Up or Down?

Wednesday 29th October 2021, Norbury Hill

Our final visit of the Joy of Wildlife programme for 2021 was to Norbury Hill. This is near the village of Norbury which is about 5 miles north east of Bishop’s Castle and situated in the collection of hills to the south of The Stiperstones and west of the Long Mynd.

Confusion reigned as we did not visit Norbury Hill as identified on an OS Map but the hill next door to the east. Unfortunately this hill does not have a name on the OS map so, for convenience, we decided to stick to Norbury Hill as the site.

As we were meeting at Norbury Village Hall I was a little concerned as it was about a mile and a half from the site and considerably lower than the site we were going to visit! 

However, I need not have worried. The person who had arranged this visit for us had a plan, and unlike one of my plans, we followed it. 

On the day we gathered in the Hall’s car park. Then someone from the hall told us that the cars we had arrived in were cluttering up the car park making it difficult for mothers bringing their toddlers to the hall for their session later to park.

After a little negotiation another area managed by the village hall was opened up and we moved the cars there, freeing up the car park.

Back to the plan. We arranged ourselves into four cars and took these and parked higher up the hill and closer to the site. We were now only about half a mile from our target and about half of the height gain required had been achieved. 

Booted up and equipment in hand we made our way to the start of the bridle path that would lead to our goal.

Then we halted.

Our arranger informed us that there were two sites which they were interested in us taking a look at, a meadow and the hill-top.

“Which would you like to do first?” adding that it was down to the meadow and up to the hill.

“Up or down?”

As I know the group generally goes in the opposite direction to the one I would take I said nothing, but secretly hoped we would go up first.

It was decided.

DOWN we went, to the meadow that occupied a valley between the real Norbury Hill and the pretend one (but real in terms of height) that we were visiting.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

The aerial photograph above shows the start of the valley in the bottom right corner. Where we parked was just beyond the trees in the top left hand corner. We had descended quite a bit of the height gained in the cars!

To be fair, the choice proved correct as the valley, especially the wetter area at the bottom centre of the photograph, proved to be very interesting and provided us with plenty of opportunities to exercise our invertebrate identification and other skills.

Damp grassland is home to a tiny planthopper, Conomelus anceps, which can be abundant in this habitat. It is normally very short-winged as in the photograph but long-winged individuals are often found.

Photograph: Jon Lyden

It is also home to the much bigger planthopper Cicadella viridis.

Photograph: David Williams

The insect in the above photograph is a female. Males are smaller and their wings tend to be dark bluish in colour.

A Small copper butterfly was noticed and photographed.

Photograph: David Williams

Leaving insects aside for the moment, we have, what I think is a first for this extensive series of reports of the activities of the Joy of Wildlife group, a photograph of a liverwort. This one is Riccia sorocarpa.

Photograph: John Martin

By now noon had passed and thoughts of lunch started to germinate in one or two minds. But they were soon distracted by sight of the star of the day, a hoverfly, Sericomyia superbiens. It was seen feeding on a scabious.

It quickly drew the photographers attention!

Photograph: John Lyden

Here is that star.

Photograph: David Williams

Not wanting to be completely upstaged a couple of dragonflies drew attention to themselves: 

A Southern hawker;

Photograph: Jim Almond

And a Common darter, which decided that one member of the group’s hat was an excellent place to perch. (I am not sure if he was wearing it at the time.)

Photograph: John Martin

Another inhabitant of damp places is the plant Lesser skullcap, Scutellaria minor.

Photograph: John Martin

For one of the group his desire for lunch could be ignored no longer. He declared UDL, settled himself down and started eating his food.

[UDL – Unilateral Declaration of Lunch]

Within minutes, nay, seconds others joined him and partook of their feasts.

All except one who remained on the look-out for hoverflies. He was rewarded.

Episyrphus balteatus.

Photograph: Jim Almond

Another Sericomyia, this time Sericomyia silentis.

Photograph: Jim Almond

And the star returned for an encore, justifying another photograph.

Photograph: Jim Almond

Lunch over we entered the second stage of the day, to take a look at the hill-top.

Which meant the time for UP had arrived.

To reach the path to the summit we could take the long route by retracing our steps up the gentler slope back to the start and then strolling up the gentler slope to the top, or we could …

And we did …

Take the shortest and steepest slope to meet the path.

UP we went …

Pause for breath and admire the view.

Photograph: David Williams

UP we continued …

A further pause for breath and admire some more of the view.

Photograph: David Williams

At last we reached the top and a longer pause for breath and the greatest period of admiration of the view.

Photograph: David Williams

Photograh: John Martin

The area shown the top and to the right of the following aerial photograph shows much of this upper site.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

I am not sure if the following photograph of Eupeodes luniger was taken on the ascent or as we entered the second site.

Photograph: Jim Almond

This fungus, possibly an emerging Parasol, was taken on the heights.

Photograph: David Williams

We shared the site with a number of sheep who were happily grazing on the vegetation of this upland grassland. Where there are sheep, there is dung. And where there is dung there are invertebrates that make use of the dung for their own purposes. 

One such invertebrate is the dung beetle, Aphodius contaminatus.

Photograph: Jim Almond

And a Garden tiger moth larva was spotted lurking in amongst the vegetation.

Photograph: David Williams

We pottered around this area for a while before the relentless breeze and general exhaustion took over and convinced us to start the trek back to the cars.

On the way we paused for another look at the view. This time looking the other way, towards the Long Mynd.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

Over the last few weeks these reports have contained at least one photograph of a weevil. This indicates that we are no longer wary of these beetles as we have a member of the group who has embraced this group and is revelling in their delights.

This week is no exception. So, let me introduce this week’s Wednesday Weevil of the Week - Trichosirocalus troglodytes.

Photograph: Nigel cane-Honeysett

My thanks to the private owner of the valley site and the Middle Marches Community Land Trust who own the higher site for allowing us to survey, to Rob Rowe for arranging the trip and to the photographers for providing me with the material to enliven the report.

As this outing was the last of this year’s Joy of Wildlife programme, this report will be the last weekly report to appear until we restart next April. However, the group continues to meet over the off-season and I will periodically bring to you news of interesting finds or events.

To finish I would like to thank everyone who has attended the events this year for coming along and helping our recording effort and all of the people who have read the reports for the interest you have shown in what we get up to.

Keep well.