Garden Birds, Moths and Butterflies

The first two butterflies of the year have visited the garden. Yesterday a small tortoiseshell briefly nectared on winter flowering pansies - its great to see this species in the garden again (had several sightings last year) as it has been in decline in recent years probably due to Sturmia bella flies. The flies lay their eggs on nettle leaves and the eggs are then eaten by the small tortoiseshell caterpillars. The larvae of the Sturmia bella fly develop inside the butterfly caterpillar eventually killing it. Today, I saw a male brimstone butterfly fly across the patio.

A pair of blue tits are still investigating one of the nest boxes - fortunately for us the box with the camera inside. We checked the camera was working yesterday and there is no sign yet of any nest material being taken in. Last year this happened around the 18th April so it will probably be a few weeks yet before nesting commences if they choose this box over others in the garden. A flock of 5 chaffinches have been feeding in the garden for the last 10 days or so. Hopefully, a pair will stay around and nest as they did a few summers ago.

Overnight temperatures have been so mild that I decided to run the moth trap again last night. Reading other people's blogs there are some large catches being made at the moment with a great variety of moth species. Well, I did trap a few moths - 3 in total! Two clouded drab and a March Moth - edit Diurnea fagella not March Moth (see photo below) which is new for the garden.

Edit - Many thanks to Stewart and Dean for identifying this month as Diurnea fagella and not a March moth!

Diurnea fagella



Not the best of photos - its going to be a long wait until Christmas when I can add a macro lens to my camera equipment! As always, if the id is wrong please let me know.

Summary of Moths Trapped Wednesday 23rd March

6.30 p.m. until dawn

Minimum temperature 3.4 degrees centigrade

Edit 1 x Diurnea fagella (NFG) Thanks again to Stewart and Dean for their help with id.
2 x Clouded Drab

Moth species 2011 - 5

Garden Butterfly species 2011 - 2


I spent an hour or so this afternoon looking round the gardens at Packwood House and I'll do a posting on this when I have sorted the photos out - the daffodils were beautiful.

Another Trip to Brandon Marsh NR

Spring officially arrived yesterday and today was a beautiful warm, sunny day - felt like the warmest day of the year so far.

I paid another visit to Brandon Marsh at lunchtime, accompanied by my daughter this time.

Still no sign of the lesser spotted woodpecker in Horsetail Glade, but we did hear a great spotted woodie drumming away. Lots of blue, great and long-tailed tits flitting around as we walked through the woods and plenty of robins too.

We spent quite a long time in the John Baldwin Hide overlooking East Marsh Pool watching coots, tufted ducks, mallard, canada and greylag geese, shovelers, black-headed gulls, pochard, teal, coots and lapwing.

A mute swan was having a really good preen







Mallard



Mr and Mrs Shoveler





Tufted Duck



I couldn't persuade daughter to carry on to East Marsh, Teal Pool and Carlton Hides (I had rashly promised lunch in the cafe at the Visitor Centre and she was already keen to return!).

I managed to persuade her to walk round the main Onyx Nature Trail and we stopped off at the Wright Hide and saw a couple of ringed plover and a snipe on Willow Island.

We carried on past Newlands Reedbed and through New Hare Covert - a lot of blackbirds, wood pigeons and magpies around. Sadly, no sign of chiffchaffs or sand martins although both have been seen recently at the reserve.

There were several rabbits feeding by the wind pump overlooking grebe pool.




We saw quite a few buff-tailed bumble bees and I saw my first two butterflies of the year. Two commas were seen whilst we were walking around and a lovely butter-coloured male brimstone by the Visitor Centre

Comma - first photo showing the white "comma" on the hindwing that gives the species its name.





I had a nice lunch of cheese toastie with coleslaw and salad and Emily had a jacket potato with cheese. I managed to resist the temptation of the delicious looking cakes! The cafe overlooks bird tables and feeders and we watched a pied wagtail, feral pigeons, reed buntings, chaffinches, dunnocks and greenfinches feeding.



2011 Butterflies - 2 species seen

More on Moths

Two posts in one day - I don't think I've ever done that before! Anything to take my mind off the Villa result today - I can't believe how close we are coming to possible relegation. Any why was Albrighton (one of the better players on the pitch) substituted?

