NORTH NORFOLK: Wildlfowers revealed - heathland

31st July 2017

At the weekend the NNNS and Norfolk Flora Group held another one of their 'Wildflowers Revealed' meetings, this time looking at heathland species. I find these events very handy, as experts are on hand to point out the differences between similar species in the field, which makes the information stick in my mind more than reading about them in books. Despite having seen around 700 flowering plant species, most of them in Norfolk, there are always a few new ones too, particularly grasses which I struggle with. Being a joint NNNS meeting there are also people with wider interests to look at other groups too.

About 25 people met at the start of the walk at Marsham Heath, and after an introduction about the status of heathland and some of the species we were likely to see we headed off through a small area of woodland. We stopped to compare two of the smaller willowherb species (and Ian & I looked at a greenish-grey Russula sp) before heading through a gap onto the heathland. We were shown the differences between Western Gorse and Common Gorse (many people don't realised Norfolk has three species of Gorse), and Bob Ellis showed us an invasive Australian moss, Campylopus introflexus.

 Western Gorse

 Campylopus introflexus

My first new flowering plants of the day were predictably sedges - Pill Sedge and Green-ribbed Sedge, followed by Wood Small-reed. We were able to compare Small Cudweed and Marsh Cudweed, before Robert Maidstone showed us a gall he had found on Gorse. It turned out that it was formed by Weevils, which is a bit unusual, and the fact that Robert hadn't seen it before suggested it was uncommon. When Tim mentioned it to the county beetle recorder it emerged that the weevil responsible (Stenopterapion scutellare) had not been seen in the county in recent times, so the 'beetle people' (Norfolk currently has a good proportion of the country's beetle experts) will be visiting to look for adult weevils.

As we carried on I spotted a couple of Heath Assassin Bugs and Tim found another small plant bug, before Ian found some strands of Dodder on the nearby heather. This is an interesting parasitic plant that coats heather (and sometimes gorse) with red strands, with small clumps of pale pink flowers. Heath-grass was an underwhelming new species.

We left the heathland for a while and walked through an area of woodland. Here we stopped to admire two Skullcap Dapperlings (Leucocoprinus brebisonii), and whilst doing that the rest of the group had gone out of sight. This was a bit surprising, usually naturalists groups move incredibly slowly but this time the rest of them were off like a speeding bullet. We caught up with them having lunch under a large Oak.

A few other interesting species were seen in this area. I found a small hoverfly that Tim was later able to identify as Paragus haemorrhous, whilst Heather Bees (Colletes succinctus) frutstratingly avoided the camera. A Roesel's Bush-cricket was caught, and nearby I found a Bog Bush-cricket, the first I've seen for many years.

After lunch (and with some of the party having left) we had a quick look in the wooded area, seeing Tutsan and Golden Scaly Male Fern (i.e. D. affinis s.s.) before heading onto neighbouring Cawston Heath. Cathy was a bit concerned about me doing this part of the walk do to the high murder rate* but we didn't meet anyone else whilst here. I was wondering what all of the round broken pottery was in aid of when I was told that one day a month clay pigeon shooting goes on over the heath. Our main quarry here was Petty Whin, a rare plant and one that I don't remember seeing before, although I do have an undated and unlabelled record of it from my less conscientious younger days. We found it, but only leaves and seedpods, so again not too spectacular looking!

Finally we headed over to the reversion field, an old arable field that is being converted to heathland. Narrow-leaved Hawkweed and Hairy St John's Wort were seen here, along with Blue Fleabane and Eyebright. Mike found a very large Parasol and I found a Dor Beetle. A Beautiful Yellow Undering moth flew past, but flew off before I could photograph it. On the way back to the cars Mat Grass was my final new species of the day, whilst a couple of Stonechats were good to see.

Thanks to Bob, Bob and Jo for organising the meeting.

* The main town in Midsummer Murders is Causton (pronounced the same as Cawston) and the programme is famed for the high murder toll. It hasn't been as good since John Nettles left though.

NORWICH: More from Catton Park

29th July 2017

On Saturday afternoon I paid another brief visit to Catton Park to look for insects. No jazz gig this time, but there was a theatre production of Alice in Wonderland going on in the picnic meadow, so that part was off limits. I noticed some Large White butterfly caterpillars near the picket fence, before moving around to the areas of knapweed.

