A Windy Wildflower Trail – completion

18 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by theresagreen in Butterflies of Wales, calcareous grassland, coastal walks, nationally scarce wildflowers, Nature of Wales, North Wales Wildlife Trust, plants important to wilflife, Rhiwledyn Nature Reserve, Wales Coast Path, wildflowers on limestone

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Banded burdock fly, Brown Argus, comma, dropwort, Horehound moth, Spiked speedwell, Veronica spicata, White horehound

August 3rd

Part 3 – Rhiwleddyn Nature Reserve

It is wonderful to wander through places that have been left alone and to find indigenous plants that could have been growing there for hundreds of years, or in some cases, even thousands. But areas that have in one way or another been ‘disturbed’ often bring forth species of flora and fauna not seen in areas that haven’t, as in the next part of my wander around the reserve.

Brambles and nettles threaten to take over this small, scrubby area in the midst of the reserve, but there are plants tough enough to hold their own there, one being Common Sorrel.

Common Sorrel Rumex acetosa

The tall stately Great Mullein with its large beautiful grey-green velvety leaves sometimes graces a disturbed scrubby patch. It’s a biennial plant, so flowers appear during each plant’s second year. It is a locally common plant, but its appearance in a specific area each year is not predictable; which makes it more of a treat when you do find it. Each plant usually produces a single flowering spike; one with multiple spikes may indicate that it was nibbled by rabbits in the early stages of its growth.

Great Mullein – Verbascum thrapsis

White horehound, is one of the scarcer plants to be found within the reserve. Its presence here is tenuous year on year, as it is constantly under threat of being out-competed by rampant ‘coarse’ vegetation such as nettles and brambles; its survival largely dependent upon diligent scrub-clearing and management by the reserve management team and Wildlife Trust volunteers. The plant is also found, in greater amounts, on the Great Orme.

June 2017-larva of the Horehound Moth – Wheeleria spilodactylus on foodplant

White horehound is important as it is the only food plant of the larvae of the Horehound Moth Wheeleria spilodactylus. Inhabiting chalky soils, this is a localised species of plume moth, largely confined to the Isle of Wight and a few scattered localities in Wales and Southern England. The exceptionally well-camouflaged caterpillars appeared on plants here earlier in the year when I took this photograph; they are evidence that the battle to maintain its ongoing presence is important to this species of moth.

I haven’t seen the moth myself, but found this perfect picture of one, appropriately taken on the foodplant on the Great Orme by John Martin. Respecting the copyright of the image, this is the link to it. http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/wheeleria-spilodactylus/adult-on-foodplant-2/

A little grasshopper sat basking, sheltered from the wind and very well camouflaged on a bramble leaf. I doubt I’d have seen him if I’d not caught sight of him land there.

Grasshopper on bramble leaf

This is him/her greatly enlarged

Grasshopper on bramble leaf (enlarged)

Another tough plant here is the Lesser Burdock. I like the plant with its round prickly flower heads and tufts of purple flowers that will soon dry into ‘burrs’ and stick to anything that brushes against them. I approached the plant to photograph it; as I did so, I got excited to see that a little butterfly had the same idea and had only my second sighting so far this year of a perfect little Brown Argus.

Brown Argus Aricia argestis

The poor thing was fighting to stay put in the strong wind and I was struggling to keep my camera lens focussed on it. I was vaguely aware of a small fly sharing the same space on the plant as the butterfly, but was too intent on the matter in hand to pay much heed to it. It was small and yellowish and flitting about a fair bit, but at the time it didn’t click that this might be a fly I’d been hoping to find for the past few years that is a burdock specialist.

Brown Argus & Banded burdock fly

Banded burdock fly-Terellia tussilaginis

It wasn’t until the next day, when I looked at my images properly that I realised this little fly was indeed most likely a Banded burdock fly-Terellia tussilaginis and that I’d almost missed it!

At least it gives me good reason to show more images of the lovely little butterfly.

Brown Argus & Banded burdock fly

I was getting a bit fed up with the wind now but battled on towards the top as I wanted to get an image of the stunning view of Llandudno that you get from this side of the Little Orme headland. It was only when I got there I remembered that I had actually been somewhat sheltered from the full force of the wind! it was still so strong it took my breath away and I had to lean against a rock to brace myself, not only to steady the camera but also myself. Worth it though, what a view!

