Undiscovered Delights

Wednesday 13^th May 2026, St. John the Baptist Churchyard, Bishop’s Castle and St. George’s Churchyard, Clun

A double-header this week, the morning being spent in Bishop’s Castle and the afternoon in Clun. The weather could best be described as ‘changeable’ with good spells of sunshine interspersed with sharp showers and, at the end of the day, a brief but stupendous hailstorm which left some of us soaked and steaming on the way home. Then there was the temperature: perishing cold! The day nevertheless produced a number of significant finds to compensate for the unfriendly weather…
 
We started at St. John the Baptist in Bishop’s Castle, discovering on arrival that none of us had anticipated just how chilly it would be. Nevertheless, the weather looks lovely in this shot! 

photo: Keith Fowler

Without further ado, here is the star find of the day: not, perhaps, the most spectacular looking creature, even when it is complete (which it isn’t, most of the abdomen having been removed for critical determination). But the best finds cannot always be the most photogenic.

photo: Nigel Jones

It is Fannia conspecta and it is only the second time that it has been found anywhere in Britain. Here is Nigel’s account of the find:
“I’ve spent hours trying to ID the fly using various keys, not realising that this recently discovered species (described in 2003) was not in my keys. Eventually I twigged that there was an item in a Dipterological journal about a new species for the UK found in 2022 in Norfolk, and it is exactly the same as the Bishop’s Castle fly. This fly is rarely encountered anywhere in the world and is only known from several European countries – always in very low numbers. A very notable Shropshire first.”
 
In contrast, something more immediately cheerful: a ladybird with a smiley face on its back! It is a 14-spot. 

Adjacent to the churchyard was what seemed to be the world’s smallest rookery, containing just a single nest. It was still managing to emit a tremendous racket though!

Not long after the above photo was taken, the Heavens opened. Invertebrates hid from the rain and the cold. This rather torpid hoverfly, Epistrophe elegans, was tapped from a Yew tree where it was sheltering. 

The Yews also produced several Pine Ladybirds, who are not as host-specific as their name would suggest.

The sun returned and another smart black and red beetle was found. 

This was another of the day’s notable finds: Anthocomus fasciatus, a beetle related to the malachite beetles. Nationally Scarce, there are around a dozen records in Shropshire this century, most from the north of the county. Here is another shot of it, toying briefly with the idea of attempting escape in an upwards direction.

We progressed further into the rather extensive burial ground, the sun continuing, for the time  being, to look kindly upon us.

photo: Keith Fowler

Here, a Cypress tree produced a Juniper Shieldbug 

Whilst an Orange-tip, still moribund from the cold, was inadvertently swept from the long grass. 

Which also produced a Meadow Ladybird

And a Dock Bug.

A smart  hoverfly, Chrysotoxum arcuatum, played a game of hide and seek with me around a Box bush before I finally managed a shot of it. 

And now more notable but not necessarily photogenic organisms. A Yew tree had been eyeballed with the tips of the shoots browned and withered. 

photo: John Lyden

This is caused by a Needle Blight called Cryptocline taxicola and appears to be the first time it has been reported in Shropshire. Fortunately its effects on the plant seem to be mild.

And finally (for Bishop’s Castle), this: 

photo:  John Lyden

No, not a newly discovered planet. It is a microscope shot of a Ground Elder leaf, suffering the effects of another pathogenic invader. But this is not a fungus. Nor a plant. Nor an animal. It is Plasmopara nivea and it is an Oomycete, which is Kingdom Chromista. So there! This is the third Shropshire record of it.
 
Lunch was taken, then we moved onwards and southwards to Clun, and St. George’s Church. 

The playwright John Osborne once lived nearby and is buried here, along with his 5th and final wife. 

Moving on to the finds, we start with another third Shropshire record, this time the Oak Leaf Blister, Taphrina caerulescens (fungal) on Red Oak. 

photo: John Lyden

An interesting larva, which proved to be that of the Green-brindled Crescent moth, was extracted from a Cotoneaster. 

Ladybirds included 16-spot

And Cream-spot. 

Several tiny Speckled Bush-cricket nymphs were extracted from a less kempt area. At this age they are really very speckled indeed. 

And we end on perhaps the most photogenic thing to be found all day (though Anthocomus might argue with that assessment). A jumping spider, specifically a male Euophrys frontalis. Common, but what a looker!

Soon after he was discovered, we retreated from the cold into the church where we were royally refreshed with very much appreciated tea, coffee, cake and warmth. A fine end to a challenging but ultimately very productive day. As our Dipterist said “A pretty good day out then! Just goes to show that whatever the weather, there is always the prospect of previously undiscovered delights. Top work everyone!” Many thanks to our hosts for allowing us to survey and for their generous hospitality.   
 
 
 
Photographs © the author except as noted.

