Common Dog-Violet

The third violet is one of the commonest. This is a particularly fine specimen found on my walk through Rackham Wood yesterday. The things to note about it are the pointy sepals, the flower stalk arising from the shoot and not the base and the spur being much paler than the rest of the flower. The spur is also slightly notched at its end the way some people's noses are. It doesn't smell or have any hairs (i.e. it is glabrous). Another feature noted in Rose is the nectar lines are very prominent and branched on the lower petal, but I find this a bit too variable to be of much use. This plant is a textbook example of the species.

White dead-nettle

The white dead-nettle, Lamium album,  is just coming into flower. It often grows amongst stinging nettles (as in this case) and even when it doesn't, does such a good job of impersonation that few can be persuaded to touch the plant before the heroic botanist.
Grigson tells us one of the local names is Adam-and-Eve-in-the-Bower: if you invert the flower the black and gold stamens lie side-by-side like two human figures.
I must check this out next time I come across it.
This was in Rackham Woods on the edge of Amberley Brooks where I spent a very pleasant but futile afternoon seeking out the lesser-spotted woodpecker before it becomes extinct in Sussex.

Snake's head fritillary

Surely one of our prettiest native flowers? 
It wasn't described until the sixteenth century by Gerard, but then only as a garden plant. The first description of it in the wild wasn't until 1736. This led some to feel that it must be a garden escapee.
Generally it is now regarded as a native plant although Mr Grigson didn't think so.
The genus name derives from fritillus or dice-box and the specific from the apparent resemblance of the petals to guinea-fowl feathers.
The largest concentration of these in the UK is at North Meadow near Cricklade, Wiltshire in the Thames valley. The Magdalen College meadow in Oxford is another famous site and there's a stunning photo of it in Flora Britannica.

Cuckoo-pint/Lords and Ladies

 
I'm not going to have time to do justice to this plant tonight. Arum maculatum or Cuckoo-pint or Lords and Ladies or Wild Arum or Snake's head, etc. is a very common plant and one of the first to push up green leaves in the new year.
Its common names relate to its resemblance to male and female genitalia, with Cuckoo-pint meaning 'cuckoo's penis'. 
There is an amazing book of photographs and lore associated with this plant which has its own website. 

Honesty

 Another crucifer today: honesty or Lunaria annua. Pretty purple flowers and the better known seed heads that become transparent on drying and used in flower arrangements. 
It is native to the Balkans and south west asia, now naturalised throughout much of the temperate world.

Garlic mustard

This came out better than expected, photographically. It was an accident of course. 
This is garlic mustard or Jack-by-the-hedge, Alliaria petiolata. A common plant, especially on chalk. It smells garlicky when bruised and was widely used in cooking, either as an addition to salads or boiled to make a sauce.
It was introduced to the US in the nineteenth century for this purpose and has become an invasive weed, producing chemicals that suppress the mycorrhizal fungi there (but not here in its native range).
It is also the food plant of orange tip butterflies, the year's first of which I saw a week ago. 

Common Shrew

Came across this whilst doing the WeBS survey on Friday: a common shrew, Sorex araneus. They are widespread and common, as the name suggests, being one of Europe's commonest mammals. Consequently they feature on the menu of many a predator. They are largely nocturnal to avoid such a culinary fate. They need to consume 2-3x their own mass each day and can starve to death in a few as five hours. They are unable to store sufficient fat to hibernate so are active year-round. I'm not really sure what this one succumbed to.

Dove's-foot Crane's-bill

I completely forgot to post yesterday despite ample time, so two posts today to make up.
This was growing at the base of the wall on the pavement where several other plant-posts have originated. There are an extraordinary number of species growing along this 100m stretch of wall, either unnoticed or considered mere 'weeds' by the average pedestrian. I must count them one day. 
Dove's-foot Crane's-bill, Geranium molle, looks like Small-flowered Crane's-bill but is distinguished by having long hairs rather than adpressed down on the stems, all ten stamens have anthers (rather than just five) and the fruits are smooth (see microscope pic).

Water Horsetail

I was down on Lewes Brooks RSPB reserve early this morning doing a WeBS survey and noticed the water horsetail, Equisetum fluviatile, was coming up. It has yet to develop the whorled branches but is not difficult to identify. Not all the stems develop a terminal cone. In cross-section the stems are hollow with a thin circular wall. 

Great Horsetail

 











I found this on my Ouse riverbank walk the other day. It's Great Horsetail or Equisetum telmateia. 
It's in the same division as the ferns (Pteridophyta) as it reproduces by spores rather than seeds. It's one of two species in the genus that produce non-green cone-bearing shoots in Spring before the green, branched shoots that appear in Summer.  It is one of the living fossils, being the only surviving genus from a class of plants that dominated the land back in the Carboniferous period when coal was being formed. Some species were trees reaching 30m in height.

"Equisetopsida" by Rror Licensed under

 CC BY-SA 3.0

Herring Gull

For those who live in a seaside town plagued by herring gulls nesting on roofs and stealing food from their hands, the idea that they're a Red List species comes as something of a shock. Yet the population of Larus argentatus has plummeted over the last two decades. One reason given is the loss of open land-fill domestic waste sites.
They are impressive birds, flying at close quarters to us humans in a way that eagles and other large species of bird seldom do. No wonder Jonathan Bach chose a seagull as his protagonist.

Large Bee-fly

Another harbinger of Spring: the large bee-fly, Bombylius major. 
I love these funny creatures with their ridiculous permanently protruding proboscii. They hover about before zooming in to drink nectar from the primroses and cherry blossom. When they've had sufficient they choose a sunny patch of bare earth or wall to kick back and relax.
Apparently they're a mysterious bunch, the bee-flies. Prolific in species terms but poorly understood scientifically in terms of life-cycle. The majority are parasitic at the larval stage, with some being host-specific while others are more opportunistic. 
They belong to the order Diptera, the true flies. Estimated to contain around a quarter of a million species of which only about half have been described. They are distinguished by having a pair of wings on their mesothorax and sucking mouthparts.
This is the first fly on the blog and surely one of the most popular! 

Cuckoo Flower or Lady's Smock

Another spring classic, this is found in damp grassy ditches and field margins. Cardamine pratensis has one of the longest lists of local vernacular names in Mr Grigson's master work. It appears to be widely associated with bad luck if picked so is not really used medicinally. In the old days smock was use as innuendo for a female desired sexually, as in 'a bit of skirt'. 
It's part of the Brassicaceae or cabbage family, formerly known as the Cruciferae or crucifers on account of their having four petals arranged in a cross. I found this today walking along the bank of the Ouse.
The more I reflect, the more it's as if some massive switch was thrown whilst we were away in Morocco, signalling the start of Spring proper. This has been especially noticeable with the garden bird-feeders. Before we went I was re-filling the big seed feeder every two to three days. I filled it when we got back and

more than a week later it's still not empty, with the ones nearest the house virtually untouched. The peanuts have been shunned completely. 
I'm sure the reason for this is the dispersal of wintering flocks now that the breeding hormones have kicked in. The birds have all become territorial and consequently anti-social (barring the house sparrows, wherever they are). 
On my walk today I saw two crows' nests with sitting birds, along with magpies and blackbirds gathering nesting material. I also heard the first willow warbler of the year, saw three peregrines at the same time (a male and female with another male somewhat apart) and a buzzard. Yesterday I saw that the ravens have two fledglings only days away from leaving the nest.
Nice.

Two-Toothed Door Snail

I love this photo. I was looking at the lichens and bryophytes at about head height on a mature oak on the Downs a couple of weeks ago. Imagine my surprise when I saw this sticking out of a hole in the lichen. 
 

Initially I thought someone must have put it there, but removing it soon revealed it was alive and well.
It's the first land mollusc on the blog and nice to have such a groovy one: the two-toothed door snail or Clausilia bidentata. I don't think I've seen one before but they're fairly common, found throughout the British Isles, usually in woodland. They are most active at night or when it's wet. It had rained heavily before my walk and this encourages them to climb trees to graze on lichens and algae.
Molluscs are the second largest phylum in the animal kingdom after arthropods. However there are 85,000 described species compared with 1.2 - 10 million arthropods. Snails are in the class Gastropoda and the family Clausiliidae.

Tulip

Spring for most of us means tree blossoms (Prunus spp.) and flowering bulbs (snowdrops, daffodils, hyacinths, etc.). 
Of the latter, the tulip, Tulipa x gesneriana, is surely one of the best known. The lady we bought our house from was very keen on cut flowers from the garden. As a result we have impressive numbers of tulips. They have recently come into flower and will continue to flower for the next six or so weeks.
They don't smell, but they are pretty.

Hyacinth

Just before they go I thought it'd be nice to include the old hyacinth, Hyacinthus orientalis. I like the smell.
 

Marsh-marigold

Two rather over exposed pictures of Caltha palustris or Marsh-marigold. 
It is an almost garish, bold yellow flower which is a magnet for insects, the identities of which seem unknowable to me. 
However, they are one of the joys of the 'new' pond (it's two years old). 
Another late post. It's funny: I tried to do this (identify a new species each day) a few years ago, but was writing my findings down in a book. It wasn't long before I started missing days and long before March I'd stopped altogether. Despite the fact that I know of only a handful of friends who look at the blog from time to time, it's a remarkable psychological trick that makes one feel the need to post each day. A sort of 'invisible hand' peer pressure!

Small Tortoiseshell

Not the greatest picture but I was very excited to see the first butterfly in the garden this year. It's a small tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae. It is one of our commonest butterflies in the British Isles and, in the south at least, has two broods per year. The second brood emerges in September - October and hibernates over winter to emerge in the first warm days of spring. Unlike many species these are not colonial breeders; rather they range about and lay eggs whenever favourable habitat is encountered. They sometimes travel considerable distances, regularly crossing the English Channel. 
They are creatures of habit: the males get up around 10am (when it's nice weather), fly around for a couple of hours feeding and enjoying the sun, then after lunch they find a suitable territory in a sheltered sunny south-facing spot near nettles and fly up to check out any other small tortoiseshells flying past. If male, they have a 'fly-off' which involves spiralling up just behind and above the opponent before diving down and repeating. The winner stays put, but if after about an hour and a half he's had no luck with the ladies he finds another territory and hangs out until around tea time when he calls it a day. 
Should a lady pass she is pursued at great speed, sometimes for up to three hours, before getting down and dirty in the nettle-patch. The lady then spends the rest of her time selecting with great care the ideal nettle leaf to lay eggs on. They lay 60 - 100 eggs at a time, usually underneath the topmost leaf on an edge of a nettle patch in full sun. 
The Large Tortoiseshell used to be widespread in the wooded areas of southern Britain but mysteriously declined and became extinct around 40 years ago. 
I must just put in a pitch for the book from which the above information was gleaned: The Butterflies of Britain and Ireland by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington. The former is Professor of Ecology at Oxford; the latter is surely one of the best wildlife illustrators around today. The illustrations in this book are exquisite and the text is distilled deep knowledge about these creatures. It's published by British Wildlife Publishing who do the British Wildlife magazine and several other field guides which are highly recommended.
So we're more than a quarter of the way through the year and approaching the hundredth post. To be honest it hasn't been that difficult finding species and I suspect it will be difficult deciding which to leave out as spring progresses, but I do find myself wondering which new species I'll be able to find next January, February and March.

Wood Spurge

This is Wood Spurge or Euphorbia amygdaloides. It is a striking plant and as a result has suffered the attention of horticulturists to provide a variety of cultivars. I suspect this is one such as it was growing at the end of a driveway just round the corner. The genus has distinctive flowers with weird 'glands' and large bracts (which might be mistaken for green petals) which look a bit like ruff collars. The glands are the small crescent-shaped things around the flower.
The flowers are borne in an umbel.
I've done two today to bring up the number of species posted to the number of days in the year. At least I think that's right. Will double-check that tomorrow.

Cream-Coloured Courser

"Cream-coloured Courser" by Shah Jahan - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0

Although I didn't manage to decent picture of the adult birds and have used one from the interweb, the one of the babies was taken on the way back from the Chiggaga dunes in eastern Morocco. Ahmed, our driver, stopped and picked them up for a minute to show us. 
They are Cream-coloured Coursers, Cursorius cursor. I'd never seen one before but my brain must have absorbed their image and name from the bird books I've looked at over the years because the name 'courser' came immediately to mind. 
There are other coloured coursers, of course, but they are not named by their colour, if you see what I mean. (e.g. Temminck's courser.)

Northern Raven

Common Raven by Diliff Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Just to complete our local chalk-cliff nesting birds, the common or northern raven is presented.
They used to be common but ten years ago there were only five pairs nesting in Sussex with all apart from the Lewes birds nesting on coastal cliffs. They mate for life, which can be more than twenty years. 
Apart from their great size they can be identified by their heavy roman nose bill and shaggy breeches. In flight they have a very distinctive call, usually rendered as "prruk" in guidebooks. "The gentle prukking of the ravens" is a phrase that has stuck in my mind from somewhere. It is a sound best heard in remote silent mountain valleys. 
As a footnote: I published this when on holiday in Morocco from the south-east side of the High Atlas mountains en route to the desert. In the desert the most noticeable birds were the ravens. They were of the subspecies C. c. tingitanus and are the smallest of the raven subspecies.
 

Dromedary camel

"Camel, NSW, 07.07.2007" by Jjron - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3. 

Most people know that this is a camel, and that there is another camel with two humps. This is the dromedary camel, Camelus dromedarius, which is native to the Middle East and the horn of Africa. It has been widely domesticated in dry regions. The other is the two-humped one, C. bactrianus, which is found in Central Asia.
They both belong to the genus Camelus. The family they belong to is Camelidae and this contains four other species all from South America: llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña. The family is part of the same order as the one sheep belong to: Artiodactyla or even-toed ungulates. 

I'm posting this as we've all just come back from Morocco where we drove from Marrakech out over the High Atlas to Skoura, Zagoura and a night camping (or should I say 'glamping') in the Dunes of Chiggaga.

Unfortunately internet connection was virtually non-existent so I had pre-prepared some posts which I managed to publish from Zagora as a 'batch'. 

More unfortunately I got food poisoning yesterday and still feel very poorly! So this will be all for today and I'll catch up with two tomorrow.