Two new patch ticks at Cranford Park

Despite it only being a short visit to Cranford Park yesterday, I came home quite excited and looking forward to writing up my blog because I had two new patch ticks. Unfortunately my home internet decided to crash, so I am now writing this on a Sunday morning from the comfort of the local Weatherspoons, The Botwell, and would like to say big thanks to the helpful staff who had my new wifi account up and running in minutes.

 

So back to yesterday, the butterfly transect walk really showed the season is slowing down despite the temperature being in the 20's and the sun shining for most of my visit.

 

Yesterdays tally:

1 Green-veined White

4 Red Admiral

6 Speckled Wood

Just 11 butterflies of 3 species.

 

 

 

 

It's that time of year again when I get distracted by various fungi popping up everywhere.

The Stagshorn is spreading nicely, with another small clump found....

 

 

I think the one below is one of the Bolete species, but don't quote me on that. It was the size of my hand and light purple brown....

The Dead Mans Fingers have really spread well this year. I've now found six old logs that have this fungus on them, compared to last year when I only found two.....

 



 

 

I found my first Coral fungus of the year yesterday. Normally I find this edging one of the woodland paths, but this fine clump was growing up a pile of stacked logs.....

 

But my find of the day, and a first for me at Cranford Park, was this stonking Stinkhorn.

The fungi starts off as an almost buried grey white coloured 'egg'. When the conditions are right a spongy white shaft erupts. The top of the shaft is covered in slime where the spores are and the fungus often smells quite putrid. The smell is to attract flies, which land on the slime then take off with the spores stuck to their feet. The flies will then go somewhere else, therefore spreading the spores and the Stinkhorn naturally reproduces.......

 

 

My other patch tick today was the discovery that Cranford Park has Ivy Bees visiting. As the name suggests they only feed on flowering ivy, and are only seen between September to mid November. I have never seen Ivy Bees at Cranford Park before, so this is very exciting for me. This species of mining bee nests in loose soil on the ground. The Ivy Bee is harmless, and very rarely stings - in fact to get stung by an Ivy Bee you would have to pick up a female (the males don't sting at all) and physically squeeze the bee. Despite all the patches of flowering ivy at the park at the moment, I only found the Ivy Bee on one short section by the M4 wall. This stunning bee, with its furry thorax and stripy body, was only first recorded in the UK in 2001 so each year records are asked to be noted on the BWARS website (link here to the mapping project). I have added my records and will now be looking to see if I can spot a ground nest nearby......

 

 

I also found a new gall today. I've seen these before but never really registered what they are. They are Silk Button Galls and only found on the underside of English Oak leaves....

 

 

Yesterdays weather was dry, with good bursts of sunshine but a little windy. Hence the Common Darters were mainly found resting on the ground....

 

 

or as in yesterdays case, perched atop the wooden posts surrounding the orchard.....

 

Several species of hoverfly were around but the most prolific was the Myathropa florea, one of the most instantly recognised hover due to the 'batman' symbol on its thorax.....

 

 

As I was leaving I checked the green metal gates for any more Harlequin ladybirds and found one larva, one pupa and three recently emerged adults. Their season is not yet over....

 

 

Very chuffed with the two new patch ticks - the Stinkhorn and the Ivy Bee - and wondering what other surprises Cranford Park has before the year is out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunny Sunday at Cranford Park

After yesterdays horrible weather, today was blue skies with not a wisp of cloud in the sky.

 

I'm glad I picked today to do my weekly butterfly transect. Numbers and species are slowly going down each week, but that is only to be expected. What I also expected was to see the large numbers of one particular species, the stunning Red Admiral....

 

 

Their upper wings are striking and attractive, but it's their underwing that often takes my breath away. It's almost like a stained glass window....

 

This is one of our butterflies whose numbers fluctuate each year due to how many migrate here from Europe. There is normally one major influx from late May to early June, and the females arrive already mated. It's those offspring that we then see in late summer and autumn like now. The food plant of the caterpillar is the common nettle, therefore their numbers here are good. When the buddleia finally go over, you'll find these butterflies in the orchard feeding on fallen apples. In early November, these stunning butterflies will begin to southerly migrate back towards the continent.

 

I had eleven Red Admirals on just one still flowering buddleia this morning, with another resting on the neighbouring brambles. That's the most number I've seen in the past four weeks.

 

So the total tally for todays butterfly transect was a total of 25 butterflies of four species...

12 Red Admiral

3 Green-veined White

1 Comma

10 Speckled Wood

 

After I had completed the transect I went back to Cranford Woods to check on some known fungi sites. I wasn't disappointed at one of them and was delighted to find my first tiny Yellow Stagshorn starting to appear....

 

 

and the Dead Mans Fingers found a few weeks ago are still growing and swelling...

 

and there were promises of new crops of fungi popping up over most of the old moss logs. Not sure on this variety yet, but does look a little like one of the sulphurs...

 

On the woodland edge I spotted a Kestrel....

 

 

and along one of the paths I was really chuffed to find a 7-spot Ladybird, a very welcome change from all the Harlequins that I've been finding over the last few weeks....

 

 

There were a few Hoverfly species around but this monster was the most prolific....

The Hornet mimic - Volucella zonaria....

 

Dock bugs were also abundant too, and I know I post loads of photos of these critters in my blog posts, but there's just something about them I like...