I didn’t stay to lingeringly admire the view, and was quickly on the way back down to seek a calmer spot. Facing now in the other direction and looking down onto the fields below I had the random sight of a male Pheasant, not a bird I see often. He was looking a bit bedraggled and was clearly limping. Had he been been shot and survived, hit by a car, or even attacked by a fox or dog? Fortunately he seemed still to be able to fly well enough.

Limping pheasant

A little further on I spotted a little splash of blue in the short grass in front of me and much to my surprise here was one of the Reserve’s special treasures – a single stem of the lovely little Spiked Speedwell. This is a plant that is cultivated and grown in gardens, but only grows in the wild in the Breckland grasslands of East Anglia and very locally in Wales and Western England.

Spiked Speedwell-Veronica spicata

A few metres away, standing a little taller, a single flower stem of Dropwort, another specialist of calcareous grassland, this one being bent almost to the ground by the strength of the wind.

Dropwort – Filipendula vulgaris

Hawthorn is one of the few species of tree that is not nibbled by rabbits or sheep in its early stages and that can also withstand exposure to the strong, salt-laden winds the headland is subject to. Most are contorted into weird and wonderful shapes, but this one, although short has grown large and spread fairly evenly.

I met up with the young Robin again on my way back down.

Young Robin

And a beautiful Comma butterfly landed on the bare earth of the track.

Comma

The sheep were where I’d left them, settled down comfortably now for an afternoon siesta in the sunshine.

Looking up from the track below I saw they were still watching me, with definite smug, self-satisfied smiles on their faces.

I was more than happy with my final wildflower tally for this walk, which included (in no particular order!): Common calamint; Common rock-rose; Black horehound; White horehound; Hedge woundwort; Water mint; Lady’s bedstraw; Spiked speedwell; Dropwort; Wild thyme; Common cinquefoil; Centaury; Carline thistle; Goldenrod; Lesser burdock; Common sorrel; Great mullein; Harebell; Perforate St John’s Wort; Wild clematis; Yellow-wort; Wild fennel; Marjoram; Wild carrot; Hemlock; Ragwort; Ploughman’s spikenard; Yarrow

Wildflowers on a Limestone pavement

27 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by theresagreen in Bryn Pydew, Butterflies of Wales, Limestone Pavement, Nature, Nature of Wales, nature photography, North Wales Wildlife Trust, Wildflowers of Wales

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

bloody cranesbill, Brown Argus, common blue, common rockrose, common shrew, dropwort, heath-spotted orchid, limestone pavement, North Wales Wildlife Trust, salad burnet, small heath, wildflowers of Bryn Pydew

The North Wales Wildlife Trust reserve at Bryn Pydew is becoming one of my new favourite places to visit, especially to see some of our less-common wildflowers and a variety of insects.

The first thing to attract my attention today was a Small Heath butterfly. Fluttering along low to the ground it kept disappearing from my sight as it landed amongst the stems of long grass, but I managed to follow it along the woodland edge for a short way until I was distracted by the corpse of a little shrew. It didn’t appear to have been there for long, but there were puncture wounds around its back so had clearly been caught by something with sharp teeth and the fact that it had not been eaten suggests a domestic cat; they don’t like the taste of shrew and often leave their victims lying at the side of paths etc.

Common Shrew – Sorex araneus Welsh: Llyg Cyffredin

British shrews are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and it is an offence to kill them without a special licence.

Description: As with all shrews, the common shrew has a long, flexible snout, small eyes and tiny ears. They have dark brown fur on their backs, paler sides and an even paler underside. Their heads are not as domed in shape as that of the even smaller pygmy shrew and the tail is proportionately shorter than that of the smaller species.

Food: All shrews have voracious appetites; they need to feed every 2-3 hours and consume up to 90% of their body weight in any 24 hour period. They eat most terrestrial insects, but also take worms, slugs and snails; they have a good sense of smell and feeling, but they do not dig for their prey.They lack the fat reserves to see them though the winter so do not hibernate and can be seen all year round. Apart from those killed by cats, shrew corpses may also be those of animals that have not been able to find enough food.

