Talk on Greater Horseshoe bats at Stackpole, West Wales

After a long day at work talking to students about their Project statistics, it was great to hear Penny from North Wales talk about the very extensive research done on the Greater Horseshoe Bats at Stackpole:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stackpole/wildlife/view-page/item683965/

Slow amble around the side of the Ocean at Leybourne Lakes

The Greylag Geese are still around in numbers at the Ocean, noisily posturing to each other:

These two might perhaps be a pair, the male behind?

and Greylag Goose N3P is still at Leybourne Lakes it appears.

There was a Great Crested Grebe just off the feeding area.

These were Greater Sallow catkins, Salix capraea, by the side of the Ocean.

and these untidy ones are the male Salix viminalis trees at the far end of The Ocean, pretty much over by now. I wonder whether all the trees here are male, perhaps indicating a single scattered planting. Perhaps there are no females:

There were two Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the Railway Lake, The bird on the left might be a bit chunkier with a thicker bill, so might be the male of this putative pair. The wings seemed to me quite dark, and I did wonder whether this might be two birds closer to the over-wintering continental race Larix fuscus intermedius rather than the more typically British L. f. graellsii. Ohlsen has intermedius as being found overwintering in the South of England with graelsii being found across the whole of the country. However the detailed pattern on the wing, particularly the presence of the small but full window on P9, may indicate just two particularly dark graelsii.

This bird was seen later, on its own, and may perhaps have been a different individual to the two above. At least this one had quite a large window on P9 as well as the one on P10. That would tend to suggest that this bird is a male, but the greater overall size, beak thickness and "viciousness of look" of the males can be very difficult to be sure of unless you have males and females side by side for comparison. This bird does however look quite chunky, and the bill in particular looks very substantial. 

Lesser Black-Backed Gulls of the graelsii/intermedius types have increased greatly since the 1950s, but this contrasts with the serious decline in the nominate fuscus of northern Scandinavia, which is now threatened. 

There were also Herring Gulls on both Lakes and regularly overhead.

A blustery Mote Park with Lichens

Ramalina

There is supposed to be a very large Holm Oak there, Quercus ilex, listed In Bean's Trees and Shrubs, "Mote Park, Kent, 88 × 8 ft (1984);" but I do not remember seeing it at all! I wonder if there is a map of the Mote Park Trees? I shall have to ask Jadie.

This crustose lichen is I think a species of Lecanora, a very common species quite tolerant of high aerial Nitrogen, which Maidstone appears to be very subject to. The tan to brown centres of the "jam-tart" apothecia fruits are just visible, they should become more obvious later. This might be L. chlarotera, one of the commonest species of this very difficult complex.

 
This is the second extremely common crustose species we found, with black "jam tart" fruits and I think this is probably a Lecidiella species such as L. elaeochroma.

I think this one below is a Parmelia species, perhaps P. sulcata. The lobes of this species are stated to have distinct white lines and dots along which soralia form, and you can see the white "crinkling and dotting in this photo. The thallus is said to be rather flat, which I would not have said was obvious in the picture. The closely related P. encryptata can only be separated by DNA analysis.

This is Flavoparmelia caperata, which is said to be apple-green. I think the colouring is easier to see a) in real life, and b) from a distance. Although this is difficult to see in the image below, compare the greeny "greyness" in this particular thallus to that of the very grey lichen to the bottom right, possibly the Parmelia.

Flavoparmelia is not at all common at Mote Park, where there is probably too much N in the air for this species, and we only found this on one of the half dozen trees we looked at. The photosymbiont in Flavoparmelia caperata is thought to be Trebouxia (or Pseudotrebouxia?) gelatinosa, http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/0-306-48173-1_23#page-2, which is thought to be able to produce zoospores and potentially free-living colonies, thus allowing later recombination with other strains of the fungal mycobiont http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=960512.

This large tree trunk is covered in two main lichens, one of the common Xanthoria species (one common one is X. parietina) almost reliant on high N. levels, and then a grey Physcia sp. with very narrow lobes in comparison to the Parmelia we looked at earlier.

This is I think a Phaeophyscia species, a foliose grey lichen very lobulate at the margins, next to developing thalli of Xanthoria:

Cherry or Myrobalan plum - Prunus cerasifera

The hedge-line of trees between Rhubarb and Great Court is in full blossom at present and definitely seems to be Cherry Plum, Prunus cerasifera, rather than the rarer "Wild Plum". 

Conwy

Had a lovely visit to RSPB Conwy this afternoon, and got some photos of a few duck, using the new lens. 

Leybourne at last!

There were a few Common Gulls, Larus canus, on the Ocean, including this one on a buoy at the far end:

Reculver in a Force Five

Great sight of the Dark-bellied Brents flying past out to sea, they are such wonderful animals.

The second bird here MIGHT be a first year, just getting a white v-shaped collar, but still (maybe) with the whitish barring on the flanks. 

Here is a link to an excellent video of a juvenile bird, taken in October 2011, before the white collar develops in mid winter. The white edges to the greater coverts seem very visible, and the generally browner tinges to the dark upper parts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhILLrcXo_w