Stinkhorn

Not on my patch but by the lane that leads to us I found this Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) - a new species for me. A very distinctive fungus.

Common Visitor

The Green Woodpecker is becoming a daily visitor. It may be the ant heaps I am uncovering as I cut the fields or maybe it's just a good year for ants here. Here it is hunting for ants on the drive.

My house is full of grasshoppers....

At last count there were in excess of 20 grasshoppers in the porch plus grasshoppers all over the house. I think the above is yet a third species after the Meadow and Field Grasshoppers already identified. These look like the Common Green Grasshopper (Omocestus viridulus) to me (although I don't have a grasshopper book as such so I might be wrong).

Another grasshopper in the house

I don't have to go anywhere to find new grasshoppers - this one was on the front door. A little covered in spiders web but identifiable as a Field Grasshopper (Chorthippus brunneus).

Bed and breakfast

There are a number of Six -spot Burnets around and I found these two asleep at the end of the day. Obviously if you are a day-flying moth there is no place better to rest up than on Knapweed leaving you free to have breakfast as soon as you wake up!

Good year for grasshoppers

There is a lot of wildlife here that is having a bad year - butterflies, swallows and sparrows for example. Grasshoppers are having a great year however. Each step in the field can initiate a swarm of fleeing grasshoppers. I left the front door open for a while and came back to find five Meadow Grasshoppers in the porch. The photo is one of the porch squatters sitting on the doormat.

New Species - Whitethroat

No photo but I saw a Whitethroat in the garden for the first time. I was alerted by its call which I didn't recognize but I knew it was different so I got the binos out to see what was making the call.

White Plume Moth

Bindweed can be a bit dominant so I was pulling some of it up when I disturbed one of the species that comes with it - the White Plume Moth (Pterophorus pentadactyla). This extravagantly coiffured moth is one of the easier moths to identify.

Quaking Grass

I first found the delightful Quaking Grass (Briza media) in 2014 and I was hoping that it would spread or that I would find more pockets of it but here we are two years later and I can still only find a couple of spikes of it in exactly the same place where it was two years ago and indeed last year. In the background is the group of Hygrocybe ingrata that I reported on last post.

Hygrocybe ingrata - rare waxcap in June!

This waxcap (that has no English name) occurred last year here at The Beeches - in October. I believe that was the first record for Monmouthshire at the time. It is here again in June (well actually 1st of July but it is a few days old judging by its appearance). I have seen another waxcap here a few days ago H. citrinovirens - the Citrine Waxcap so it must be the strange weather we are having that is bringing them out early.