Up, up and away

Linley Estate, Wednesday 11th September 2019

The Linley estate lies to the south (and slightly west) of the Stiperstones extending roughly from Black Rhadley Hill to More. The estate encompasses upland grassland, woodland, farmland, parkland and several pools. The River West Onny runs through the site.

A dozen of us met in the car park on a grey and damp morning. The forecast promised that the rain would move away quickly and be replaced by sunny periods.

So it proved but the wet conditions lingered longer than the forecast implied. Still, after recent very wet Wednesdays a bit a moisture in the air and on the ground was not going to deter us.

As Linley is such a big site where do you start?

The car park was in some woodland close to the main pool so that seemed a good place to begin.

A lane runs alongside the pool and we followed this towards a more open area of grassland that bordered the river.

The local tiger checked us out.

The tiger soon got bored and wandered off to visit other parts of its domain.

We met a lady who was interested in what we were doing. After a brief chat she told us that one of her jobs was to feed the ducks and swans and she started making duck sounds as she walked along the lane. She was answered by a cacophony of "quacks" as the ducks got very excited and started moving en masse to the feeding station.

The swans remained stoically where they were as though it was below them to be seen accepting free food.

Whilst all this was going on we did have some early successes in our search for invertebrates that we could identify:

A green shieldbug, Palomena prasina:

Photograph: David Williams

And a colourful spider, Diaea dorsata.

Photograph: David Williams

At the end of the pool, on both sides of the lane, was some uncultivated land that boasted all sorts of the types of wild flowers gardeners would regard as weeds. These were a magnet for us as we often find more variety of wildlife in these areas rather than pristine habitat.

In amongst these wildflowers we found a member of the daisy family - shaggy soldier, Galinsoga quadriradiata.

Photograph: John Martin

A patch of willowherb was being inspected by a number of the group who were looking for bees and other insects. All was going well until I blundered in with my net and disturbed the animals.

Oops!

I was severely reprimanded!

With my tail between my legs I wandered away hoping that the insects would return. (I did not check if they did).

A forest bug, Pentatoma rufipes, was spotted and was kind enough to pose for a photograph despite a fly trying to muscle in on the action.

Photograph: David Williams

Our attention switched to the river.

The water was wonderfully clear and not very deep. This was too inviting for some of the group who descended the bank to sample the water and investigate the underside of the stones.

I resisted and stayed on the dry land.

Amongst the finds were a water measurer (sorry, no photograph) and a water cricket (photograph below).

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Also found in the same area, but not in the water, were a couple of painted lady caterpillars.

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

The river bank was the perfect location for a picnic so we had lunch.

Before I continue this fly was captured:

Photograph: Nigel Jones

I do not know when or where it was taken on the estate but it is the first time one of these has been recorded for a long time. It is Madiza glabra, a member of the Milichiidae family, the so-called "free-loader" flies.

Lunch over - where to go next?

After a brief discussion we decided to head for Heath Mynd. For us this was an ambitious objective as it was a fair distance away and involved going uphill for most of that distance.

We set off, initially on the level, then we started to go up.

Quite a lot of attention was paid to the wall, the overhanging trees and the ditch to the side of the track as we realised what lay ahead.

That  said, it was an interesting area.

We found a migrant hawker dragonfly, Aeshna mixta.

Photograph: John Martin

Up we went.

Here the path opened out on the left onto an area of damp grassland. Needless to say this area caught our attention as we paused to rest on our relentless ascent.

A thistle seed head provided a refuge for a hairy shieldbug, Dolycoris baccarum.

Photograph David Williams

Up we went.

Photograph: David Williams

As you can see from the above photograph we had gained a considerable height which opened out the view of the countryside around us.

And with a final effort we made our objective - Heath Mynd ...

... the foothills of Heath Mynd ...

the summit required a further ascent of 125 metres.

The foothills were good enough to say we had made it.

We rested by the pool.

Photograph: David Williams

Then set about exploring the area around the pond.

Alder tongue, Taphrina alni, a fungal gall was found on a catkin of alder,

And a painted lady butterfly was photographed on a thistle.

Photograph: David Williams

"It has got to be one of the most attractive pool settings in Shropshire" was the comment that came with this photograph of the pool.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

I agree with the above sentiment and make no apologies for including more than one photograph of the pool. Indeed there is one more to come.

But first our final beast of the day, the walnut orbweb spider, Nuctenea umbratica.

Photograph: John Martin

I assume the small spiderlings to the right of the adult spider are its offspring.

Not content with all the up I had already done, I went up a bit more to and beyond a second, smaller, pool to take this photograph of the two of the most attractive pool settings in Shropshire.

Now for the "away".

But after all the "up" there is the same amount of "down". So down we went which was just as difficult, if not worse, than the "up" for those of us with dodgy knees. However, we managed it.

After exchanging farewells we got "away" to our homes after an exhilarating day on an excellent site.

My thanks to the owners of the Linley Estate for giving us permission to roam about doing what we enjoy doing; to Fiona Gomersall for suggesting we went to the site, and Rob Rowe for guiding us. This report would be very dull without the photographs so my thanks also go to the photographers David Williams, John Martin, Bob Kemp, Nigel Cane-Honeysett and Nigel Jones for allowing me to use their photographs.