Wildlife Blog by Ron Allen 30 March 2024
It is Spring. Butterflies and bees, badger and muntjac tracks, blackthorn, laurel, and assorted insects plus, a fungus.
It has been awful spring so far, cold with heavy rain, sleet, and strong winds. Wild garlic was in young leaf ready for Mary to make wild garlic pesto (image 1). A bright spell on 8 March brought out a peacock butterfly spotted while I was on the roof of the van cleaning off the moss and lichen.
That sunny spell on the 8 March was just sufficient to warm our south facing wall, bringing out a tiny zebra jumping spider, Salticus scenicus, only about 5mm long with its large eyes looking back at me (image 2). This is a male with large hairy palps. I wondered why it had suddenly stopped still and, on looking at the photographs, found it had just caught and was consuming an even smaller fly.
Another warm spell on 17 March brought out a Philodromus sp. a species of running crab spider running down our house wall (image 3). These spiders have flattened bodies and, like the zebra spiders, are also active hunters.
1 Wild garlic and pesto
2 Male zebra jumping spider and fly
3 Running crab spider
By 25 March the blackthorn clump at the back of the village green had come into full flower (images 4, 5 and 6), only to be devastated a few days later by the worst storm of the year so far. Underneath, the ground ivy was beginning to flower (image 7), surviving the storm but not attracting many insects. On the west side of the village green the laurel hedge had come into full flower (image 8) and the flowers and warming leaves were attracting the solitary ground nesting Andrena flavipes, yellow-legged mining bee (image 9) and the orange-tailed mining bee (image 10), also many Eristalis pertinax tapered drone hover flies (image 11).
4 Blackthorns on village green
5 Blackthorn flowers
6 Blackthorn flower
7 Ground ivy
8 Laurel flowers
9 Yellow-legged mining bee
The first spell of warm sunny conditions on 30 March was now bringing out the large queen buff-tailed bumblebees foraging on the ground for nesting holes (images 12) and on the village green queen common carder bees were active (image 13) and I spotted a queen red-tailed bumble bee (image 14). Also, the first honey bees (image 15).
10 Orange-tailed mining bee
11 Tapered drone hoverfly on laurel
12 Queen buff-tailed bumblebee
The weather was warm enough to bring out the butterflies and I put up a small tortoiseshell butterfly (image 16) that was sunning on a village green path. Comma butterflies (image 17) and 18) were resting on bramble leaves with their wings wide open facing the sun; as I watched one closed its wings to reveal their brown underside and the while comma marking after which they are named (image 18). Brimstone butterflies were conducting their fast territorial flights along the village green boundary hedges, and one brimstone stopped in front of me to feed on yellow flowers, lesser celandine, dandelion and daffodil (image 19) and also blue forget-me-nots . I found two different brimstones resting with their wings closed flat, the flat side facing directly into the sun gathering the warmth (image 20).
13 Queen common carder bumblebee
14 Queen Red-tailed bumblebee
15 Honey bee approaching blackthorn flower
16 Small tortoiseshell butterfly sunning on path
17 Comma butterfly sunning on bramble leaf
18 Underside of comma butterfly showing comma marking
19 Brimstone butterfly feeding in daffodil flower
20 Brimstone sunning on village green
21 Badger print on village green
The muddy conditions on the village green paths were good for mammal footprints set between those of dog walkers and their dogs. Five-toed badger footprints were clear to see (image 21) and there was even a badger latrine with several dung pits (image 22). Prints that I first thought were those of dog front toes, I now think were muntjac deer footprints (image 23).
A trip out towards East Meon revealed several Brown Hare (image 24), two red-legged partridges (image 25) and fine displays of wood anemones (image 26).
Clearing brambles from the end of the garden, I found this earthstar fungus (image 27); the first I have ever seen in the garden and which a friend suggested was very like a ‘moon lander’. The first false puffball also occurred on a dead hazel stem; these are not fungi but rather a species of slime mould and which in reality start off as single celled amoeboid cells that emerge from dead wood and clump together (as here) ready to harden, decay and form spores (image 28).
22 Badger dung pit and adjacent print
23 Muntjac print on village green
24 Distant brown hare
25 Red-legged partridges
26 Wood anemone flowers
27 Earthstar fungus from garden
28 False puffball on dead hazel stem
The weather was warm enough to bring out the butterflies and I put up a small tortoiseshell butterfly (image 16) that was sunning on a village green path. Comma butterflies (image 17) and 18) were resting on bramble leaves with their wings wide open facing the sun; as I watched one closed its wings to reveal their brown underside and the while comma marking after which they are named (image 18). Brimstone butterflies were conducting their fast territorial flights along the village green boundary hedges, and one brimstone stopped in front of me to feed on yellow flowers, lesser celandine, dandelion and daffodil (image 19) and also blue forget-me-nots . I found two different brimstones resting with their wings closed flat, the flat side facing directly into the sun gathering the warmth (image 20).
