fallen Salix twig (broken in two for carriage) yielded six species of lichen, and probably some more that I missed.

Melanohalea elegantula
Xanthoria parietina 
Lecanora confusa
Lecanora chlarotera
Physcia tenella (?)
Physcia aipolia

Twig - Salix sp.

Lecanora confusa

L.chlarotera, P.leptalia, X.parietina, M.elegantula

 

Physcia aipolia

Physcia tenella (?)

Xanthoria parietina

Fox

My first fox on the reserve this year, but managed a snapshot of it at least

Pluteus cervinus, Deer Shield

This lovely mushroom likes to emerge on a long-ago fallen horizontal Beech trunk, and this year was fully opened to horizontal and had lovely pink gills (which I failed to photograph)

When I did a quick google search just to check I was remembering the right thing a funny thing happened ...

http://cataloguingcullaloe.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/deer-shield-pluteus-cervinus.html

5th August, 2014
5th August, 2015

Same location, same tree trunk

Puffball parade

Around this time of year at the pathsides we see the emergence of the Common Puffball, and a lovely little thing it is. One day I may eat one out of curiosity. It's big cousin the Giant Puffball is very tasty fried in butter so maybe this is too.

Picromerus bidens - Spined Shieldbug

Spined Shieldbug was a nice random find while looking for hoverflies yesterday