June 9th – I have no idea about Lepidoptera, but spotted this lovely moth (I think) in the flowers near the new pond in Clayhanger. It was beautiful and very active – and along with the bees and a whole host of other bugs, shows why margins and scrubs left to run wild are so very important for biodiversity.
August 7th – Still, don’t let the recent preoccupation with berries, harvest and fruit fool you; there are still plenty of wildflowers out there, and more to come. As I rode to work today, I spotted this hairy chap busy in the thistles, just doing his thing.
I love bees. Such gentle, busy creatures. They get a bad press sometimes, but they mean no harm and just want to get on with things undisturbed…
June 29th – Spotted on the cycleway near Telford station, this oddly tortured oak tree. Generally with a healthy appearance, look closely and the tree is covered in insect galls, whereas the acorns that it has grown are oddly mutated and tiny. The leaves also seem subject to some kind of leaf miner attack.
I feel sorry for the oaks – they seem far more susceptible to such attacks and diseases than other trees. I’m not arborialist – is there a reason why the noble oak suffers so very much?
May 21st – It really is about the flowers right now. On a weary homeward commute I noticed the honeysuckle at the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood was coming into bloom – and the buds are prolific and dense this year. The unsung heroes of the scrub and verge, the buttercups, are also prolific on the canal banks, commons and heaths, providing welcome food for bugs and bees.
At the moment, every journey is rewarded with new flowers to see!
April 10th – returning down the dam, another sign of spring. The bugs have risen.
This isn;t a murmuration of starlings, or even a flock of sparrows. I don’t know exactly what they are, but the air was thick with drifting, buzzing, irritating clouds of insects that got in my hair, eyes and clothes.
Interesting how they all seem to emerge at exactly the same natural trigger point. In a day or so, they’ll be gone.
An annoying, but fascinating beit of nature.
August 25th – Small tortoiseshell butterfly, caught out of the corner of my eye, resting on the trail at Cannock Chase. Such a beautiful little thing.
July 25th- I noticed on my return that it was flying ant day in Lichfield – this busy, mystifying little clump were spread around a hole in the pavement surface near Church Hill.. Flying ant day seems to be quite late this year.
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