An Exciting Day at Dudmaston by Margaret Mitchell

Wednesday 3 June 2015

The day began, as usual, with a search in the car park. We then drifted in all directions into the woodland. There was much discussion and complicated identification of a fir tree, finally named by reversing the pine needles. With two prominent parallel lines along the back of the needles it was Western Hemlock.

Our next puzzle was a chickweed look-a-like, though the plant had five individual petals, whilst chickweed has five deeply cut petals. On examining the leaves they had three prominent parallel veins making it Three-nerved Sandwort, Moetringia trinervis. The five petals are shorter than the sepals, making an attractive, star-like flower. It is quite common in shady woods but a first for me. Little did I know there would be many firsts for me today.

Keith gathered us all together (we are an unruly lot) and shepherded us along the woodland path. As he was carrying a stout, knobbly stick we all thought it wise to comply.

The path was lined with hawthorn, oak and western hemlock. The bright green new growth of which, resembling a soft bottlebrush, fooled us initially into thinking it was a different tree, but no, it was western hemlock.

Pausing in the warm sunshine, we examined the grasses, their awns, ligules and growth habit. I tracked one down as a Soft Brome. “How did you know that one?” asked an impressed Les. “Ah! Well, I saw some with Penny yesterday!” I replied. It’s always good to have an expert for a mentor.

On route to the meadow I saw a plant that appeared to be giant rhubarb. Thanks to Les it was identified as burdock. I didn’t realise it could grow so big! It towered almost to my height with enormous leaves, but surprisingly was the more common Lesser Burdock. We determined this by looking at the stem of the lower leaf, which was hollow-hence ‘lesser’.

The best was yet to come. I could see Nigel had chosen the lunch spot on a sandy bank and hurried to join him. Lunch was delayed as we kept finding little gems, such as Wild Pansy, Viola tricolor, with purple, lilac and yellow petals, now scarce and listed as near threatened. The flower was tiny, much smaller than the garden pansy. In fact we were to see many more scattered throughout the meadow, nestling amongst the tall grasses.

The next find was a tiny flower of the pea family, Birdsfoot, Ornithopus perpusillus. This is locally common and is quite exquisite when viewed through a lens, with a cream and pink 3 lobed flower. It gets its name from the bird’s-foot shaped seedpods.

But Sue made the find of the day, Hoary Cinquefoil, Potentilla argentea. Exciting to find a rare, near threatened plant. The leaves are very distinctive, narrowly palmately cut into five leaflets, slightly rolled. The deciding feature is the white hoar frosting on the back of the leaves. The county recorder was quite excited too when I submitted my records and she saw the photograph.

Across the meadow we went, past swathes of Germander Speedwell, to find the last treasure of the day. Amongst the long grass at the side of the path was a single Star of Bethlehem, Ornithogalum umbellatumt. We looked for the leaves in vain until I read that they have often disappeared by the time the plant flowers. It is unusual in that it appears to have 6 petals but in fact it has 3 petals and 3 sepals (all identical) and grows from a bulb, only opening fully in the sun. It was introduced to gardens in 1548 and was first recorded in the wild in 1650.

Reluctantly we left the meadow and the sandy margins with so many special plants.

What a lovely day!

Thank you Keith for organising it.

Margaret Mitchell

Bird’s-foot trefoil rules! by Keith Fowler

Lea Quarry, Wednesday 17th June 2015

In April the quarry’s flora was dominated by cowslips, primroses and violets. In May these had to a large extent been replaced by flowers of a purple hue. For this visit the dominant plants were Bird’s-foot trefoil and Ox-eye daisy. The Bird’s-foot trefoil was everywhere and had even managed to establish patches on the moonscape of the “regeneration” area.

























Ten of us gathered in the car park at Lea Quarry on a grey, cool day. As has become the fashion the Great Spider Hunter set off for the “regeneration” area, this time taking the Great Shieldbug Finder as his apprentice and porter. The rest of us took the next two hours to meander over the grasslands before joining them for lunch.

As befits any site the first part of the day for the main group was spent in the car park. Moving out of the car park onto the track that leads to the grassland behind the offices we found Dyer’s greenweed coming into flower.

We moved on to the grassland and dispersed to search out things that interested us.

One of the insects we found in abundance was the Swollen-thighed beetle, Oedemera nobilis. The male of this species is very distinctive being long and thin, shiny metallic blue/green with bloated thighs. Often we saw them on Ox-eye daisy.

We moved on to another grassland where the Bird’s-foot trefoil and Ox-eye daisies were very well established.

And in amongst the sea of green, white and yellow were to be found several spikes of purple in the form of Pyramidal orchids.

Time was marching on so we made our way towards the end of the quarry to meet up with the other two members of the group and, of course, have lunch. When we arrived the Great Shieldbug Finder, who if truth be told had been a little off form recently, presented me with three bugs. A Green shieldbug, a Dock bug and a “star” – a Denticulate leatherbug. He is back in top form!

This bug has a slimmer look to it than the more familiar Dock bug and the edge of its pronotum has a series of white spines. The spines are visible in the following photograph.

As far as I was concerned this find would be hard to beat but the afternoon’s sightings ran it close.

We decided to venture onto new territory. Between the processing and regeneration areas there is a path that leads gently up to the top of the quarry where there was a small quarry face and a flattish area of grassland bordering the Shropshire Way footpath.

Although we have been given permission to access this area the foot of the path was blocked by a locked gate. What to do? Climb it? Climb the fence next to it? 

No – take it off its hinges!

We did remember to put it back on its hinges when we left.

At the top, the sun came out, the temperature rose significantly and we were rewarded with sightings of several butterflies including Wall brown and Green hairstreak; the long-horn beetle Anaglyptus mysticus; Pyramidal orchids; Bee orchids and a Broad-bodied chaser. 

A bonus that the elevation afforded was of a different view of the quarry to the one thatwe are used to.

We descended from our lofty position, replaced the gate, made our way back to the cars and then wended our way home.

Keith Fowler

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