Dene Park, slightly drier

A nice slow walk around Dene Park today, on the slightly longer loop along the Bridleway.

Nice to see a leafminer on a leaf of Lesser Spearwort, Ranunculus flammula. I only found one, without a proper look. It should have been one of the fly leafminers, perhaps Phytomyza ranunculi or Phytomyza ranunculivora. I think it is the former, as this has already been recorded on this species in the UK. The latter species by contrast has its frass spots separated significantly more widely.

Dene Park, a bit muddy

Just one circuit today. The track was still somewhat muddy, and a very interesting "flower-like" fungus on the ground on a wet section of the track itself, with whitish tips to the dark petals! On the far triangle, the Lesser Spearwort, Ranunculus flammula, is still in flower.

Smooth Hawksbeard, Crepis capillaris, with fairly hairless arrow-shaped stem leaves, and no basal leaves visible.

Perforate St Johns Wort, Hypericum perforatum, along the Knights Park track, along with Long-leaved (?) Dock and the flower heads of the Broad-leaved Helleborine. The St. Johns Wort had narrow pointed sepals shorter than the petals with no stalked black glands, quite pointy, but not as lanceolate as those of the square-stemmed st Johns Wort and there were a few tiny black dots on the underside margins of both the petals and the leaves. There were tiny translucent spots in the rather undeveloped leaves, but these were not very obvious, and I had to look quite closely to be sure. The stem was roundish, but perhaps oval in cross-section (the two raised lines?).

No sign of any Purple Hairstreaks, a few quite well marked Speckled Woods, but the weather wasn't brilliant.

Limited paths around Laddingford

I had a look at the Kent BBCS recording page the other day and tried to work out which squares needed to be visited and butterfly records gained. Yesterday's trip around Pierce Mill worked out well and I got four species fairly easily. It seemed to me that the only reason why it had no previous records was simply due to people not visiting the sites.

Today however when I looked at the square to the South of Laddingford I thought I could see several clues as to why this square had no records. There were very few roads and less than a kilometre of footpaths. Most of the square appeared to be farmsteads and large arable fields with some orchards at West Pike Fish Farm. There are only a few tiny copses of woodland and relatively few houses with gardens.  I could therefore only hope to see a few butterflies with the commoner browns and whites. I imagined my main technical problem would be finding somewhere to leave the car.

However when I got through Laddingford it was easy enough to find a place to pull the car off the road, but much more difficult than I expected to get along the footpaths themselves. Poorly signed, often obstructed with vegetation and often with dangerous stiles, cutting across gardens and agricultural yards, it was really rather unpleasant today. The worst moment was when I though that an overbearing pony might give Monty a kick. Luckily the horse responded when I shouted at him, and Monty co-operated by quickly jumping over the stile out of the horse pasture when encouraged to do so - what a good bit of dog common sense!

The roads were easier to walk than the paths and there were usually a reasonable array of plants along the ditchsides. There are a lot of ditches because of the low-lying nature of the Low Weald and the very heavy clay soils. 

Rowallane

Not so much exercise planned for today, after the long walk around Tollymore Forest Park yesterday, so just a gently amble around the garden at Rowallane near Saintfield this morning, finishing up with a pot of tea from the cafe.

The walled garden was tremendous, extremely well planted and managed.

The first plants we saw were Eryngium "Cobalt Star" backed up with a gorgeous pale creamy yellow daisy. Such a lovely colour combination. I think the combination was first hit upon by Elizabeth McGregor in her nurseries at Avondale, Kirkudbright, and the daisy is Leucanthemum x superbum 'Sonnenschein'. Sonnenschein translates from the German as sunshine in English, and the plant is reputed to be a good "do-er". The Eryngium itself is so completely different from the native species, Eryngium maritimum seen near Birkenhead last Saturday.

The flies of Northern Ireland and I have developed rather too close a relationship for my liking. I shall be very glad to wish them farewell tomorrow.  

The Green Lane to Stallions Green

After parking the car at the college's equine unit, I walked up to the start of the Green Lane by the manure heap and the Queen Elizabeth Wood. It was great to see the Countryside Students' Interpretation Board, and it reminded me what a great job Phil had done in setting it all up!

There were good numbers of Gatekeepers and Meadow Browns in the first section where it was fairly open, and the two patches further along where the canopy opened up enough to allow the brambles a bit more space to develop some flower. The other aspects of the necessary habitat factors for all the different behaviours and life stages could be reasonably close by, but don't have to be gathered all in one place.

Here is a close-up of a Meadow Brown, Maniola jurtina, happily nectaring on Spear (or Apple) Mint flowers:

and here is a close-up of a Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus:

As I watched the Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers, I caught a glimpse of something about 4 - 5 m up in the air and realised that a Large Skipper, Ochlodes sylvanus, was using the tip of a high bramble apparently as a lookout post. They are supposed to lie in wait in the afternoons, but I didn't know they did this high up, and this reminded me that its a good idea to look upwards sometimes! Interestingly it perched just next to what looked like a stationary sawfly, which I noticed when I cropped the first picture.

Parish trees and the Cricket Ground

Accompanied Darren Hood in the occasional inspection (tree safety audit) of the Parish Council owned trees, and had the great pleasure of visiting the delightful cricket ground first.

Leybourne Lakes

What a pity I didn't have a camera with me today.

Nice to see Purple Loosestrife, Fleabane and Birds-foot Trefoil in full flower. I checked on the details of the Birds-foot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus, as it is such a common but interesting plant, and also I could compare it with the Narrow-Leaved Birds-foot Trefoil, Lotus glaber (tenuis), which I had seen at Oare Marshes the day before. 

In Rose, the text refers to the low, creeping, more or less hairless character of the plant, and the solid stems of the native form. The sepal teeth are clearly upright at the bud stage, and I believe at a later stage (the mature flower - might also be worth checking in fruit?) when you look at the overall shape of the teeth, you see that the upper two teeth do not continue to difurcate at the tips - they should be near parallel, or even converge, giving an overall "obtuse angle" at the base.

Whetsted Gravel Pits, 29/06/2014.