Wrekin Forest Volunteers: Bits and Pieces 3

8 Sept 2020

Bits and Pieces 3

Tuesday 8th September 2020

Strange, even though the Joy of Wildlife group is not operating, I seem to be finding it hard to set aside time to do these reports.

Is it that the lack of outings has made me lose focus? Is it that living in the "COVID new normal" times I have found other things to do to occupy me? Perhaps the easing of restrictions has also eased my scheduling, as in lockdown I had a more regimented existence in order to pass the time.

Anyway I have now started this third instalment of wildlife miscellany that I and others have managed to experience recently.

In the second full week of August when were were treated to hot sunny weather for a brief spell three of us met up at Dry Sanford Pit Nature Reserve, part of the Cothill National Nature Reserve, near Abingdon.

Dry Sandford Pit, like many nature reserves, is a former quarry which over time has developed a wonderful mixture of habitats. In addition its exposed quarry faces provide much of geological interest.

Why did we go?

In the hope of finding Great green bush crickets.

Did we find them?

No!

But we did find several things of interest some of which we managed to photograph. Starting with a fairly common sight along woodland rides, a Speckled wood butterfly.

We came across a grassland clearing surrounded by woodland that was rich with scabious, and feeding on one flower head was the Large scabious mining bee, Andrena hattorfiona.

Photograph: David Williams

This is our largest mining bee in terms of body length.

Wandering on we came to a more open area of grassland. A sweep of this turned up a nymph whose identity had us foxed. Fortunately our "Queen of the Nymphs" Maria subsequently came to our rescue by identifying it as a Stictopleurus nymph.

Photograph: David Williams

There are two known species of Stictopleurus in Britain that are quite difficult to separate to species. To assist we have put together this composite photograph of the adults highlighting a couple of features that distinguish them.

Photograph: David Williams

(You should be able to see an enlarged image by clicking on the photograph.)

Unfortunately we have been unable to identify the nymph we found to species.

Moving on from the grassland we made our way through a deeper part of the quarry to an area of fen. Someone had kindly positioned a seat overlooking this area so we were able to sit and take in the view at leisure.

Refreshed by our rest we wandered on and on looking for the elusive bush cricket - to no avail.

Never mind, there will be another day.

A couple of days later we gathered at Brown Moss on another sunny, cloud free day.

The air temperature was a little cooler than the previous few days but it was very humid making it more oppressive. We tried hard but we had to admit defeat early in the afternoon as lethargy took over making us wonder if we could get back to the cars!

Here are a few pictures of beasts we saw on the day:

A Common darter

Photograph: John Martin

A water ladybird,

And a young newt;

Plus one of a photographer practising his art deep in the undergrowth!

The following day this lovely hoverfly Arctophila superbiens was snapped at Ripple Wood.

Photograph: John Martin

Yet another day later I ventured to North Lancashire on yet another splendid day.

The journey there was long but easy as traffic on the M6 was still much lighter than normal.

That said ,as I approached my exit there was a queue ahead. Fortunately the end of the queue was a few car lengths after the start of the slip road enabling me to leave the motorway without being held up. Those travelling to the next junction and beyond were not so lucky.

This was a Tanyptera Trust outing to record wildlife found on the exposed shingle at the riverside in a large meander of the River Lune.

Despite my best efforts (!) I found nothing of interest here but one of the other member of the party found this large spider which may be Arctosa cinerea, a spider that specialises in this type of habitat. It constructs a silk-lined burrow under the stones. Within this burrow it can withstand being submerged by the water of the river for long periods.

I apologise for the poor quality of the photograph but I did not want to risk loosing someone else's find whilst transferring it to a clearer container!

Towards the end of August a visit to Cherhill to look for Wartbiters (unsuccessfully) and then Rodborough generated a collection of photographs of orthoptera.

Here they are:

Two female meadow grasshoppers, one of which is the uncommon fully-winged form

Photograph: David Williams

Basking female meadow and stripe-winged grasshoppers together on a small piece of bare earth

Photograph: David Williams

A male dark bush cricket

Photograph: David Williams

A female rufous grasshopper, showing the clubbed/white-tipped antennae.

Photograph: David Williams

Bringing August to an end, a trip to Mason's Bank in the far south west of the county yielded this slime mould which is probably Tubifera ferruginosa.