Our last trip of the season took us to Colemere for a walk around the mere. The trip got off to a poor start as I was late getting to the site. (I could say for reasons outside my control, but I won’t as I do not want to embarrass the offender(s).) The situation got worse.
We were due to meet a new recruit. We waited and waited in the car park but he did not “arrive”. However, he was already there! But we somehow managed to miss each other.
My unreserved apologies go to this gentleman.
Perhaps someone could invent a device we carry around with us to allow us to communicate when away from the home or office; that ought to prevent such misadventures occurring.
The skies were grey and threatening as we moved into the meadow alongside the east shore of the mere. Overnight rain meant that attempts to sweep the grassland or beat trees and shrubs left one with a sodden net or a swimming pool for a tray. This rather restricted our activities lest we drowned everything we found.
There are two features in the above photograph that I need to draw your attention to. First, the dark rain-bearing cloud in the middle just above the tree line; second, the small group huddled together on the right.
The dark cloud soon headed our way and emptied its contents upon us. We beat a hasty exit from the meadow to the shelter of the woods!
Several of the group have taken an interest in spiders and harvestmen recently. They have attended courses given by the Spider Recorder and Friends and are now keen to put their new found knowledge to the test. This leads to huddles as they peer through magnifying lenses into spy-pots and consult guides and a book affectionately known as “The Magnus Opus”.
I stuck to bugs and was very pleased to find a Gorse shieldbug.
Back to the rain. From the shelter of the trees we watched in some disbelief as a couple of ladies were walking their dogs around the edge of the mere. They had at least 10 dogs; it was difficult to know for sure as they kept running about making counting difficult. It was with some relief that one of the ladies was carrying one black plastic bag.
The rain precipitated an early coffee break.
The sun came out. Insects started to take advantage of any sunlight that pieced the canopy of the woodland.
We continued our walk around the mere through the woods to the north of the lake pausing every now and then to search for invertebrates.
It was during one of these pauses that we saw amongst the low growing rhododendron scrub the large hoverfly Sericomyia silentis.
In the north western corner of the mere we emerged from the trees into a small sunlit meadow.
With a bench.
We lunched.
Then we spent some time looking around the area.
During this time we found an unfortunate fly that had been stricken with a fungus. Apparently if you can identify the fly then you can probably identify the fungus. Sorry, we did not try.
We left the meadow and continued through the woodland on the western edge of the mere. We considered but rejected an alternative route through the open access land bordering the woodland as it appeared to be partly rough pasture and partly holiday homes.
The path brought us to the boat house. Here the path was bordered by a large patch of Woundwort. Generally inspecting this plant does not yield any Woundwort shieldbugs but on this occasion we found about 20 between us. What better way to finish our last walk of the season?
Well, actually, there was a better way!
To celebrate with a glass or two at The Burlton Inn.
The Future
All being well these walks will continue on a weekly basis from the beginning of April 2015 to the end of September 2015. If you cannot wait until then we will be continuing to visit Lea Quarry on the Wenlock Edge once a month and I hope (but do not promise) that there will be two or three other ad-hoc events all of which I will advertise in the usual way.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to those organisations who own or manage the land on which we have journeyed for allowing us to do what we have done.
Thank you to those of you who have contributed photographs to illuminate my musings.
Thank you to the blog master for taking the steps necessary to publish my words.
And most importantly, thank you to everyone who has come along to these events for their participation. I hope you enjoyed the locations, wildlife and company.
And finally
During this series we have accumulated over 1800 records covering more than 650 species of animals. All these records will be sent to the relevant county recorders, Shropshire Wildlife Trust, and other interested parties.
Keith Fowler
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to comment on this post...