Sign of spring?

Despite the frost and snow and sleet, I found a Willow with catkins beginning to show:


"Which Willow?" I hear you ask. "A hybrid", I reply.

First flowers

I can always guarantee that the first flowers of the year will be some Lesser Celandines at the edge of the stream under the Ash trees. Although it's dark, the area is south-facing and sheltered.

Cold start to 2009

I'm still investigating the Pine needles, and on my latest trip I glanced over my shoulder for some reason and saw this fox examining my footprints in the snow:

Not much of a shot, but the camera always has the macro lens attached and the fox was 100m away.

Pine mystery update

After examining dozens of needles very closely, I stumbled across the following specimen which shows a brown needle with an intact green area at the tip.



Even closer examination shows that the brown areas of the needle are in fact hollow, and the needles have been eaten from the inside, thereby killing them. This is indicative of micromoth leaf-miners, and research shows that there are perhaps 8 to 10 candidate species of micromoth which eat Pine needles in this manner. What I need to do next year is to take needle samples with occupant larvae and breed them through to the adult stage for identification.

And yes, the adult micromoths are, indeed, tiny.

So that's it for 2008, the year with the worst weather I can remember. Still, I don't feel too bad: I managed 89 posts, which is roughly one every 4 days. In addition, I was talking to a local gentleman of 87 years, who said it's the worst year for weather in his memory, too.

Scots Pine mystery

In one particular part of the young coniferous plantation, Scots Pine trees are growing in a peculiar manner. This is a shot of an affected tree:

Note the 'pom pom' effect on the branches.

Here's a close-up of an affected shoot:

The damage appears to be caused by clusters of needles dying and dropping off:


This shot shows that multiple areas of single plants are simultaneously affected:

I was told that the effect can be caused by the European Pine Sawfly, but my research shows that this sawfly damages needles in a completely different way: by eating them down to the branch. So it looks like I'm back to square one on this one.

First Book

The first book containing my images will be launched tomorrow.

Glenullin raised bog was rescued from peat production by a band of local people who recognised its value to wildlife and also as a valuable piece of the local landscape - the 'heart' of the community. They received a lottery grant to help with production of (amongst other things) a booklet celebrating the wildlife to be found in the bog. I was commissioned to take the photographs and I must say I'm delighted to see my name on the cover of a book.

Here it is:

Drumboe opportunity

After an utterly miserable summer and an extremely short autumn, we appear to be in winter, having already had lying snow.

I managed a trip to Drumboe Wood during a brief period of sunshine. 15 minutes after these shots were taken I was soaked to the skin.

Drumboe is an ancient urban woodland. The main thoroughfare through the town is no more than 150m from this point. The River Finn can just be seen in the distance.

This little slug was wandering across a fallen beech leaf. I'm not sure if the orange colouring on the slug is caused by reflected or transmitted light.

The Honey Fungus, Armillaria mellea:

The strange pearlescent cap to this Tricholoma makes me think it's Tricholoma columbetta:

The minute (5 micron) spores check ok: