Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
On Friday I’m looking forward to taking part in Publish 2013;
‘This online conference is for inspiring and equipping both children and adults to discover how writing works in the real world. See how your life experiences, passions, and creativity can become a springboard for becoming a published author or artist!’
My session will be on nature journalling. For more information and to book tickets or to sample the three free preview sessions please follow the link above.
I LET a couple of wasps out of the studio window this afternoon but inevitably the odd one will get trapped indoors and I found this one lying dead on the windowsill in the spare bedroom, giving me a chance to take a closer look at it.
The photograph was taken with my new Fujifilm FinePix S6800 bridge camera. I always like to draw from the photograph before turning to the field guide but comparing photograph and sketch I’m surprised how out of proportion I drew the central part of its face. The little sketch (right) drawn directly from the wasp itself is more confident and proportionate than the one drawn from the computer screen. But the macro photograph brings out details that are barely visible to the naked eye.
As its name suggests the Tree Wasp, Dolichovespula sylvestris, often builds its nest in trees and shrubs but at the weekend we found one nesting on the ground on the grass verge by the path at Walton nature park. It has also been recorded as nesting in barns, empty bee-hives and nestboxes.
In the 3 second film clip below you can see a wasp flying out. I didn’t block the flight path for longer than necessary.
I found a dead Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, Noctua janthe, lying on the path in the greenhouse this morning and, as I’d plugged in my USB microscope to take a closer look at the fungus I decided to take a few shots of the moth too.
The saffron yellow underwings are a striking contrast to the drab upperwings. The border looks as if it has been painted with Impressionist brushstrokes when viewed at 60x.
I suspect that the light blue scales are reflecting daylight from the window.
Zooming in to 200x reveals comb-like ends to the scales.
Coloured scales camouflage the moth when at rest and reveal distracting colours when it is disturbed and it opens its wings. It’s also possible that the coating of scales and the furry edges of the wings help muffle the sound of the moths wingbeats, helping it escape from any bat that hunts by sound alone.
This Ringlet butterfly was a roadside casualty that Barbara spotted when we were in Dalby Forest, North Yorks Moors, last month.
I put it under the microscope to focus on the eye-spots. Each has a bright fleck in the middle, even the smallest of them, which must help give the impression of a gleaming snakelike eye, distracting any attacker either by surprising it or fooling it into pecking the butterfly’s wing instead of its body.
Summer warmth and a few heavy showers have triggered the growth of some small fungi on our dewy back lawn this morning. They’re going to get trimmed off when I get around to cutting the lawn so I pick them to draw and to take some close-ups using my USB microscope.
The cap which is about a centimetre across is smooth with no trace of ridges. It has dark brown gills, which I’d describe as distant as opposed to close or crowded.
In this photograph the gills are emarginate, meaning that there is a notch where they attach to the stem. But the notch isn’t as clear in this cross section of the cap;
The circular stem is hollow and there’s no swelling at its base.
The pattern of growth, as far as I can judge by this little group, is trooping. I couldn’t see any trace of a fairy ring starting to form.
I’m taking spore prints which might help narrow down what kind of fungus it is.
My thanks to Steve Clements for this suggestion;
Most likely a Mottlegill (Panaeolus or Panaeolina) – the commonest one on mown grass round my part of Sheffield is Brown Hay Cap – Panaeolina foenesecii – which is supposed to be slightly hallucinogenic. The spores are blackish, and warted (under the microscope). The gills look mottled under a hand lens.
The Collins Guide calls this species Brown Mottlegill and adds that the ‘dark brown-black’ spores are ‘ellip to lemon-shaped’ which is how they look in 200x photograph that I took with my microscope.
The Garden Snail, Helix aspersa, has a thin, lightweight shell but that still looks cumbersome as it explores a fern-filled crevice in an old wall (see previous posts). As I drew it from a photograph that I’d taken this morning I noticed traces of damage to the shell with what appears to be a healed break in the rim and hairline fracture on the ‘back’ of its shell.
I imagine it being surprised, perhaps by a bird, retracting into its shell then falling from the wall onto the pavement below.
A second snail clung precariously to the base of the stems of Common Ragwort, growing from a crevice near the top of the six foot high wall amongst the fronds of Rusty-back Fern and Wall Rue.
Wall Rue, Asplenium ruta-muraria grows alongside the Rusty-back Fern in the crevices of an old wall in Ossett. It is a common fern of walls and limestone crevices.
Leathery leaves and long wiry roots are useful adaptations for conserving water.
Like the Rusty-back it is a member of the Spleenwort family, used as a herbal remedy for diseases of the spleen and also in the treatment of rickets.
The Rusty-back fern, Ceterach officinarum, has rusty scales on the backs of its leaves. These cover the spore-producing sori and probably help prevent the fern from drying out. During dry spells the fronds roll in at the edges.
Growing to just few inches, this fern is found in dry crevices in limestone and in old mortared walls. A small colony grows on a north-east facing sandstone wall on Station Road, Ossett.
It is best grown in a cold frame, potted rather high, among loam mixed with a large proportion of brick-rubbish, and not over-watered.
Thomas More, British Ferns, 1861
Rusty-back fern is a member of the spleenwort family and was used to treat diseases of the spleen. Legend has it that Cretan sheep with spleen disorders would greedily devour its rootstock.
It’s scientific name Ceterach is said to derive from the Arabic ‘Cheterak’ the name that Eastern physicians used for this plant.
When disturbed the Yellow-tail Moth, Euproctis similis, sticks the end of its abdomen up between its wings. Both male and female have the yellow tip although it is larger in the female.
Some female moths spread pheromones by raising their tails and the males use their feathery antennae to home in on them.
So why does this male raise his ‘tail’ when disturbed? Is it a way to surprise a predator?
It’s the first time that this species has turned up in the moth trap.
Yellow-tail moth caterpillars have been found on Japanese Knotweed, an invasive garden escape which very few native insects feed on, but they’re more likely to feed on sallow, blackthorn and hawthorn.
THERE WERE at least half a dozen Large Yellow Underwings in the moth trap this morning plus some of their smaller relatives but this is the first time that I’ve seen the Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, Notcua fimbriata. This is a male; the female is paler.
It’s more typical of wooded areas than gardens but as the foodplants of its larvae include docks, nettles, brambles, sallows and willows it’s not surprising that it has turned up here.