The knapweed was attracting lots of bumblebees, but not too much else, so I switched attention to the Wild Carrot. Here I noticed quite a few individuals of a solitary wasp that I didn't recognise - fortunately Stephen Boulton on the BWARS facebook page was able to identify them as Tiphia femorata. There was also a Pompilid (Spider-hutning wasp), but most of them need a specimen to identify them to species level.

Other species of interest in the meadow included the distinctive Tachinid fly Nowickia ferox, a lateish-instar Long-winged Conehead (the nymphs of Short winged and Long-winged Coneheads look the same, but if its a female you can separate them once the ovipositors have grown) and some Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars.

Rather than carry on around the meadow I looped back round into the woods. An agromyzid leaf mine in Hedge Woundwort was a new one for me (Amauromyza morionella) and I was also pleased to find a mine in Rowan caused by Stigmella nylandriella, which up to that point had not been recorded in TG21 (or the other main Norwich square TG20, so I'll have to look for it at Whitlingham too). My final species of interest was also on the same Rowan tree, a well camouflaged Brimstone Moth caterpillar.

TAS VALLEY: Caistor St Edmund, High Ash Farm & Trowse

25th July 2017

After dropping Cathy off in the city I had a few hours to spare before picking her up again. I decided to head to Venta Icenorum, the old Roman Town at Caistor St Edmunds just south of the city. The main attraction here from a wildlife point of view is a large area of dry grassland with the river Tas wending its way through. Plant highlights here included White Mullein, Dark Mullein, Common Calamint and Restharrow.

Much of the grassland around the base of the monument had been recently cut, so I walked around the base of the mound to check out the flowers growing on the banks. The overcast weather meant lower returns than normal, but when I stopped to check out a Hawthorn I found a Hawthorn Beetle, an overdue first for me.

Other highlights on my walk round included my first Clover Melitta bee, several Common Blue butterflies, a Dusky Sallow moth and some unsually obliging Meadow Grasshoppers.

I crossed the road and had a quick look around one of the permissive paths at High Ash Farm, where I found some leaf mines in Himalayan Balsam. There are caused by a fly Phytoliriomyza melampyga. There were no East Anglian records on NBN, so I thought I could have a county first. However when checked with the Agromyzidae recording scheme there are actually several Norfolk records from datasets that aren't on the NBN Atlas. There are a range of reasons why this is the case, but it's not the first time that the NBN maps haven't born any relation to a species range that I have checked, which is a shame.

On my way back to the city I called in at Trowse Meadow and managed one patch addition, a twisted stem gall on Black Poplar caused by aphids.

NORTH NORFOLK: Holkham bioblitz

23rd July 2017

This weekend there was a bioblitz all along the north Norfolk coast, from Holme to Salthouse. In terms of species recorded it was a success (Holme managed to rack up over 1000 species alone!), but I couldn't help think that the idea of a bioblitz was to concentrate the recording effort on a particular site rather than spread it over 30 miles. Another slight bugbear was that although there were a number of  activities arranged, despite looking regularly I only saw the definitive list when it was tweeted on Saturday morning.

Anyway, Saturday was allocated to rest and then WeBS, so I turned up at Holkham on Sunday morning, hoping for a good catch in the moth traps. It was rather windy, so having seen what the conditions were like I wasn't that hopeful, and this was vindicated when less than 40 species were recorded across three traps. A couple of micro moths were new, along with Pine Carpet apparently.

Clavigesti purdeyi

My plan for the afternoon had been to do some general recording and look for one of my target species, Yellow Bird's-nest. I asked Andy Bloomfield if any of the latter plant was still around, but was told it had all either died off or been eaten, so that was that out. Stewart Wright was also going for a walk and hadn't seen Creeping Lady's Tresses before, so we had a look at leaf-mines before heading into the pines. Stewart also found the 'sputnik' egg sac of the spider Paidiscura pallens.

 Stigmella anomolella in Dog Rose leaf

 Leucoptera malifoliella in a Hawthorn leaf

Spider egg-sac

On the way along we stopped to look at some Ant-lion pits, my first Norfolk ones having seen them previously at Minsmere, but couldn't find any Yellow Figwort. The first spot where I saw Creeping Lady's Tresses last year seemed devoid of plants, but nearby I managed to find about ten flowering spikes of this unobtrusive orchid.