Uphill Struggle

 Wednesday 6th May 2026, Brineddin Wood, Chapel Lawn

In my opinion, Chapel Lawn, deep in the Welsh Marches countryside, should have been included by A. E. Housman as one of his "quietest places under the sun". ‘Rural’ hardly covers it. Though I admit that the list would be unpoetically long if he'd included every qualifying place in this part of Shropshire and in any case it neither rhymes nor scans, so he probably knew what he was doing. But it's certainly very quiet! Brineddin Wood stands over the village on the south-facing slope of Hodre Hill. An information board in the woodland gives a comprehensive description and history of the site. 

photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

We had arrived and parked in the village hall car park. From here it was a walk of 10 minutes or so across fields to the wood. Weather forecasts had predicted a grey and rather chilly day. Well, the wind was rather fresh, but the weather which greeted us looked altogether more like this:

And the view to our destination looked like this:

As the group contemplated what threatened to be a rather testing ascent, thoughts turned to something we had passed as we walked out of the car park…

photo: Keith Fowler

In due course, we panted our way up to the entrance gate. We were not yet on site! Through the gate we went, where we found ourselves on the perimeter path running along the bottom of the wood.

photo: Keith Fowler

We considered the woodland above us on what seemed to be a 45 degree slope. We considered the perimeter path. We decided that the path was clearly in need of a very thorough and careful investigation. Opposite us, across the River Redlake, was Caer Caradoc. Well, a Caer Caradoc - there are several; Caractacus clearly got about a bit!

photo: Keith Fowler

In the above picture the river’s route is marked by the meandering line of flanking trees. Several lines of molehills can be seen, also meandering across the field. The pleasant, sunny aspect took our minds off the words of our host as he let us in through the gate: “There are loads of deer in the area, so you may encounter some ticks”. We continued to be distracted as a Painted Lady flew past us and landed in the adjacent field, where it was photographed with a long lens.

photo: John Martin

At this point the vacuumers got down to business, whereupon the tick situation became all too real. The first sample produced at least four of them. 

Over the course of the day it became apparent that this was the norm. Every beat, sweep or vacuum sample produced ticks in numbers. They were everywhere. I have never seen so many ticks in my life. Trousers were tucked into socks. But we carried on and tried to concentrate on the other finds.
Another species which was surprisingly common in the vacuum samples was Bordered Shieldbug.

Not a species we commonly encounter, it is found in Cleavers and other bindweeds, which begs the question why it isn’t seen more often. Here, it turned up in most samples, often in multiples, though not rivalling the ticks in abundance.
Several tiny Oak Bush-cricket nymphs appeared from the undergrowth. An arboreal species, we often find these hatchlings at ground level. I don’t know whether they just fall out of the trees or if they are there by choice (eggs are laid in the bark of tree trunks, so they could go either way). As predators, they should be able to find food in either situation. At this age they are indistinguishable from the closely related Southern Oak Bush-cricket, but the chances of that synanthropic species being in this wood are vanishingly small. 

Ladybirds were in surprisingly short supply. The odd 7-spot was seen and late in the day a single Meadow Ladybird was vacuumed. Otherwise all the ladybirds we found were 14-spots.

Bluebells lined the path and formed patches under the trees.

Two organisms associated with them were duly found. This is the micro-moth Hysterophora maculosana.

photo:  John Martin

And this is Blubell Rust, Uromyces hyacinthi.

photo: John Lyden

On the subject of rusts, this is Pale Bramble Rust, Kuehnola uredinis.

photo: John Lyden

It is wiglet season - hurray! Or if you want to be po-faced about it, earwig nymph season. Several appeared over the day, all of them second instar Common Earwigs.

Back to micro-moths. This is Cauchas rufimitrella.

photo: John Lyden

Whilst this is Nematopogon swammerdamella.

photo: John Lyden

The time had come for some of us at least to face the prospect of an ascent into the woods.

We had been accompanied all day by the sound of Pied Flycatcher song. I slogged uphill in the hope that I could see one. I did. But it remained resolutely above me no matter how high I ascended. In the end, this distant view of it, not exactly showing its best side, was all I could achieve. 

Several areas in the woodland have been fenced to exclude deer. It was hoped that we could survey these enclosures (or, more accurately ‘exclosures’) so that a comparison could be made with the woodland outside them, at the mercy of the deer. The deer are having a serious impact on the woodland understorey and particularly on the regeneration of the oaks, all the germinating seedlings being eaten by them. Unfortunately, within the exclosures we quickly found the Bramble scrub to be too hard going to make much headway and so rather failed our targets in this respect. To add insult to injury, ticks appeared to be just as prevalent within the exclosures as without them!

The rest of the day continued at the lower level, finds continuing to be made. Rather than attempting a chronological account of the ones that were photographed I will list them taxonomically, starting with the flies. We begin with what must have been the find of the day, the scarce Tachinid, Carcelia bombylans.

Carcelia bombylans. photo: John Martin

Phania funesta. photo: John Martin

Myathropa florea. photo: John Martin

And now a picture of a stick. There were quite a few of these, it being a woodland. But wait, this is not just any stick, it is a section of Hawthorn twig which reveals the signs of the fly Phytobia carbonaria, the larvae of which mine the stems of hawthorns and apples. 

photo: John Lyden

We move on to beetles:

Woodland Dor Beetle

Red-headed Cardinal Beetle

Rhagium mordax. photo: John Martin

Cantharis obscura. photo: John Lyden

Grynobius planus

Hazel Leaf-roller. photo:  Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Silver-green Leaf Weevil. photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Hairy Spider Weevil. photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Small Nettle Weevil.  photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Clover Seed Weevil. photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Now a few other insects.

Green Shieldbug. photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

mayfly, cf. Ecdyonurus torrentis

stonefly cf. Isoperla grammatica

A  couple of spiders… 

Philodromus  dispar. photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Pachybgatha degeeri. photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

And finally two more beetles, these found in the local churchyard in which we had a brief diversion as we walked back to our vehicles at the end of the day. 

Amara cf. similata

Two-spotted Carpet  Beetle

Many thanks to our hosts for granting us access to this lovely site.   

 
 
 
Photographs © the author except as noted.