Sunday 27 September 2015

Hovering around Mums' garden

Popped over to Mum's today, and whilst she cooked us a delicious new recipe Green Chili, I spent some time in her back garden with my macro lens.
 
The hoverfly season might be coming to an end, but the warm sunshine was enough to entice out not one, but four separate species this afternoon.
 
First one was a Syrphus species but as I only got one photo I cant be certain if it is S.torvus or S.vitripennis......
 
Syrphus
 Next up was one solitary Eristalis pertinax....
 
E.pertinax

E.pertinax

E.pertinax
Third of my finds was a Eupeodes luniger......
 
Eupeodes luniger
And lastly were several female Melanostoma scalore. Females have the much broader abdomen and markings than the males....
 
Melanostoma scalare

M.scalare

M.scalare
M.scalare

M.scalare
M.scalare
As to be expected there were quite a few Crane Flies around....
 
 
and one of many Garden Spiders had caught a Seven-spot Ladybird......

 
After lunch we had a short wander around Denham Quarry. I was hoping to find a Fly Agaric around the Birch trees, but sadly we couldn't find any. It may be a little early for them though I have been seeing quite a few photos on some facebook forums.
 
At one of the many entrances, we found a huge ivy covered in flowers. It was as busy as a motorway service station, but no Ivy Bees, just lots of Honeybees....



 
May-bee I'll have better luck next weekend..........!

Sunday 20 September 2015

Open House London 2015, bikers and galls - Cranford Park today

Due to other commitments I've not been to Cranford Park for ages. Today the Stable Block was open to the public as part of the Open House London weekend, and I was one of the volunteers showing visitors all of our historical relics, photos, maps and plans.
 
 
I've already got a scrapbook of nature photos in the Stable Block, but I've also made a small book so took that with me today.

 
Surprisingly three people asked if they could buy it. There are too many typo errors in it at the moment, so once I've edited them, I will be printing off some copies to sell at next Julys Open Day. A few of the other volunteers think I should also make up some calendars and postcards, so plenty to keep me busy over the next ten months.
 
Looking at some of the old photos on display, it's often hard to imagine how Cranford Park once looked......


 
It's such a shame that the old manor house was demolished. In this day and age, it wouldn't have been allowed. All we can do now is keep the memories alive.
 
The display in the Stable Block is starting to look a bit tired, so if anyone has any ideas and time on their hands to help the display 'sparkle' again, feel free to contact me so I can pass on your details to the relevant people. We'd be especially interested to hear from any model makers.
 
Before my stint in the Stable Block began, I had a brief walk around the woods with Sue and Jasper the bird-dog.
I received a gall identification email recently, so was keen to search for some today. 

 
We found two types.
 
Oak apple gall......

 
and Knopper gall....

 
It's quite fascinating to realise these distorted 'lumps' are due to a tiny wasp grub living inside, and that there are over 30 species of gall wasps. Finding a gall on an oak isn't necessarily bad news, as numbers of gall wasps fluctuate from year to year and galls are not harmful to the oak.
 
The hoverfly season is slowing down, and I only found one by the river. This is Eupeodes luniger......

 
If the weather stays mild and wet, we can expect to see lots of fruiting fungi soon.
 
 
It wasn't just Open House London weekend, it was also the day of the annual meet of the Christian Motorcycle Association. This meet up is becoming more and more popular so other bikers often attend too. All a bit noisy for our Jasper, so Sue took him home. Jasper is completely blind now due to diabetes, but that didn't stop him recognising me by smell and the sound of my voice. It was lovely to be greeted by his wagging tail and snuffly lick. It's Jaspers birthday on Tuesday. He'll be eleven (human) years old.
 
Happy Birthday Bird-Dog.....

 
In the courtyard where all the bikers were gathering, I found a glamorous Angie.....
 
 
and lots and lots of motorbikes. From mopeds to trikes, from vintage to new, there really was a lot to see and admire......

