It was now starting to drizzle, but Stewart was keen to look for the rare micro moth Norfolk Owlet, so we headed into the dunes to look for it. The rain got heavier, and although my umbrella kept my head and front dry, my back, bag and legs got soaked. We didn't find any Owlets, not surprising given the weather, but I did find several interesting new invertebrates, notably Dusky Longhorn Beetle, Field Cuckoo Bee and Large Sharp-tailed Bee.

Some of the fungus study group were heading into the reedbed at Cley in the afternoon to look for reedbed fungi, but given that it was still raining I decided to give it a miss. After eating my lunch in the car I headed back towards Norwich, passing the first parts of the traffic chaos that was to delveop as a result of the Holkham Country Fair and Tom Jones concert. As I got closer to Norwich it wasn't raining so I diverted to Buxton Heath to look for Marsh Gentians. I didn't see any in the first 20 minutes before once again it began to rain. I finally took the hint and went home.

WHITLINGHAM: July wildfowl count

22nd July 2017

This weekend was WeBS weekend, and as there was a range of events at Whitlingham on Sunday I thought it prudent to get the wildfowl count done on Saturday. The Little Broad count was trickier than normal thanks to the grown up vegetation around 95% of the edge, but there were hardly any birds on it anyway. As is typical of mid-summer counts there was a lot of the common species and little else. Main species counts were:

Mute Swan 84 (2016: 74)

Greylag Goose 26 (2016: 20)

Canada Goose 32 (2016: 40)

Egyptian Goose 33 (2016: 37)

Mallard 144 (2016: 81)

Coot 21 (2016: 28)

The summary of which is that numbers of most species were similar to last year, with the exception of Mallards, which were much more numerous this year. In fact Justin had over 200 in mid week. In contast last year numbers only peaked at 120. There was no sign of the neck-collared Greylag. Two Linnet were the only passerines of note.

Of the invertebrates there were three Volucella inanis hoverflies and two new patch beetles. The first one was Potato Flea Beetle (Psylliodes affinis), feeding on Woody Nightshade (this isn't as odd as it first sounds, as potatoes and nightshades are part of the same family). The second one was Loosestrife Weevil (Nanophyes marmoratus), something that Tim Hodge had told me about at Alderfen and I found by shaking some Purple Loosestrife flowerheads. 

As I completed my circuit I noticed an uprooted mushroom by the pathside. I showed it to Tony Leech on Sunday and he identified it as Pavement Mushroom, Agaricus bitorquis. Interestingly the species epithet translates as "two torques", and refers to the fact that the stipe has two rings -  a large floppy one and a smaller one underneath. I've seen it before in Norwich, but it was another patch first.

NORWICH: Ruby-tailed Wasp (Hedychrum sp.)

21st July 2017

On Friday evening I had just arrived at Pat & Margaret's house and as has become a habit I dawdled down the path through the front garden, looking for insects on the flowers. This time I was barely in the gate when I noticed a very attractive Ruby-tailed Wasp on the Canadian Goldenrod. You may remember that I saw one at the start of the month (see the blog entry here), but this one was even nicer. Most of these species, of which there are about 30, have a bluey-green thorax and red abdomen. Today's one however was alternating in colour. It was rather windy so I had to hold the plant still to photograph it, but instead of flying off it crawled onto my hand! It is one of a species pair, so I can't say what species it is (Hedychrum niemelai or H. nobile) but that doesn't really matter, they are amazing insects, and it was great to get such good views.

NORWICH: Insect assortment from last week

July 2017

In the past week I've seen a good range of species on my walks around Norwich city centre before and after work. Here are some photographic highlights.

 Lagria hirta, a hairy beetle from Lakenham Way

 Volucella zonaria

 Lasioglossum sp (one of four metallic green species)

 Leaf mine of the Little Cosmet Moth (Mompha rashkiella) in Rosebay Willowherb. The first TG20 record since 2004 (it's almost like not many people look at leaf-mines!)

 Hawthorn Shieldbug

Scaeva pyrastri (a hoverfly)