All stages of life by Keith Fowler

Bucknell Wood, Wednesday 10th June

Our visit to Bucknell Wood had elements of birth, life, reproduction and death on a bright but nippy day. 

Bucknell Wood is a long way from Telford so seven of us gathered locally before decamping into two vehicles for the trip. Despite taking different routes both cars arrived safely within a few minutes of each other at the meeting point. We were joined there by two others  who had come down from Shrewsbury.

After the usual pre-walk chat and a bit of searching among the laneside vegetation of the area that served as the car park we set off up a track into the woods. There was a lot of up. In fact we did not stop going up until lunchtime. It was never steep, just relentless.

Near the start we encountered the last stage of life where a fly had been caught by a spider. Death for the fly but food and life for the spider.

At the side of the track we found a couple of wood ant nests. One quite small the other large.

The nests were thronging with life as the ants went about their business.

One of our group took his life into his own hands as he got close (but not too close) to the large nest to get that “special” photograph.

Up and up we continued. Eventually the track opened out as we encountered a large area of clear felled woodland. Here life bust upon us. Everyone started collecting insects and asking “what’s this?”. Butterflies were flitting along an adjoining track. We went through the “Is it a Small or Essex skipper?” debate before discovering it was a Large skipper! A beetle that looked like a ladybird, but wasn’t, was studied, a long-horn beetle discovered and then a bee, or was it, landed in our midst.

(Photograph: David Williams)

We headed for a suitable inspiring place for lunch where we regrouped and set up identification committees to determine what we had found.

The identity of the bee/beetle was determined as Trichius fasciatus. There are a couple of similar species but this one had a small tooth on its middle tibia which distinguishes it from the others (well it does in the identification book we were using). The tooth is not visible in the above photograph but it is here:

After much posing for photographs the bee/beetle preened itself then flew away. What a rare treat it was to find this creature.

Around the area where we lunched we found several “Witches eggs”. These are the initial stage of the Stinkhorn fungus which is “born” from the egg when the conditions are right and grows to a height of about 20cm.

I attempted to take a photograph of the splendid view from our vantage point but for some reason the foresters seemed to have missed a few, in fact, quite a lot of trees. “Why?” I asked innocently. “Birds” was the unanimous response. And it was a good job that they had been left standing as a bird of prey landed in the upper branches of a distant tree.

Lunch over we set about the (optional) task that had been set for the day, to determine if Bucknell Wood harboured a colony of Callicera rufa. This is a hoverfly, first found in Shropshire on Little Hill next to The Wrekin about four or five years ago. Since then it has been found on Haughmond Hill, Shawbury Heath and recently at The Cliffe. Hill top, tall Scot’s pines within a clearing seems to be its stamping ground. So most of us set off up the hill to the summit on this quest.

(Callicera rufa on a Scot’s pine at Little Hill, 6 June 2015)

The path we were on got close but did not access the summit so we forged a path through the bracken and found that at the summit there was a pleasant patch of heathland. And at the edge were some Scot’s pine. These were inspected closely but Callicera rufa was not there. Never mind. The view more than compensated for the disappointment.

(Photograph: David Williams)

We bimbled around the heath for a while then returned to the lunch spot. Here we re-joined our colleague who had not made the assault on the summit. Despite him being seated when we left and seated when we returned he had not been idle. Firstly he had moved his seat about 10 yards. Secondly he had collected some insects from a nearby Birch. These included a Birch shieldbug and a pair of Parent Bugs that were in the act of reproduction, completing the cycle of life stages seen on this trip. 

We decided to call it a day and returned down the hill to the parked cars. 

But the day was not yet over. We stopped at the Rocke Cottage Tearooms, on the road to Clungunford, where afternoon tea, coffee and cake was consumed in the glow of a brilliant day at yet another excellent site.

My thanks to the Forestry Commission for granting us permission to access the site and do what we do.

Keith Fowler