 
 
There was even a couple of bears (Bob and Ivan)......


 
a biker boy in the making gave me the thumbs up.....

 
and a biker dog got lots of attention......

 
The weather stayed fine all day. The church ladies made a good profit with the barbecue, cakes and hot and cold drinks. The Stable Block display had over 135 visitors over the weekend including the Deputy Mayor and his lovely wife (who asked me why I hadn't entered any of my photos in to the Countryfile Calendar competition). The Secret Garden was open and crowded with spectators. I got to meet lots of interesting people and learnt some more historical facts from my companion for the afternoon, the lovely David. All in all a really great day. Roll on next year.
 
 



Sunday 6 September 2015

Sunny Sunday at Maple Lodge NR

I stayed at Mum's house last night so today it made perfect sense to go to the nearest NR, which is Maple Lodge, rather than trek back home.
 
First port of call was the Clubhouse Hide to see if the recent resident rat-catching juvenile Heron was in attendance. He/she wasn't and it wasn't long before I spotted a rat. Some of the teenage Mallards (and a Moorhen) also spotted it, and although the rat didn't spook them off, they eyed it carefully at all times.....
 
 
By the Woodshed there was a large flock of Long-tailed Tits calling noisily and busily picking at the branches for any insects.....



 
I lost count at 20, but noticed at the tops of the branches moving along with the large family Tit group, were at least two Goldcrests, several Blue Tits and Great Tits and a possible warbler. No photos unfortunately, but it's always worth checking out LTT flocks at this time of year as you never know what's going to be flitting along with them.
 
At the Rotunda Hide I saw my first Kingfisher of the day, heard my first Cettis Warbler of the season and had a Wren posing on the log pile.....
 
 
I was making my way back from the Rotunda when I heard a 'scraping' noise. I stopped and waited in silence hoping it was a Weasel or Muntjac, but after several minutes I realised the noise was actually wasps taking wood off the fence panels.....Who knew they could be so noisy ?
They were pretty flighty though so instead of faffing about and taking off my rucksack and putting my macro lens on to the camera, I just fired off a few shots with my 150-300mm zoom lens.
Not the best quality photos, and although I have seen this behaviour before, I've never managed to capture it.......


 
After yesterdays dreary weather where I struggled to take any photos of anything in Mum's garden, today was bright though not hot, and there were lots of critters around.....
 
I saw at least three Damselflies, though I'm not going to hazard a guess at to which this one is.....
 
 
And there were plenty of Darters around too.
Last week I mis-identified the ones I saw, so I'm just going to call these 'Darters'.......
They were everywhere. On the three benches by the owl box meadow, each bench had it's own Darter sunning on the wood. In fact I saw so many Darters I could have filled a whole blog post just about them, and therefore correctly identified them too......




 
In the same owl box meadow I thought I saw a Brown Hawker but couldn't relocate it. But there were other Hawkers around too. As per the behaviour I witnessed a few weeks ago, when the sun went behind clouds the Brown Hawker settled in the scrub that runs alongside the path.
It was the same today. On the few occasions the sun did disappear, the Hawkers all settled in the scrub.
I'm as good with Hawkers as I am with Darters, but after zooming in and out of this photo below, I think this is a Migrant Hawker....
 
 
Other critters seen today was this female Scorpion Fly.....
 
 
and a fairly good selection of Hovers.
Sadly at this point, I still didn't have my macro lens on the camera, just the 150-300 zoom, so I haven't even tried to identify these hovers today. The photos just aren't clear enough......



 
 All over the reserve you can hear Kingfishers calling, but they weren't being as photogenic and predictable as last week. I got a fleeting glimpse of one from the Rotunda as mentioned above, but decided to try my luck from the Teal Hide.
My decision was spot on, it wasn't long before a Kingfisher was heard calling, seen briefly, then done a U-turn and disappeared. I stuck it out for another hour and luckily for me it did return, but not to pose for photos.
 Instead it flew from a distant shrubby tree....
 
 
to another distant shrubby tree (in shade).....

 
to a distant branch sticking out of the water....