Behaviour: They are solitary, territorial animals and often fight when they come into contact with their neighbours. The high pitched squeaking sound that they make can often be heard as you walk along footpaths; they are most active at night and during dawn and dusk and intersperse periods of intense activity with resting.

Reproduction

Shrews build nests below the ground or under dense vegetation. After a gestation period of 22-25 days, females give birth to 4-7 young, which are weaned after 22 days. They breed from April to October, with a peak in the summer.

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I lost the butterfly but was soon compensated with a lovely bright metallic green beetle rummaging around in the stamens of a Welsh poppy.

Oedemera nobilis feeding on pollen

This was the first, rather hasty photograph I took of the handsome beetle and followed it with a number of what I thought would be much better shots, but when I downloaded the day’s bounty I discovered all of them were unreadable, so goodness knows what happened there. Hopefully I will find more another day.

Dog Rose- Rosa canina

The open patch of ground just inside the site boundary is lovely now, lush with a mix of tall meadow grasses swaying gently in the day’s light breeze and catching the sunlight. Dog rose shrubs are in glorious full bloom.

A lush display of tall meadow grasses

In a sunny patch of shorter turf where there was Red Clover and Bird’s-foot Trefoil growing I stopped to watch Common Blue and Brown Argus butterflies and bumblebees. Both species of butterfly are territorial despite their tiny size and were chasing off anything and everything that dared enter their airspace.

A Common Blue male taking off from Bird’s-foot Trefoil

Brown Argus

Common Carder Bee on red clover

There’s not much to see in the woodland here, the trees, including a good number of yews grow closely together, shutting out much of the sunlight, so it is very dark and quiet in there. I did spot a young Wren demanding attention from a parent though, calling loudly and flapping its wings wildly to try to maintain its balance on a fence post. It is only a short downhill walk to take before reaching the open area of Limestone Pavement. It’s a little more overgrown now than the last time I saw it, with quite a few tree saplings and brambles getting a foothold. I know little or nothing about how you would go about maintaining a limestone pavement though, so have no idea what would be removed, or when, but there are some lovely wildflowers here currently and it would be a shame if they were smothered by brambles.

The main expanse of Limestone Pavement

Common Rockrose

There is quite a bit of rockrose, interspersed with salad burnet with its curious flowerheads.

Salad Burnet– Sanguisorba minor is a low-growing herb of chalk and limestone grasslands which produces rounded, reddish flower heads from May to September. The leaves of Salad Burnet comprise up to 12 pairs of rounded, toothed leaflets, and form a rosette at the base of the flower stem. The rounded flower heads are reddish and speckled.

Salad Burnet flower

The leaves are famous for smelling of cucumber if crushed or walked upon, and this plant lives up to its name as a popular addition to salads and summer drinks.

The leaves of Salad Burnet comprise up to 12 pairs of rounded, toothed leaflets, and form a rosette at the base of the flower stem.

I try not to plan my outings too much, preferring to take things as they come at the time, but I was hoping to find one of this site’s ‘special’ plants in flower today. Dropwort-filipendula vulgaris is a clumsy (pardon the pun) name for a very elegant and rather ‘frothy’ plant. I found a couple of stems at the end of their flowering late last summer, but hoped to find more today. I was pleased then to find the first ones, which I recognised by the pretty fern-like leaves, but alas the flowers were still tightly budded. Once I had spotted one I found more, but all were tightly closed.

Dropwort in bud

Again there was compensation for not finding what I was hoping for; this time it was Bloody Cranesbill –Geranium Sanguinem, which is not at all a common plant and in Wales restricted to a few limestone-rich coastal areas. It grows also on the Great Orme, a few miles away in Llandudno and I have also seen it on Llanddwyn Island in Anglesey.

Bloody Cranesbill-Geranium sanguinem growing in a ‘gryke’ of the limestone pavement

There are many colour variations of this plant species, but it takes the ‘Bloody’ part of its name from the blood-red sepals that remain after the petals have fallen.

Broad-leaved Willowherb, one of the more ‘ordinary’ wildflowers to be found here

Wood Avens

Leaving this main area of the limestone pavement and continuing downhill through a narrow belt of woodland you emerge into an open grassy area that is so pretty I was half-expecting Bambi and friends to pop out. There were a few Purple Spotted Orchids here, very nearly finished, an impressive group of Bloody Cranesbill and more Rockroses.

