Ards - Continued

Although the primary reason behind my visits to Ards is to explore the fungal flora, I always see a host of other things that attract my attention for one reason or another.

Ards is the only place where I have found the native Golden Rod. It has a distinct requirement for woodland, and the distribution maps tend to show a western bias, and you don't get extensive woodlands much further west in Donegal than Ards.

Native Golden Rod

Eagle eyes will have spotted the odd leaf at bottom right: it's a leaf of Honeysuckle that has been mined by Chromatomyia aprilina:

Honeysuckle leaf mined by Chromatomyia aprilina

When trying to track down leaf miners, the frass (dung!) pattern is a very good starting place. Note that the frass (thin black line in the white mine) is distributed in a line down one side of the mine. That's a clear pointer that this mine has been made by the larva of a fly, so we can ignore all the moths, wasps and beetles. That leaves us with just a couple of species of fly that mine Honeysuckle, and we quickly arrive at Chromatomyia aprilina by the shape of the mine.

Wood Sage is another plant that I only ever find in woodland:

Wood Sage

Drumboe in Ballybofey is another place to find it.

Just as I was taking the shots of Wood sage, a shadow passed over and I saw a specimen of Speckled Wood landing on a Rhododendron:

Speckled Wood butterfly

Notice that it's in absolutely perfect condition, so that makes it one of the few third-generation specimens for this year. I find fresh specimens in April, July and September, indicating that we have roughly 8 weeks between generations. Interestingly enough, next year's first generation will more than likely be the offspring of this year's summer generation, since a third generation doesn't always happen. It seems that we're seeing a transition from two generations a year to three as warming increases.

I was a little surprised to see Viola riviniana in flower:

Viola riviniana - Common Dog Violet

Sometimes, when conditions are right, our spring flowers can have a second push in autumn. Day length might well be an influence here, since we normally see Dog Violets just after the spring equinox and it's just after the autumn equinox now.

Devilsbit Scabious, on the other hand, is just at its best right now:

Meliscaeva cinctella on Devilsbit Scabious

The hoverfly is Meliscaeva cinctella, which feeds on aphids as a larva.

I rather like that picture.


I found this Oak Cherry gall on a fallen leaf:

Oak Cherry gall - Cynips quercusfolii

Galls are plant (or fungal) growths made by insects for their own benefit. The female lays her egg(s) and the plant is thereby stimulated into making unusual material growth on leaves, buds, twigs, seeds or roots. The larva lives inside the growth, feeding on the inside of it. Galls are a pretty good place for an insect to develop: there is protection plus a good supply of food. But wildlife is never that simple. There are other insects who know that the gall contains food, shelter and a larva. These burrow or drill their way into the gall and then one of three things occurs: either the incomer coexists happily with the gall-maker (an inquiline), or it kills the original larva as food either for itself (a predator) or it lays eggs inside the original larva as food for its young (a parasite). It doesn't stop there, however. Some parasites and predators target only the inquilines, and so we can have a changing population of larvae, inquilines, parasites and predators all existing within a single gall. The number of different species taken from inside a single gall specimen exceeds 50.

This spider was hanging vertically on a Hazel leaf. The abdominal pattern indicates the Common Garden Spider - Araneus diadematus, but the abdomen is much smaller than I usually expect to see. It's suspect it's a male:

Common Garden Spider - male

This flower looked a bit strange amongst a bank of normal specimens. I quickly worked out what it was. Can you?

Mystery flower

And I almost forgot this huge puffball that I found near the car park. It's Handkea excipuliformis, around 20 cm tall, with a 7 cm diameter cap:

Handkea excipuliformis

The cap will soon develop slits that allow the spores to be forcibly expelled when hit by raindrops or animals (or people with sticks)

Regeneration

At the end of August I was dismayed to find that my favourite (and most fruitful) piece of hedgerow had been thrashed deep into the trunks and down to ground level: all vegetation had been removed, leaving nothing but a mulch of dead plants and sawdust. I realise that all hedges need to be maintained, but August is simply the wrong time to do it: moth and butterfly caterpillars are still feeding and many sawflies are only starting their season in autumn. That's one of the reasons that it's illegal (in Ireland) to cut hedges between April and September (which I think is still too early).

