Benburb bioblitz

This bioblitz was based around Benburb castle, but also included the grounds of what is now known as Benburb Priory. The 17th century castle is being restored and the priory was formerly a manor house built in the 1880's.

The underlying geology is limestone and the site slopes downwards towards a river which is extensively engineered with cuts and sluices, and could almost be regarded as a canal. The riverside area has been allowed to run wild and is covered with Giant Hogweed, Bamboo, Japanese knotweed, Laurel and Himalayan Balsam. The grounds closer to the Priory are maintained as a decorative garden, but again, large areas are running wild, with a collapsed victorian greenhouse/orangery attached to outbuildings. This feature runs for some 50 metres and was clearly an important structure in its day. This is a shot of the old glasshouse:

Part of the glasshouse area with priory in the background

The south-facing glasshouse area contained a mixture of wild and cultivated plants, notably an overgrown herb garden, and attracted a huge number of hoverflies, butterflies, solitary bees and bumblebees.

Here's a shot of a Holly Blue on the approach path: 

Holly Blue butterfly

We made a quick survey to see where we should concentrate our efforts and it was clear that the riverside paths would be most productive. When I noticed that the area was limestone, we looked for Garlic Mustard, since this is a host plant for the Orange Tip butterfly and we immediately found an occupied flower:

Orange Tip egg on Garlic Mustard

We saw many Orange Tips, both male and female along the river bank. This female was nectaring on Herb Robert:

Female Orange Tip on Herb Robert

The same area yielded 14-spot Ladybird:

14 spot Ladybird

And a 10-spot ladybird with the rear spots missing. The 10-spot must be the ladybird with most variation in the spotting:

10-spot ladybird

Also from this area were the hoverfly Leucozona lucorum:

The hoverfly Leucozona lucorum landing on Bush Vetch

And I caught a glimpse of a huge pond skater down below in the cut next to the river. It's a poor shot, but there is only one pond skater this size. It's Aquarius najas, and is around 5 cm long from front foot to rear foot:

The River Skater Aquarius najas

New to my Species List.

We found a couple of leaf miners in the wooded area closer to the castle:

Phytomyza chaerophylli on Cow Parsley

And:

Phytomyza ranunculi on Celandine

Phytomyza ranunculi was also found on Creeping Buttercup.

Closer to the castle, I found a moth larva grazing on lichen on a fence post. It's Brussels Lace, Cleorodes lichenaria:

Larva of the Brussels Lace moth

That's a good example of the formal name clearly stating the nature of a species.

A final shot of Lords-and-Ladies or Cuckoo Pint, which I only ever find on lime:

Arum maculatum

Overall we submitted perhaps a hundred species on the day. This is far fewer than I would normally expect on a day's hunting, especially on a bright sunny day, but the habitat is essentially 'cultivated but abandoned', so the biodiversity could be expected to be low.