To return to moths here's a summary of the moths trapped last night

Summary of Moths Trapped on Friday, 18th March, 2011

Minimum Temperature -2.1 degrees centigrade

6.30 p.m. until dawn

15w Actinic Skinner Light Trap

1 x Dotted Border
1 x Common Quaker
1 x Clouded Drab

All species new for the year and Dotted Border was also a garden first.

Common Quaker



Clouded Drab





My moth identification skills still leave much to be desired! So if I have misidentified either species please let me know. No photo of the Dotted Border which is a shame as it was a garden first but it was very flighty and flew away before I could click the shutter.

Total number of species trapped/seen in the garden 2009-2011 = 100 (finally reached a century!)

Total number of species trapped/seen this year = 4

Total number of individual moths trapped/seen this year = 4

Took another photo of the Super Moon as it is actually the Full Moon tonight although it doesn't look a lot different from last night's photo!

Moths, Super Moon and Goldcrest

With a minimum temperature of -2.1 degrees centigrade and one night off a full moon, I didn't expect to catch any moths in the trap last night! But when I checked it this morning there were 3! A Dotted Border and two Quakers - I will do a full report later when I've attempted a few photographs and identified which Quaker species.

Tonight the full moon will apppear 14% bigger and 30% brighter than usual as it is in the perigee stage of its elliptical orbit meaning it will come ~50,000 kilometres closer to Earth than when it is on the apogee side of the orbit.

Below is a photo of the Super "Perigee Moon" that I took last night from the garden.




There seems to be a lot of blossom appearing locally - photo of robin I took yesterday in amongst apple blossom in a neighbour's garden.



I saw my first buff-tailed bumble bee of the year in the garden last week on the 17th.

Yesterday I spotted a small bird foraging in one of the silver birches - I thought at first it was a redpoll or even a siskin but once I got a view through the binoculars it was a goldcrest - my first sighting this year and also an addition to the year garden bird list which now stands at 23 species. In fact, it has returned this morning in exactly the same birch tree. Below a very, very poor record shot of the bird - if you click on it to enlarge you might just be able to make out the gold crest!!

Fossils - Part 7: Brachiopods, Corals, Wenlock Limestone and Bryozoans

Brachiopods

Brachiopods form a separate Phylum - Brachiopoda.

In most bivalves the 2 shell valves which enclose the soft body tissues of the animal are of equal size and shape with the plane of symmetry usually passing between the valves but in brachiopods one valve is usually bigger than the other and the plane of symmetry passes through both valves.

Brachiopods first appeared in the early Cambrian around 550 million years ago and species are still found today. They were far more abundant in Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Eras (542 - 65 million years ago) than in the Cenozoic Era (65 million years ago until present).

They are wholly marine living on the sea-floor where they are attached to a solid object such as a rock by a pedicle (fleshy stalk). Pedicles do not readily fossilize but the hole in the shell where the stalk would have passed into the valve can just be seen to the left of the fossil in the photo below.

Although brachiopods are usually between 2 - 5 centimetres long, they can range in size from a few millimetres up to 30 centimetres. The shells are mainly made of calcite.

They are often known as "lamp-shells" because of their similarity to old Roman oil lamps.

Brachiopod Fossil(100 million years old from the Cretaceous Period)




Corals

Corals are animals closely related to sea anemones and jelly fish and belonging to the same Phylum Cnidaria

They are entirely marine and consist of an individual animal (polyps) that secretes a hard skeleton (the corallite). They are predators with stinging cells on their tentacles to trap prey.

Modern day corals belong to a group called the Scleractinians which first appeared in the Triassic Period around 240 million years ago and their skeletons are composed of aragonite.

Fossil corals before this time belong to one of two different groups. They are either Tabulate Corals which are always colonial or Rugose which can occur as individual animals or form colonies. Both of these groups first appeared in the Ordovician Period and became extinct in the Mass Extinction at the end of the Permian. These earlier corals had skeletons made of calcium carbonate.

