Wednesday 14th January 2026, Shelve
This week’s outing was to the Forestry England plantation at Shelve. Having visited the northern portion of the wood last winter, we concentrated on the southern part this time. At about 360m altitude this is is one of the draughtier places in Shropshire at the best of times. And this was not the best of times! The ground was frozen and the air temperature was around 1 or 2 degrees. Here are a couple of photos to give a sense of the conditions:
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| photo: Keith Fowler |
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| photo: John Martin |
The sun did break through at times, albeit rather weakly. Rather surprisingly, it was enough to stir a few insects sluggishly into life including the odd Yellow Dung Fly, one of which climbed onto my camera bag and posed for photos:
Other invertebrate finds relied mainly on the vacuum samplers. Among them was Notiophilus biguttatus, a small beetle which reliably turns up most weeks.
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| photo: John Martin |
Another beetle which appeared was Cartodere bifasciata. It is described as being fairly common in leaf litter but at only 2mm long is easily overlooked. I can’t recall seeing it previously.
A Scarlet Tiger larva was dislodged from a tree. Goodness knows what it was doing up there; they feed on herbaceous plants such as forget-me-not and comfrey for most of their lives, only moving to woody plants after hibernation, in their final instars!
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| photo: John Martin |
Some finds did not rely on the vacuums. These included a moss, Orthotrichum pulchellum
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| photo: John Martin |
A liverwort, Metzgeria voilacea
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| photo: John Martin |
And a lichen, Physcia aipolia.
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| photo: John Martin |
The day drew on. We got colder and made purposefully for the ‘finishing line’ (well, most of us did) but not before half an Eyed Ladybird was spotted in the leaf litter.
The end of the track allowed a fine view of the nearby Stiperstones ridge.
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| photo: Keith Fowler |
And with that we trudged back to the cars, and warmth!
Snow Flea update: we didn’t find any (again). Numerous patches of Polytrichum moss were investigated without success…
Photographs © the author except as noted.
A Scarlet Tiger larva was dislodged from a tree. Goodness knows what it was doing up there; they feed on herbaceous plants such as forget-me-not and comfrey for most of their lives, only moving to woody plants after hibernation, in their final instars!
The end of the track allowed a fine view of the nearby Stiperstones ridge.
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Great work!
ReplyDeleteNever get tired of admiring the amazing photos
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