Royal mint

There's a substantial margin of flowering water mint (Mentha aquatica) along the Mon and Brecon canal at South Sebastopol at the moment that's attracting a good variety of invertebrate interest. Common hoverflies along with other assorted diptera are augmented by a few butterflies. This clouded yellow was found along with a small copper and green veined white. Diptera of note included this Tachina fera.

Freshwater molluscs

Not much to shout home about at Llandegfedd Reservoir yesterday. A little egret close to the Green Pool hide was confiding and at least three common sandpiper were very focal. Also calling well were many dark bush cricket. The receding water levels had also exposed many thousands of freshwater molluscs, these were ear pond snail Lymnaea auricularia.



What is over mature?

According to my copy of Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Great Britain and Ireland (Brooks & Lewington)this black tailed skimmer photographed Thursday evening at Garn Lakes Local Nature Reserve is 'over mature'. Sure enough it clearly wasn't in its first flush of youth (note some wing wear) and the same oracle suggests its flight period to be over by the time the Green Man Festival pitches its first tent, so this one was skimming on borrowed time.

Wrestling with this term and like a pensioner who's misplaced his reading glasses I stumbled around during Friday night shopping looking for some everyday examples of over maturity along the well stocked aisles of Tesco's Abertillery. The dairy section was the most obvious place for 'over maturity' and this extra mature cheddar delivered as any self respecting dairy counter should. Breezing past the Tena pants and over 50's Wellbeing vitamins I resisted the temptation to draw any parallels between these products and my quest . Other than the cheese and wine there were surprising few other products that saw a market opportunity in decay, until I reached the famed reduced section. Here over maturity was a pre-requiste. Discounted sad and forlorn examples of battered fruit and veg and other assorted items close to their sell by date were left only to be periodically tended by shop care workers. An apple that was soft and bruised sat cheek by jowl with pre-packaged rocket salad that was wet and flat and a bunch of petal shedding tulips were propped up in a black bucket marked, flower zimmer. So there you have it if this black tailed skimmer was to be found on a supermarket shelf it would surely be past its best before date and marked down for a quick sale- that's over mature!

   

The long and short of it

 

A few hardy souls turned out for the South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre (SEWBReC) Bioblitz at Llantarnam Abbey today. The Abbey and its grounds has until recently been a bit of an unknown quantity hitherto only known for its lesser horseshoe bat colony. The aim of the assembled recorders was to put the site firmly on the biological recording map.

Short winged conehead

Long winged conehead

It was unfortunate that the weather was not conducive to recording invertebrates but in my capacity as County Recorder for Orthoptera I chalked up a fair list of long and short winged conehead, speckled and dark bush cricket, common green, meadow and field grasshoppers and common earwig. 

Elegant

As mentioned in my previous posting the muddy margins of Llandgefedd Reservoir are ideal for passage waders etc. at the moment. August is always good for little erget at this site and there were at least four birds on offer yesterday feeding close to the waters edge. Five oystercatcher were something of a surprise, supported by singles of common and green sandpiper and ringed plover. Other notable birds included a reed warbler, kingfisher, two little grebe, at least two great black backed gull, and the black swan continues to hang around closely associating with a pair of mutes. It was interesting to note that almost all of the Canada geese left due south at about 7pm suggesting that they roost elsewhere.

The liverwort Ricca cavernosa was plentiful around Green Pool bay.

Top of the pops

Niko Tinbergen hit the mark when he referred to naturalists as curious. In my scavenging for flora and fauna hitherto unrecorded in this embarrassingly poorly recorded corner of the principality I found this bottle partly exposed from the sphagnum margins of Coity Pond. Although well weathered the bottle was complete with a tightly fitting cap emblazoned with some long lost words. In Time Team fashion I carefully exposed the bottle from the mud and moss like a true archaeologist, carrying it to the bankside as if bearing a gift.  Whilst examining the bottle a wave of nostalgia washed over me. I remembered with affection  the summer's of my youth when healthy young lads played cricket or rolled their sleeves up before climbing trees, only to quench their thirst with a bottle of deposit paid Corona lemonade afterwards.

You will have probably realised by now that all this talk about deposit paid soft drinks bottles masks a rather lightweight session of wildlife spotting around the pond. For a water body of this size and in early August it is reasonable to expect a good population of damselflies. On the contrary the two common blue damselfly that showed were trumped only by a couple of black darter. Bird wise a reed bunting called and linnet flew overhead. 

Black and white

The dis-harmony that was on display between these two species of swan back in the breeding season has melted away as both serenely fed in the shallows of Green Pool Bay at Llandegfedd Reservoir. With a tasty drawdown zone now developing there's been a dribble of waders passing through. Yesterday evening I touched base with a redshank, a ringed plover and a common sandpiper. A couple of kingfishers chased about in characteristic excited fashion and a pair of reed warbler were still carrying food. Up to half a dozen black-tailed skimmer were active along with many marbled white butterflies.

Aye Aye Captain

After all the doom and gloom of recent poor butterfly years it seems this year has bucked the trend. Grassland habitat is alive at the moment with various skippers, ringlets, meadows browns and so on. Having heard on the grapevine that the remarkable coloniser the Essex skipper has now reached Blaenavon I took it upon myself to visit that much talked about 'derelict' site The British, in search of this climate change benefiter. Of the 29 skippers examined through my x10 optical aid five sported those diagnostic black tipped antennae. However the most amazing thing of my visit was that I didn't fall down an 100ft open flooded mine shaft, I wasn't knocked down by hoards of rampaging teenagers on motorbikes, nor did I stumble across any rusting barrels of glow in the dark toxic chemicals. In fact contrary to popular media commentary the site is tranquil accessible green space full of cultural and natural heritage!