At the far end of this small woodland glade is another smaller section of pavement, which is where I found the Dropwort last year. There was no sign of the plant in the exact same place, but I did spot a couple of little pale pink orchids. Once again, as I got my eye in, I found more of them, most not quite fully out yet.

Heath-spotted Orchid- Dactylorhiza maculata

I sat in the sunshine on the edge of the rocky pavement for a while, admiring the view across to Penrhyn Bay and watching more Small Heath butterflies fluttering over the stony ground where they settled to bask occasionally. I realised then that the reason I was finding it difficult to spot them earlier was because they settle very low to the ground, almost horizontal to it. As I got up to leave one fluttered along the grass in front of me, settling some metres ahead, so I took a series of photographs as I inched towards it, each one a little closer. It allowed me to get very close before flying off from here.

Small Heath – Coenonympha pamphilus

Quite unexpectedly then, just a short distance away from the butterfly I glanced up to see the flower I was hoping for in peachy pink and creamy white frothy glory. A Dropwort in almost full glorious bloom. What a treat.

Dropwort in full peaches and cream frothy glory

Dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris), also known as Fern-leaf Dropwort, is a perennial herb of the family Rosaceae and closely related to Meadowsweet. It is found in dry pastures across much of Europe and central and northern Asia, preferring full sun to partial shade and is more tolerant of dry conditions than most other members of its genus.

It has finely-cut, radical leaves, fern-like in appearance, and an erect stem 20–50 centimetres (8–20 in) tall. The tiny creamy white flowers appear in dense clusters from late spring to mid summer. The crushed leaves and roots have a scent of oil of wintergreen (Methyl salicylate).

A hill not too far – part 2

21 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by theresagreen in Bryn Pydew, butterflies, Limestone Pavement, Nature, nature of woodlands, nature photography

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

common blue, dropwort, filipendula vulgaris, juniper, limestone pavement, Meadow Brown, scabious, scarlet pimpernel, small tortoiseshell, taxus baccata, wildflowers and insects, yew

Limestone Pavement

Limestone pavement is very scarce and only covers 2600ha in Britain, but it is a habitat with a high geological interest. The following is an extract from the Limestone Pavement Conservation website: http://www.limestone-pavements.org.uk/geology.html which explains their formation much better than I could, so I am quoting it here:

“The formation of limestone pavements in the UK and Ireland began with the scouring of the limestone by glaciers during the last ice age. The weight of the ice removed the soil that lay over the limestone, and also fractured the limestone along existing horizontal surfaces of weakness known as bedding planes. Fractured rocks were stripped away leaving level platforms of limestone on which a thick layer of boulder clay (glacial till) was deposited as the glaciers retreated. Wind blown material was then deposited on top of the boulder clay. This external material is particularly important for soil formation, as limestone does not weather down into soil which would mean if there had been no glacial deposits, there would have been no soil development. From the flat limestone surfaces, the characteristic features of limestone pavement have been formed by water in the glacially deposited soil exploiting cracks and fissures in the rock.”

Part of the limestone pavement at Bryn Pydew (my photograph)

On the website linked above there is a lot more information, including a photograph taken here, labelled ‘Sheltered wooded pavement’. under the heading ‘flora’.

I had a potter around the rocky pavement and found a few little plants still flowering, but it is a bit late in the season for most species of the wildflowers that could potentially be found here to be blooming, so I will have to come back in the spring for another look.

Scarlet Pimpernel – Anagallis arvensis

Below the pavement, loose gravelly ground slopes away and merges into a grassy area. Following recent rainfall shallow streams of run-off water were trickling down, making the bare ground muddy and the grassy area quite marshy, so any plants here would be well watered. There were some pretty groups of scabious, (not sure which species) flowering here, that were proving of great interest to a variety of insects including several species of hoverfly and a few butterflies.

Scabious is still flowering strongly

Common Blue (f)-Polyommatus icarus

A Common Drone Fly-Eristalis tenax- on scabious giving a better view of the pretty flower

Meadow Brown

During the time I was here I had the whole place to myself and as I was muddling around I suddenly realised that there were sizeable chunks of time when there was absolute peace and quiet. Not a single sound from a bird, a car, a plane, an animal or a person. It was so blissful I had to sit down on a rock to better enjoy it together with the wonderful views across to the hills in front of me and Penrhyn Bay, the sea and the Little Orme beyond.

