Last of the Summer Wine - Coalmoor

 Or maybe that should be ‘Last of the Summer Rain’. Our visit to Coalmoor last Friday (July 16, 2010) ended in a sudden downpour just as we arrived back at the mini-bus after a day’s surveying this Veolia owned site.


Traveller’s Joy   Pic: Keith Fowler

I call this post ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ because, sadly, it is the last of our organised summer excursions onto the green spaces of Telford & Wrekin with the Wrekin Forest Volunteers. We still have our summer BBQ on the Top of The World, however, this coming Friday so let’s hope the rain stays off for then - it’s raining as I write.

So we now await the Autumn/Winter programme that I guess Pete at SWT is already working on and simultaneously grappling, no doubt, with the funding for it and other projects.
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Seems odd I know to be talking about winter in the middle of summer but then it doesn’t seem to bother Selfridges - I’ve just heard they’re already selling Christmas baubles! Now that’s got to be so wrong on so many levels. There should be a law against it championed by perhaps The Christmas Police or maybe The Crackers & Bauble Bobbies.

Here I go drifting off on a massive tangent again, so steep we all have to dig our finger nails in!



So… yes… the Coalmoor site is owned and run by Veolia the waste and recycling experts, part of which is being turned into a natural habitat with pools and woodland mainly interspersed around its perimeter. Which is what we were there for, of course, to see what flora & fauna were colonising this charming little spot.

There’s still a lot of work to be done and much of the central part had seen recent and necessary activity and is at the moment what I’d call ‘brown’. But around the edges we saw many promising signs including a fine Fallow Deer who poked his head over the hill-top to see what the commotion was about and then he was gone! Buzzards circled majestically overhead whilst Magpies squabbled endlessly and lots of little things were on the wing too.

Small Skipper, Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Green-veined White and Comma were amongst the butterflies recorded. And I managed to pot a rather worn moth - the Shaded Broad-bar.



A few weird and wonderful creatures were also enjoying life at Coalmoor such as these small larvae feeding on Alder.



It was Tony who led me in the right direction when he said he felt sure they were a species of Sawfly, prompting me to investigate further using that magnificent resource; the interweb.

Oh, by-the-way; not wishing to run too far behind the times my long-standing friend (I do wish she’d sit down) Vera Wayfrommer recently bought a laptop. I called round the other day to see how she was getting on. Confused would have been the nicest way of putting it. The terminology had sent her into a right tizz. She was just placing a small piece of cheese at the side of the keyboard mumbling almost incoherently about feeds and mice and complaining she didn’t realise she had to do this! There’s no hope. I left quietly.

Ooops! Have I digressed again?

Anyway, little white fluffy caterpillars. Yes... turns out they’re White Alder Sawfly larvae - Eriocampa ovata - confirmed by the fact they were feeding on alder. The white fluffy stuff that covers them is something I haven’t come across before - it’s apparently called ‘flocculence’ and is a form of camouflage - makes them look like bird droppings. As they get bigger and closer to pupation the flocullence is shed and left dangling from the leaf. So there you go, every site we go to I find out something new, like how to use Graham’s monocular.



Actually that’s not me using Graham’s monocular, it’s Graham and he’s using his camera.

I didn’t realise we were so close to the power station but there it is with the cooling towers just poking above the tree-line.

Our foray brought many interesting flowering plants and grasses. Bristly Ox-Tongue and Ribbed Melilot to name but two.

       
Pic: Keith Fowler                         Pic: Keith Fowler

And more caterpillars… these are the very common Cinnabar moth larvae on Ragwort.


Pic: Keith Fowler

And a 10-spot Ladybird.


Pic: Keith Fowler

Tea-break ran into lunch-break and then the dark clouds descended and we headed back to the bus.

Coalmoor is a very interesting site with lots of plant & creature potential over the coming years. Worthy of another trip next spring/summer.



Facebook

Did you know that Shropshire Wildlife Trust has its own Facebook page? Neither did I till Pete phoned me yesterday to ask if I could make a connection with our blog and forum. So I’ve done that and wondered if you’d like to join the group too? If you don’t have a Facebook page yourself you’ll need to set one up in order to connect but it’s free, quick, simple and painless. And if you already have an account then you just need to log in. This link will send you straight to the SWT group. Leave a message to say hello from the WuFuV's, etc.

Here’s the direct link:-
SWT Facebook Group (opens in a new window)

I will also place a link on the blog and the forum.

That’s all for now folks. Catch you all soon.

Paul
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