Leybourne getting rather gloomy

I shouldn't be surprised really, as I only arrived at 3.30 and the light was rapidly fading from the sky. I went up the West side of the Ocean, across to the Railway Lake and back via the oval pond, by which time it was getting too dark to see much.

There were Black-headed Gulls, one Common Gull, a Canada Goose, a Greylag Goose, several Tufted Duck, Moorhens, many Coots, Mallards, a Great Crested Grebe and Cormorants on the Ocean, but overall it was very quiet at the end of the day. Some Tits flew through the lakeside Alders and Willows, as I got to the Northern half.

On the Railway Lake there were two Great Crested Grebe, Tufted Duck and Coot. On the path I looked closely on the right hand side of the path at the willow (hybrid viminalis and cinerea?) between the lone small Alder and the clump of other bushy Willows. On the oval pond there were a female Tufted Duck, Coot and two Mute Swans.  

Leybourne late on a sunny afternoon

The light seemed to make a real difference to the birds, and there seemed to be a lot of waterbirds and passerines around. Several parties of Tits, usually mixed Blue Tits, Great Tits and Long-tailed Tits.

Many Black-headed Gulls, five Common Gulls, Larus canus, several Greylag Geeses, one Canada Goose, Great Crested Grebes, Cormorants, Coots, Moorhens.

Raptors on Sheppey

A truly great day on the Island, with leader Tony spotting amazing birds with utterly impressive regularity. Merlin, Sparrowhawk (which I missed), Common Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Peregrine, Kestrel were the target raptor species seen. Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Curlew, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Dunlin, Carrion Crow, Magpie, a lovely Stonechat pair, a very nice Pipit, Corn Bunting, Linnet, FieldFare, Starling, Brent Geese, Greylag Goose, White-fronted Goose, Mallard, Little Egret. Bearded Reedling, Siskin and Kingfisher were heard apparently.

Continental Pear Rust in Hadlow

Here are some long shots high up in the foliage of a Pear Tree in Great Elms, Hadlow, I am sure I can see some galls caused by Pear Rust, with the strange outgrowths on the underside of the leaves.

and here is a closer crop of the gall on the right.

and here is a different picture.

Hartlake Bridge

I think it is now down to a tree by tree approach as far as identifying Willows goes! I will have to go back to individual trees time and time again over the year to check the seasonal features.

Here is a close-up of the bud on a yellow-shooted form of Crack Willow, tentatively identified as Salix x fragilis nothovar Basfordiana f. Basfordiana (scaling ex Salter) Stace also known as the Basford Willow, first discovered before 1870 in the nursery of Mr. William Scaling. The ID depends the assumption that this is the only yellow-shooted form of the Hybrid Crack Willow, produced it is thought by the original cross of the Hybrid Crack Willow, Salix x fragilis, with the highly colourede vitellina form of the White Willow, Salix alba, but of course this could prove false! However, it seems to be as close as most people will get, unless they are absolute experts, so it will have to do for me.

it is interesting to see the lenticels, the stipule scars, and the hairs on the stem close to the bud - protected from wind and abrasion?

Holborough focussing on Viburnum

On the Viburnam lantana (no plants of V. opulus were seen) a few galls of Eriophyes viburni, one of the classic Eriophyid mites, were seen. One plant in particular was conspicuously rich in the galls, with most, by contrast, being entirely free.

This one plant had just two galls on, but on two different leaves.

Alders and mines at Barden Lake, Haysden Country Park

I had a lovely late afternoon walk with Monty around Barden Lake today, concentrating on the Alders and anything I could find on them.

I think this is Fenusa dohrnii (Tischbein, 1846), a Hymenopteran sawfly miner, which is said to be very common. Taken with flash, the mine looked much browner to the eye alone, as in the descriptions. Very interesting to see that [apparently] the mine is constrained at first by the major veins as it moves out away from near the midrib, breaching them in the outer third of its progress - exactly as it reports on the UKflymines site.

This larva could be the third generation of 2015. Although this was apparently just a single mine, it could not have been Heterarthus vagans, the other main sawfly miner of Alder, because the larva did not have the diagnostic dark prothoracic plates. It may have only been a single mine because it was a young partly formed leaf, only 5 cm long,  - perhaps unlikely to have sustained the insect through to its sawfly adulthood. The first picture is from a jpg version of the shot, the second from the equivalent raw version. If anything the jpg is the better I feel.

This is the dorsal view - note again the absence of a distinctive prothoracic plate. The jpg only this time.