Plodding through the Snowdrops

I was well aware that the pan listing would get tougher after the initial flurry during this month. Its been very quiet on the birding front this weekend, with not a single species added, despite trying very hard to dig out a Treecreeper, Mipit or even a Kestrel. I did two 3 hour sessions strolling around the patch, and here are the key finds.
  The first flowering  Snowdrops of the year !

Also found in flower was this Lesser Periwinkle

The only other plants I identified were Reed Mace and Duck Weed ( I was getting desperate on Saturday). Still, they all count.
The only creature I added was this Leopard Slug, but that's the beauty of pan listing, at least I'm finding stuff, and stuff I've never seen before. If I was purely birding, it would be a very dull and unchallenging month

Limax maximus

On the Fungi front I had forgotten the name of Coral Spot until fellow local pan-lister flagged some up on his blog ( Cheers JK ;0 )
It was one waiting in the wings so can now go on the list.
One I hadn't heard of, was the White Brain Fungus, and it was with interest I saw this had only been recorded in the county 18 times previous the Shenstone find. I am happy to add the 20th record for VC37, having spotted this tiny fungi myself in the wood shortly after the Snowdrop find.

I had walked past this many times and wandered what it was. Whilst reading my Gall book the other day I noticed an almost identical picture to one I had taken last week. It's a Crown Gall caused by Agrobacterium tumefaciens

Crown Gall on Birch

Considering the lack of avian additions, and the weather, I was quite satisfied with 10 additions to last weeks total, especially the diversity and some new species learnt about.

Species Total 110