WHITLINGHAM: Fungi at Whitlingham & Trowse Woods

1st November 2020

Because I'm usually busy during autumn, somewhat ironically I don't always get to spend much time to look for fungi on my own local patch, so I made a point of heading to Whitlingham Woods and then on to Trowse Woods for a walk around. At Whitlingham I found the larva of Coleophora albitarsella on Ground Ivy, a new one for the site, plus Shaggy Scalycap and Jelly Rot on a stump in the car park.

 I had been given directions to several interesting species in Trowse Woods that had been found by members of the Fungus Study Group in the previous week, but I hadn't gone far in before I saw Anne Crotty, who was able to point out most of them, saving me a lot of hunting around! New species for me included Mycena erubescens, Pluteus hispidulus, Garlic Parachute and Mealy Oyster, whilst we did find a few species that hadn't been found previously, including Yellowing Cup, Peziza succosa.

NORWICH AREA: Plants and moths at Trowse

17th July 2018

Having a spare hour one evening I decided to do a quick lap around Trowse Meadow before heading off patch and walking along the river between Trowse and Old Lakenham. I speculatively checked an area of Common Meadow-rue for the caterpillars of Marsh Carpet, a rare and attractive moth that is occasionally caught west of the city. Sadly I couldn't find any. I did find a new plant, Ploughman's Spikenard, followed by a leaf mine of the micro moth Flame Crest (Chrysoesthia drurella). Sadly the mine was vacant so no chance of rearing out the moth.

NBIS/NNNS Recorders meeting

19th March 2018

On Monday night it was off to Whitlingham ski slope after work for the annual NBIS/NNNS recorders meeting. I arrived a bit before the start time, so went for a walk around Trowse Meadow and Church Common. It was too cold for any insects, but I did notice some tiny shiny black ovals in cracks in a tree bark. Suggestions from Twitter are that these are likely to be Aphids, although a type of mite has also been suggested so I'll need to go back and have a closer look at some point. I also found Phytomyza ranunculi mines in Lesser Celandine.

Despite it nominally being part of my patch, I'd not actually been to the ski slope before. The bar looks quite nice, so perhaps I should have a better look round at some point. This year there were some particularly interesting talks, listed below in case you want to research any of them:

• How land mammals are utlising technology to keep track of marine mammals - Kathy James, Sea watch foundation
• Will DNA make recorders redundant? - Tony Leech, NNNS
• Orchards East: Traditional orchard recording in Norfolk 2018/19 - Howard Jones, Orchards East
• Garden Wildlife Health: reporting disease online - Mike Toms, BTO
• Use of trail cameras in recording - Francis Farrow, NNNS
• Citizen science and technology - Dan Hoare, NNNS
• Nocmig: sound recording birds at night - Nick Moran, BTO

In particular I would recommend checking out the garden wildlife health website, which sounds like an excellent resource.