Ordovician (500 - 435 million years ago) fossil coral





Wenlock Limestone

420 million years ago England and Wales were part of a large land mass located about 25 degrees south of the Equataor. Tropical reefs occurred in the warm shallow seas off the coastline and the remains of many organisms living in and around the reef eventually created the rock formation known today as Wenlock Limestone. This limestone is found today in some regions of Central England and the Welsh Borders especially around Wenlock Edge, Shropshire and Dudley, West Midlands.

Below is a photo of Wenlock Limestone which contains various species of brachiopod - Atrypa sp, Sphaervnchia sp, Dolerorthis sp, Gypidula sp together with a species of coral called Favosites. The rock also contains Bryozoa (sea-mats), Polyzoa and crinoid (sea-lily) fragments.

Bryozoans first appeared in the Ordovician and are still found today. All species are aquatic and many live in shallow seas although a few can be found in freshwater. The tiny animals with calcium carbonate skeletons are colonial, filter feeding animals.




This piece of Wenlock Limestone is one of my favourites - the more you examine it, especially with a hand lens, the more fossils you can find. I find it amazing that I am holding something that was formed 420 million years ago and I love the way it demonstrates some of the different organisms living at one particular moment in time.

Returning Newts

Hibernation must have ended for local newts as my husband spotted two common (smooth) newts (Triturus vulgaris/Lissotriton vulgaris) in the pond last Sunday. One seemed larger than the other so I am hoping both sexes are present and eggs might be laid.

I didn't manage to get a photo but here is one taken by my son in May 2008 of the same species in terrestrial form found on the patio.




A wren (I have only seen one) is still roosting in amongst the remains of dead plants and compost in a hanging basket on the patio and I have been getting more regular daytime sightings of this species recently. I am pleased that at least one wren in the locality survived the freezing winter conditions.

I spotted some rabbits last night feeding on a traffic roundabout near Birmingham Airport - not really unusual because there were several more feeding on nearby grass verges and there is open countryside only a few hundred yards away. However, it reminded me of sightings I had many times last year at dusk of wild rabbits (up to 4 or 5) feeding again on a traffic roundabout near The Fort Shopping Park in Birmingham. This was more unusual as the nearest habitat likely to support a wild rabbit population was a few miles away. Perhaps this illustrates the role roadside verges can play as wildlife corridors in the dispersal of some species.

I have visited a fairly local countryside area, which has large prairie type fields, a couple of times in recent weeks where I have seen hares in the past in the hope of seeing some hares indulging in courtship behaviour. No sign of hares yet but I will try and visit at least once more this month.

I am reading a delightful book at the moment (a Christmas present from a friend) called "A Countrywoman's Journal - the sketchbooks of a passionate naturalist" by Margaret Shaw. The journals (in a facsimile format) cover the years 1926 - 1928 and contain details of the wildlife she encountered in her garden and on her travels charmingly illustrated with birds, butterflies, bees and wildflowers. I do like reading nature diaries and for a while Margaret Shaw was lucky enough to live in the house of Gilbert White - author of my all time favourite diary "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne".



I'm also reading Kate Atkinson's "Started Early, Took my Dog" recently out in paperback. I really enjoy her books starting with the first "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" through to her latest series featuring Jackson Brodie a former police detective. Her books are very unputdownable!

Garden Update

I put out the moth trap last night for the second time this year. There are definitely moths about as I saw one drift past the kitchen window during the evening. With a minimum temperature last night of 3.7 degrees centigrade I was a little more hopeful than last week when temperatures dropped below freezing but when I opened the trap this morning there were no moths to be seen again.

Bird-wise the garden is fairly quiet with lesser numbers of the regular species visiting the feeders. Blue tits are still investigating the nest box and I will be keeping my eye out for a garden chiffchaff in the next few weeks.

I did find an unusual bee buzzing around the kitchen yesterday. I think it may have been a Hairy-footed flower bee (Anthophora plumipes) a species of solitary bee or masonry bee. I am not sure how it got in the kitchen unless it flew in through an open window or apparently they can emerge down open chimneys in early spring from nest burrows excavated there the previous year. I managed to catch it in a moth pot and released it in the garden on a clump of flowering heather.



Hairy-footed flower bee? Please feel free to let me know if the identification is wrong.



Daffodils are now in flower in several parts of the garden.




"Daffy-down-dilly has come up to town,
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown."