Tag: Keyworth

SUNDAY 19TH APRIL 2020

KEYWORTH

A few hours (oops sorry Mr Gove – just the one permitted hour) along Lings Lane in the hope of a passing migrant but Swallow and Whitethroat were the only summer visitors though the latter obliged with a fleeting pose.

Whitethroat

And nearby a female Linnet sat watching the world go by for several minutes.

Linnet

I found the most severe case of Ash die-back I have so far seen, in a hedge along Lings. It is a mature tree but has been flailed as a hedge plant and looks to be entirely dead or soon to be – no attempt to flower or leaf up.

Candidates for Midland Hawthorn are easy to pick out at the moment as they are inclined to come into flower a week or two earlier than their more frequent congener. This one has the requisite two styles but the leaves would not have drawn my suspicion.

Midland Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata)

Cuckooflower has multiplied in Keyworth Meadow since the hay crop has been taken off annually and the Cow Parsley that had moved in after years of poor management has all but disappeared. There were no Cuckoos though and since I haven’t seen or heard one in the parish for several years now I don’t expect I ever will again. The chilly NE wind didn’t put off the butterflies.

Orange-tip on Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis)

And here’s a Swallow Prominent that was only half attracted to the light trap a couple of days ago.

Swallow Prominent

FRIDAY 7TH JUNE 2019

KEYWORTH BURIAL GROUND MEADOW

Before the forecast rain set in around 11am, I made a plant inventory of our sown wildflower meadow. I wish I’d done this annually since it was created as its ups and downs are so pronounced that I am losing track of them via the casual basis of my recording. You can read more about it on the Keyworth Meadow website but basically it started badly in 2012, was outstanding in 2013, slowly deteriorated (despite ideal management – thanks to Norman Davill, our neighbouring farmer) and in 2018 looked to be a dead loss.

However over the past winter, Norman’s sheep have done a grand job and they were allowed to stay until mid May. Now it seems, the False Oat-grass, so dominant last year, had been magicked away and most of the desirable herbs are still there. A few more years of late summer haymaking and winter grazing should see it improving still further – fingers crossed.

Bird's-foot Trefoil
Bird’s-foot Trefoil

In the early years, the Bird’s-foot Trefoil flowers were all yellow and I thought we had been sold some continental seed but now its all ‘eggs and bacon’ just as it should be.

This little lass is rather striking isn’t she? (Not a patch on Tannavi though!) It’s Urophora stylata, a picture-winged fly of the family Tephritidae.

Urophora stylata
Urophora stylata

The black extension of the abdomen is an ovipositor which they use to lay their eggs in plant tissue often resulting in gall formation. I believe this one likes thistles though it was resting on a willow-herb.

I like it when a photo comes out as I had hoped. This shows the female flowers at the top and the largely spent male flowers at the bottom on an inflorescence of Salad Burnet Poterium sanguisorba. The ones in between are bisexual.

Salad Burnet
Salad Burnet

SUNDAY 2ND JUNE 2019

KEYWORTH

By this time last year the sown wildflower meadow at the burial ground was rampant with False Oat Grass and hardly anything in the way of the desirable plants were showing. It seemed that the diversity had seen a relentless demise. Over the winter however, the neighbouring sheep had been allowed to graze and I only turned them out about two weeks ago at which time the only plants with any height were Nettles which have colonised some of the drier areas on the old ridges though the sward obviously held quite a diversity. Today I was delighted to see some of the introduced plants maturing and Ragged Robin, Hay Rattle, Hairy and Smooth Tare, Common Vetch and Bird’s-foot Trefoil for example were all flowering. It seems though that the once dominant Ox-eye Daisy and Yorkshire-fog are much declined and Soft Brome is now dominant.

Mother Shipton

The best thing though, as it indicates good grassland habitat was this Mother Shipton Euclidia mi– I have only seen them before at East Leake Station and a few other places but it is nice to know that they have found Keyworth – I’m guessing it’s a first for the village in many decades.

This was a first for the village last year:

Thorow -wax

Bupleurum ovalifolium used to grow as a cornfield weed though it was very rare by the time of the ‘latest’ flora of Nottinghamshire (1963) when it was known from three sites in the county and it is now extinct as a wild plant in Britain. This plant originates from a sown or planted border nearby, whose parents had managed to jump the cultivation. There is I think, just the one plant, so it may be the last. It used to be called Hare’s Ear though the name Thorow-wax originates from 1548 when William Turner wrote that the “stalke waxeth thorowe the leaues”.

TUESDAY 14TH MAY 2019

KEYWORTH.

The garden moth trap is slowly getting worthwhile again after a major lull during last week’s horrid weather. Yesterday morning there were just two Light-brown Apple Moths but today saw the year’s first Pale Tussock, 3rd Waved Umber, 5th Double-striped Pug and 50th Shuttle-shaped Dart.

Double-striped Pug
Pale Tussock

GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY.

Grizzled Skipper

Barnston Cutting south of the A6006 has been managed by Butterfly Conservation and Notts BAP volunteers for the Grizzled Skipper population and I’m pleased to say that their efforts (including mine occasionally) are paying off as I reckon I saw about ten over a 500 metre stretch.

There were also a few Brown Argus and a Treble-bar moth.

Treble-bar

There is also a terrific variety of plants to be found here with at least two “species” of Hawkweed as well as Field Scabious, Rustyback, Common Cornsalad and a Polypody to name a few that spring to mind

Rustyback

The Rustyback is a new site for Nottinghamshire.