100 up , Celebrations cancelled

A perfect winter birdwatching day on Saturday, great light, blue skies. A 5 hour shift on the patch produced half of bugger all. Ok, not quite, as there was a Great Crested Grebe on the fishing pool, which is pretty unusual for January. Aside from that, eventually snagged a Goldcrest and a got eyes one of the few House Sparrows that populate the designated patch for the bioblitz.I can't remember the last time I birded the patch on a such a day and failed to see a single Buzzard or Green Woodpecker. Very odd.
I added Crab Apple, that I knew I had, but actually found another.Cherry Laurel too. Fungi-wise, a few more noted, ID's to be worked on.

Through the week I had processed and confirmed, a few including the Fungi Witches Butter

Utterly unbutterly

and Purple Jelly Disc

and a new plant for me, Wood Sage

Wood Sage

The sun brought out a Yellow Dung Fly, and a walk through the wood revealed an unexpected Red Campion in flower.

Red Campion..100 UP 

Sunday was dire.

So with additions from the weeks homework, I moved up to 100 species...yea !


So why the downer ? Well, I was pretty pissed off a few weeks ago to see the set aside had been given a grade 1 haircut. This was presumably because the footpath was getting a bit narrow, but the response had all the finesse of an ataxic Edward Scissorhands. I tried to consolidate myself that hither too dormant species of plant may show now the lighting had improved. However , on Saturday I noted  Edward had returned and aimed his reaper at anything pointing horizontally up to about 2 meters. So, after an excellent lepidoptera year, a substansial number of eggs will have been obliterated, including this Purple Hairstreak one I found the other week. I wish I had snipped it off and reared it now.

RIP Purple Hairstreak August 2013-Jan 2014.

Birds 52
Plants 23
Fungi 15
Mammals 3
Diptera 2
Woodlice 1
Galls 3
Coleoptera 1