Dene on the 16th

This is a five or so year old ash tree by the side of the ride leading from Ringlet corner up to the Victorian Pond junction. It is suffering severely from Ash Bacterial Canker, or Bacterial Knot, which used to be regarded as a form of Pseudomonas syringae, but is now said to be Pseudomonas savastanoi pv fraxini. This actually looks quite appalling, but is probably quite good for wildlife.

Practice walk in Dene Park

Rhingia campestris, a good picture enhanced a bit by noise reduction and sharpening in CS8.

Sunday in Dene Park

A busy day at Dene Park, but nobody seemed to mind me photographing - the monopod seems to imply my innocent intentions!

I was lucky enough to find a lovely female Leucozona lucorum having a probe around the Malus flowers by the triangle - so pretty for a fly dare I say!

A bit of warmth on the Access Trail

Nomadas zipping around the base of trees on MT 133, various Andrena around to tantalise, Epistrophe eligans resting up on the sunlit leaves of the hedgerow trees, Eristalis pertinax hovering at about head height in sunlit glades, the sound of a cuckoo calling in the middle distance, robins, chiffchaffs, chaffinches, goldfinches and blackcaps singing around me, while the blackthorn is at last in full bloom. Pretty fantastic!

Epistrophe eligans female quietly resting on a sunny hawthorn leaf:

Another one along MT 133:

Dene Park - cloudy, cool and windy

Well it didn't seem like a very promising day today, but I do think I've spotted my first Midland Hawthorn, Crataegus laevigata, found on my very own! Just a seedling right in the middle of the beech compartment, but its a start and now I can look for more! 

Joyce Pitt has recorded it here before, but I wasn't thinking about its potential presence until I actually raised the camera towards its leaves, and thought - hey they look a bit odd!

Characteristics include a rather trilobed appearance to some leaves (this is not in the books but does appear in quite a few pictures), rather undivided leaves (lobes do not extend more than 50% towards the centre of the leaf), and veins curving upward toward the tip, rather than outward toward the sides of the leaf. 

I should also check that there are no hair tufts in the vein axils on the underside of the leaves, as well as looking for the double styles in the smelly flowers if there are any!

Dene Park

In the grassy area by the car park this female Andrena was happily stocking up on pollen!

Bees at Trosley

While out with the British Butterfly Conservation Society Kent group at Trosley Country Park, I saw a lot of mining bees flying fast and low over the sparse grass of several areas of the chalk downland. Most of these were probably Andrena flavipes, the Yellow Legged Mining Bee. 

However this male appears to have a slightly reddish tail, and I think might possible be a male Andrena chrysosceles 

This I am fairly sure must be Nomada fucata, the cuckoo bee of Andrena flavipes.