 
Whilst waiting for the elusive King to provide me with a photo opportunity, I saw a Red Kite and Buzzard soaring over, and later two Common Buzzards came over together.....
 
 
There was also a teenage Great Crested Grebe that often came in to view, and spent more time grooming than feeding.....


 
Coming back out of the Teal Hide I found some Puffball fungi by the side of the hide (with one good sized specimen already gone over and been nibbled by mice), plus a possible Shaggy Ink Cap on one of the submerged logs.......

 
Along the same path was the sad sight of a dead rabbit.......
 
 
There were no visible injuries and flies were just starting to be attracted to it, so it's a recent kill. The head looked to be wedged under an already fallen tree, so I reckon (with my limited but still learning tracking skills) that this could be a Weasel kill and the prey has rolled down the slope, got wedged, and the Weasel has been unable to dislodge it ??? Feel free to comment with your own thoughts......
I've seen Weasels kill and carry adult Water Voles before, so a small Rabbit wont have been a problem for it. From my knowledge had this been a Fox that had killed the Rabbit, I wouldn't have been looking at a whole carcass......
 
Later on in the day a couple of ladies who I was showing the Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar to, had mentioned they had seen a dead Mole on the new woodland path. They were kind enough to show me the poor dead mammal, and we bumped in to Dave Simms just as he found it too...

 
I've only seen one Mole and that was a captive one at the British Wildlife Centre. I've never seen a live one in the wild, and this was also my first dead one.
So what killed it ?
 As with the Rabbit, this was obviously a fresh kill. It was a good size (imagine a medium sized Rat without it's tail) so an adult rather than a young inexperienced Mole. There were no obvious injuries, as with the Rabbit.
 I know Foxes will dig in to Rabbit burrows, but I don't think they have the expertise hearing that would alert them to a Mole burrowing.
 
 But a Weasel does......
 
Mum came by later to pick up me up (bless her) and I showed her both the Rabbit and Mole, and after much discussion we think it's a Weasel responsible for both kills. If I had been carrying my camera trap, I would have set it up on one of the carcasses to see what came back to collect it.
 
But I wasn't.....
 
So back to the nicer things seen today.
Considering it was a cool but sunny day in September, I didn't expect to see many butterflies, but there were quite a few nice specimens around......
 
Speckled Wood....
 
 
Comma...

 
and a very tatty faded Blue that I can only guess is a Holly.....

 
There were also good numbers of Large White, some very fresh Red Admirals, a Small Tortoiseshell and reports of a Peacock and a Painted Lady, though I didn't see either of the latter.
 
On the woodland path I found a Snout moth, a member of the Pyralidae family.....

 
Not far from the Puddingstone one of the Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars was still visible.....

 
 
Mum arrived for my last hour on site, and as she's also a member, was able to let herself in. But this was her first visit without me and she was soon lost (just a suggestion for the Maple Lodge NR owners....a sign saying 'Teal Hide this way' might be an idea off the main path)
 After a few texts we found each other only for Mum to tell me of her experience......a face to face encounter with a Muntjac. She spotted it disappearing in to the scrub between the new Woodland Walk and the opening to the old Woodland Walk whilst trying to find the Teal Hide.
 
I'm gutted. I've now been to the reserve several times and have still yet to see a Muntjac ! Mum turns up on her first solo visit, without a camera, and spots one within minutes of being on site....!
 
We spent the last 30 minutes in the Clubhouse Hide. Ever since I found out last week that I can make my own cup of coffee with a donation to the tin, I've been dreaming of sitting in the Clubhouse Hide on a late afternoon with a cup of hot coffee, so today I bought the milk, put my change in the tin and enjoyed half an hour of back lit viewing.....
 


 
I've left the rest of the milk in the fridge, and my next visit wont be few weeks, so please use it up :)