Orchid update

The caging of orchids has solved the deer problem and the only orchid casualties at the moment are the occasional slug (or similar) damage. Today we actually just passed the orchid total for last year and I am not expecting too many further orchids to appear. Last year we had 221 orchids in total comprised of 204 Common Spotteds, 16 Broad-leaved Helleborines and 1 Heath Spotted. This year to-date we have had 204 Common Spotteds, 17 Broad-leaved Helleborines, 1 Heath Spotted and 1 Twayblade making 223 Orchids in total. Of course they are not the same 204 but most are. The increase of only 1% (so far) compares with a 60% increase last year and a 12% increase the year before. In that sense not a great year but the presence of the Twayblade makes it into a good year for Orchids at The Beeches.

Deer problem

I like seeing the deer in the fields but they are causing an issue. Their appetite for orchids seems to have increased or at least the number of deer visitations has increased because orchid flower heads have been disappearing at a fast pace. I was not going to protect the spikes in the main orchid field this year but I have had to go back on that and put cages around them again this year. Hopefully that will end the carnage!

New Species - Brown Puffball

Another fungi species for the site list - the Brown Puffball (Bovista nigrescens). I removed the slugs around it so rather than see it eaten I could watch it over the time it gradually matured, turning as it does so from white to dark brown. It will end up freeing itself from its tenuous connection into the earth and rolling away with the wind scattering spores as it goes. The photos show it on the day I found it and nine days later.

Grasses

Having been on a grass ID course recently (thank you Gwent Wildlife Trust), I've been surveying the grasses here. My favourite is Quaking Grass (pictured) but I only found three single tiny plants and it doesn't seem to have spread at all in the five years since I first saw it. Other grasses seen so far include Sweet Vernal Grass, Perrenial Rye Grass, Yorkshire Fog, Meadow Foxtail, Crested Dog's Tooth, Rough and Smooth Meadow Grass, Barren Brome, False Oat Grass and Red Fescue. There are others still to identify and I know lots of Common Bent will be along shortly.

Butterfly update

Not a good year so far for butterflies with very few of the normal set around. The one exception here is the Common Blue of which there are loads and loads. I guess it must be based on conditions but also the population here has been building and building over the last few years. I saw six or seven in the space of ten metres today.

Fledging time

The food in our giant feeder is disappearing in double fast time as the eggs hatch and the young need feeding. This tiny blue tit was by the house yesterday getting fed by a parent. We currently have Great Tits, Blue Tits and Sparrows that I know of nesting in the house cavities and plenty more such as Goldfinches, Chaffinches, Greater Spotted Woodpeckers, Robins, Blackbirds, Nuthatches, Marsh Tits etc nesting in the trees nearby.

New Species - Necklace Ground Beetle

This beetle turned up in my porch. It looked similar to Carabus nemoralis in my Collins Insects guide but google tells me that this species is generally absent from Wales. I sent photos to the Invertebrate Recorder and he says that it appears to be Carabus monilis - the Necklace Ground Beetle. I am grateful to the UK Beetle site for the following: "In the UK it is widespread and was formerly common across southern England and the midlands, becoming more local and rare in Wales and further north to the Lake District, but there has been a drastic decrease in recent decades and it is now very local and generally rare, being lost from many of its former sites and now classified as endangered." (From www.ukbeetles.co.uk)