 

Next weekend the Stable block at Cranford Park will be open as part of the London Open House Weekend and I'll be volunteering in there on Sunday. The Secret Garden will also be open for visitors, and on the Sunday there will be the usual motorcycles on display courtesy of the Christian Motorcyclists Association. St Dunstans church will also be open and BBQ and refreshments available.

 

 

 

Soggy Saturday at Maple Lodge NR

Saturdays weather forecast was rain, and for once the forecast wasn't wrong.

I decided to visit Maple Lodge NR as it not only has plenty of hides to shelter in, but there was the added bonus of lots of sightings of Kingfishers over the past few days, plus a slim chance of seeing a visiting Osprey which had been reported on and off. Plus with other duties pending, Saturday would be my only chance to visit the reserve for a good few weeks.

 

Well it rained.....

 

 

and rained....

 

and rained....

 

Therefore I was gobsmacked to spot a Green-veined White butterfly out in the open. I could only see it from the Clubhouse Hide hence the odd angle on the photo below....

 

There have been some cracking photos on the Maple Lodge facebook page of the resident Kingfishers recently, so I was very optimistic that I would see one today, and I did, several times.

 

From the Long Hedge Hide I got distant views of two birds chasing each around, then one landed and I managed a record shot.....

 

 

From the Teal Hide I was expecting to get some really good views as the work party have set up some new perches right in front of the hide. Last week the Kingfishers took to them really well, and the quality of the photos on the fb page was outstanding. Saturday however, the Kingfishers had other ideas and avoided the perches, preferring to fish from the scrubby bushes behind them....

Spot the Kingfisher !

 

From the Clubhouse Hide I had much more luck, but still would have preferred a closer sighting......

 

Other birds that didn't seem to mind sitting out in the rain included this Wood Pigeon....

 

 

and this adorable Long-tailed Tit.... 

 

A good sized flock of these kept passing through the whole reserve, and several times I glimpsed a Goldcrest or two amongst the rapidly moving birds.

 

Also undettered by the rain the Great Spotted Woodpeckers were actively feeding in front of the Clubhouse. At least two males and one juvenile male, were regularly coming down to the feeders.

The photo below is dreadful quality but it shows how the juvenile is shedding it's 'red cap' feathers leaving it with a fresh set of red nape feathers which identifies it as a young male and not a female.....

 

a side profile of the same bird, and you can just about see the remains of the 'cap' along with the fresh 'nape'....

 

Also on the feeders I spotted a fungus. Zooming in and cropping tightly, it looks like the start of the Jellys Ears fungi.....

 

 

Other than sitting in the Clubhouse Hide drinking coffee and watching birds in the rain, I did venture over to the Teal Hide for a couple of hours. As mentioned above, the Kingfishers weren't as obliging for me as they had been for other members this week, but there was a lovely Teal out on one of the shingle islands. My usual views of these small ducks are with their bums in the air as they dabble around under the water surface...

 

The now familiar Green Sandpiper was also viewable, though a little too far away for my lens to capture a really good shot....

 

Twice it flew off as I watched, circling around then landing back on the islands, and both times it 'called' as it landed.

 

It really was a soggy Saturday, the work party was cancelled and for several hours I was the only person on the reserve. But the weather didn't dampen my spirit, I really am a big fan of Maple Lodge NR and as I can only get there about once a month, I make the most of any visit that I make.

No Osprey either, but I knew I couldn't be that lucky.

 

 

Short stroll around Cranford Park

It was only a short two hour visit to the patch this morning. I've had a tough couple of weeks at work, and consequently am very tired, but I'm committed to completing the butterfly transect so made my way to the park hoping for good weather.

The sun was out when I arrived at 10.30, but within 30 minutes it became cloudy, and just as I had finished the transect and was walking back up the 'drive' it started to lightly rain.

Hence the butterfly count went from a very good start to a very poor finish.

 

Today's tally: 24 butterflies (compared to 62 last Saturday and 87 the previous Saturday)

5 species

3 Green-veined White

3 Red Admiral

3 Comma

12 Speckled Wood

3 Meadow Brown

 

There have been lots of dragonflies recently, but not many have been obliging enough to settle for a photo shoot. This morning my luck was in and there was a male Migrant Hawker perched at a good level, and looking to be happy to stay for a while....

 

 

 

I had put my clipboard down on top of one of the orchard fence posts to get the above photos, and when I went to pick it up I found I had a little 'helper'......

 

a Common Darter....

 

After last weekends many sightings of Dock Bugs, today it was the turn of the Green Shield bugs....

 

 

Every one of them was at the 4th instar stage. In a week or so these will change to the final instar, then they will become adults.

 

On the way home I checked the green metal gate by the Roseville Road alleyway, and again found several Harlequin ladybirds in both pupation and emerged adult form.

I also found another damaged one (just like the one I found a couple of weeks ago in the same place) and can only conclude they had pupated somewhere on the posts, maybe a 'crease' where one post joins another, and during emergence the wings have hardened against the metal and become deformed.....

 

 

It was very much alive and running around eating aphids that had dropped from the overhanging branches. Sadly it will never fly though, and will soon become easy prey for a bird.

 

I didn't see the Kingfisher today but I did see Red Kite, two Kestrels, Common Buzzard and Green Woodpecker. There were also several fairly large mixed flocks of Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chiffchaff and Goldcrest moving through the woods.