The view over the treetops to Penrhyn Bay and the Little Orme (click to enlarge)

My peaceful reverie was suddenly broken by intermittent rather muffled but quite loud voices. I thought at first that it must be people that had arrived to picnic somewhere close by as the level of the sound didn’t change as it would had they been walking around. Then the penny dropped; what I was hearing was the disembodied commentary from the ‘fun dog show’ just down the road in the village hall. It was a breezy afternoon too which meant the instructions being delivered, amplified by a PA system being used none too expertly, were probably clearer to me half a mile away than they were to the dog owners. It amused me to picture the scenes from the little village hall and hoped dogs and owners really were having fun.

There are some interesting trees and shrubs growing around the perimeter of the pavement area, including two of our three British native conifers, juniper and yew. Juniper is now a threatened plant species in Britain. Plantlife have warned that it is in serious trouble in Britain and with some southern counties having lost 70 per cent of their populations, the species is facing extinction across lowland England within 50 years. The loss of juniper would represent more than the loss of a single species – it supports more than 40 species of insect and fungus that cannot survive without it.

Juniper shrub

Junipers have been part of Britain’s landscape for thousands of years, and were one of the first trees to colonise Britain after the last Ice Age. Their aromatic berries are used in cooking and medicine, and are the key ingredient of gin.

I have mentioned already that there were yew trees growing in the woodland, but this one out in the open was easier to photograph.

Yew-taxus baccata

Yew–Taxus baccata; Welsh: Ywen

Native to Britain and Ireland, the evergreen coniferous yew tree tolerates a wide range of conditions including the dense shading of woodland. It often grows singularly in woods but in groves elsewhere. It has long been planted in parks, gardens and has a long association with churchyards.

The leaves are highly toxic, as too is the seed inside the red berries owing to the presence of toxicantin and consuming as little as 50 to 100 grams of chopped leaves would be fatal to an adult.

Hart’s Tongue Fern – Asplenium scolopendrium.The sori (spore) pattern is reminiscent of a centipede’s legs, and scolopendrium is Latin for “centipede”.

Heading back across the limestone pavement I stopped to photograph a female Common Darter dragonfly that was basking in a sunny spot.

Common Darter (female) on limestone pavement

The information board describes the marked route around the reserve as ‘circular’, so I walked around the woodland edge to see if that meant there was another track to walk back on. As I was looking I spotted a plant with white flowers tucked in amongst some oak seedlings and long grass stems.

Dropwort flower tucked in between oak seedlings. This is a late-flowering stem, there are others around it that are going to seed.

The plant is Dropwort – Filipendula vulgaris, and is related to Meadowsweet (it is in the same Genus). The flowers are larger than those of Meadowsweet, and the plant is much shorter, typically less than half the size. Dropwort also prefers a chalky or limestone grassland whereas Meadowsweet likes to grow on damp ground or near water. This was a late-flowering stem, its main flowering time being June-August, so I was lucky to find it. There were other stems close by going to seed, but I doubt I would have noticed them it the flowers hadn’t caught my eye.

This Dropwort is not a relation to Water Dropworts which are mostly extremely poisonous to people, and in this instance the name of the plant does not mean that if it is eaten they will ‘drop down’; it refers to the large pea-sized drop-like tubers on its roots. However, the leaves and roots do contain Methyl Salicylate, which serves to attract beneficial insects but to kill any that dare try to eat it, as it is toxic. Due to the presence of the chemical, if the leaves or root are crushed they do smell faintly of oil of Wintergreen.

Dropwort – Filipendula vulgaris

I walked back through the woods and back out into the sunshine. There were a number of little dragonflies flitting about on the woodland edge, again Common Darters. Amongst them a pretty red adult male that obliging ‘perched’ for just long enough for me to photograph him.

Common Darter male

The flowery bit of land I described in the first part of this post was still busy with insects, but now they were joined by butterflies, a Meadow Brown, Large White, a couple of Small Tortoishells and an absolutely gorgeous Peacock.