I went back today to have a look, and was pleased to note that many plants had made a valiant attempt to produce some new growth and some species had even produced a few flowers. The fern growth particularly interested me, as the next few shots will show.

This is a brand-new frond of Lady Fern (notice that the growth is pale green and that there is no feeding damage, indicating that the growth is indeed fresh):

Lady Fern

I had one of those "turn it over" moments (I suspected what I was going to find) and confirmed that the frond was completely sterile: there were no spore-producing parts:

Lady Fern, showing absence of sori

It appears that the fern had realised that there was no time left to produce ripe spores, and instead of wasting energy on making sori, had simply made fronds without them. Why bother? Well, ferns are perennials: they produce new growth from the same base each year. The overwintering rootstock needs as much stored energy as possible, so it makes sense to throw out some new green growth in a desperate attempt to catch the last rays of sunlight before winter sets in.

Broad-buckler Fern was exactly the same:

Broad Buckler frond

Sterile Broad-buckler underside 

Hard Fern and Male Fern had also made a little new growth:

Hard Fern sterile frond

Male Fern

(I didn't check the Hard Fern frond for spores because very few of them are normally fertile. The fertile fronds have narrower pinnae than the sterile ones, they are more brown than green, and are much more upright.)

Many other perennials had made some new growth. Here's the gallery:

Barren Strawberry

Bramble

Bush Vetch

Cow Parsley

Common Dog Violet

Foxglove

Meadowsweet

Nettle

Raspberry

Germander Speedwell (and gall)

Willow (too late for the sawflies)

Herb Robert....

And its flower

It's great to see that a number of plants have made some kind of recovery, but it's sad that too many insects lost their opportunity on this stretch of hedgerow in 2011. On a more positive note, it is clear that plants are the basic resource for much of our wildlife: plants dictate which insects are to be found in a particular location. Although insects are beneficial in terms of pollination, plants seem to be a stabilising influence since they are more resilient in the face of damage.

Life goes on

I've been following the progress of the larvae, parasites and pupae of the Large White butterfly around my front door. Today one of the adults emerged unscathed and proceeded to inflate its wings:

It was still there five hours later.

Wood Anemones are well-named: I usually find them in woodland. Occasionally I find a few hanging on in unexpected places, which is probably an indication of what the environment must once have been like.

Some fungi are like that, too: Amanita sp. can sometimes be found in fields or hedgerows, rather than in the deciduous woodland that they normally require.

One thing that continuously amazes me is the desire and urge for species to survive. I suppose it's an essential trait for something that has lasted for millennia. This Common Dog Violet is growing in the middle of a tarred roadway. The flower is about half the normal size and the leaves are 5mm long, rather than the 25mm to 35mm that I'd expect.

This same 'survival at all costs' attitude is evident in species like leaf miners and parasitic fungi. They appear almost as soon as the leaves have opened. No time or opportunity is ever wasted.

My heart sank when I saw this Pug moth: they are the most difficult of moths to separate, I think, and I knew I was in for a while with the books. It's also very worn, but I think it's Double-Striped Pug, which I've had here a few times before.

If you think it isn't that species, then I'll be glad to fix it.

Late update: a Great Tit had the butterfly for breakfast this morning:

Like I said: Life must go on.

Sun works

A very warm and sunny day brought out loads of wildlife: in the morning I saw a 'white' butterfly as I was driving along, then I saw a pair of buzzards circling overhead. An evening walk to the hedgerow brought new flowers:

Common Dog Violet - Viola riviniana:

Masses of Wood Sorrel, showing their delicately purple-veined insides:

And the Barren Strawberry - Potentilla sterilis:

I also noticed bud-break on Willows and Hawthorn, so we're well on our way, now.

How many species?

As I was cropping this shot of a Common Carder Bumblebee - Bombus pascuorum - I spotted something that led to the above question. So how many species can you see in this shot? Answer at the bottom of the page (don't cheat!). Helpful hint: all the leaves belong to the flower.


Greater Stitchwort - Stellaria holostea - sneaks up stealthily due to the fact that the leaves look like grass:

Common Dog Violet - Viola riviniana - is about two weeks later than usual this year.


I counted 4 species:-

Carder Bumble Bee.
Lesser Celandine.
Puccinia ranunculi (fungal rust on leaf)
A parasitic bug on the bee (shown below).