BSBI at The British

The assembled masses



I was pleased to be able to attend a Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) field visit to The British yesterday led by joint vice county recorders Elsa Wood and Steph Tyler. My role was to help track down some of the more interesting plants previously recorded at the site in the days when Trevor Evans was county recorder. On the must see list was moonwort, bog pimpernel, round leaved sundew, marsh st johns wort, musk, ivy leaved bellflower, petty whin and bog asphodel etc. A marathon five hour session failed to locate many of the target species due to the overwhelming amount of bracken that's taken a hold over much of the site. In place's the often head height vegetation proved a challenge to get through! Nonetheless we did manage to find an interested mire habitat supporting several of the aforementioned plants.

Bog pimpernel



Apart from plants much more was on offer including many marbled white and singles of grayling and small pearl bordered fritillary butterflies, the day flying mint moth Pyrausta purpuralis was also found. Mottled grasshopper was common on areas of sparsely vegetated colliery spoil and a single golden ringed dragonfly put in an appearance. Although now pushing toward the end of July there was still a surprising amount of bird song to pick out. At least two yellowhammer were still singing with whitethroat, whinchat, redpoll, peregrine and garden warbler as a supporting cast.

Grayling in characteristic closed winged pose

Nice site/sight

Coldwater Ponds are a couple of nice artificial fishing lakes at Llanelly Hill. Surrounded in semi -improved grassland complete with ringlets, small skippers and meadow browns the water bodies are characterised by an abundant population of fringed water lily. Ideal for odonata therefore with large red, blue tailed and azure damselflies dominating, along with several rather territorial four spotted chasers. There were also several hawker dragonflies on the wing which proved tricky to identify but were likely to be common hawker.

Gull dispersal



The recent trickle of black headed gull dispersing from their breeding grounds is now turning into a flood. Present at Tredegar House Lake yesterday evening were around 50 birds including at least four juv/imm birds. The adult with colour ring 25J9 is a banker for a Cotswold Water Park bird - will send to BTO but not confident of an early response if at all. Other interesting snippets in common blue, red eyed and blue tailed damselfly and a rather tatty emperor dragonfly.



A break from TMS

Four spotted chaser

Broad bodied chaser

Emerald damselfly

Scarce blue tailed damselfly

In the barren industrial wastelands of Gwent where the flat capped woodbine smoking unemployed still queue at the labour exchange and where nature conservationists fear to tread, giant hogweed is almost unknown. I was somewhat surprised to find this fine specimen from within the boundaries of a Welsh Water covered reservoir at Varteg. Given this organisations recent indifferent record in successfully managing land for biodiversity - for recent example see the cutting down of species rich grassland at a covered reservoir on the Blorenge - its a safe bet that this individual has been inadvertently introduced by those responsible for grounds maintenance at the Varteg site.

Elsewhere a break from Test Match Special saw me walking around the reedbed area of Garn Lakes LNR looking for odonata. Present were many broad bodied chasers, several four spotted chasers and damselflies of the emerald, common blue, large red and scarce blue tailed varieties. Other note worthies included small skipper, ringlet and marbled white butterflies along with a single snipe several reed bunting and a flyover cormorant.







Compendium of odonata

White legged damselfly

Four spotted chaser

Large red damselfly

Scarce blue tailed damselfly

Blue tailed damselfly

Recent notables:

6 July, Blorenge - Whinchat, imm Wheatear, Emporer dragonfly, Broad bodied chaser, Golden ringed dragonfly, Scarce blue tailed damselfly, Large red damselfly, Blue tailed damselfly, Common blue damselfly.

Nutrient deficient



If this water body at Cefn garn yr erw on the county borough border between Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen were to visit the pond doctor it would certainly be prescribed an emergency dose of multi-vitamins. Oligotrophic or nutrient deficient ponds are characteristic of the uplands in north west Gwent. The many former industrial ponds in this area collectively form an important landscape network that hitherto has slipped under the radar of discerning traditional conservationists. 



Anticipating a change in weather conditions last Thursday evening I had a 'just popping out for hour' moment in the hope of some freshly emerged odonata. I didn't however bargain for a strong upland breeze that suppressed activity. The best I could muster was a large unidentified in flight dragonfly, a single snipe and a wind battered brown china mark moth. 



Glazed-over-bury

There's something about the Glastonbury Festival that doesn't cut the mustard with me anymore. Gone is the ripped jeans and Afghan coat wearing free festival of my youth to be replaced by the commercial success of chart topping artists with vintage cabaret acts thrown in to attract empty nesters with disposal income. Looking at this years line up I struggled to see anything worthy of the ticket prices other than Billy Bragg who single handedly kept the Trotsky Stage going with the support the miners, down with Thatcher, smash the poll tax mantra. Give me Download any day!

However, the Glastonbury affect was felt in the Valley Naturalist household as to allow our daughter and her partner to attend this mud fest we agreed to look after our two year old Grand daughter over the extended weekend. This was great but it did limit biological recording activities to drive by snap shots and duck feeding visits. I now fully appreciate the trauma endured by young mums and grand parents in cleaning  Canada goose droppings from within the tyre treads of a push chair!

A collective of ad hoc records goes something like this:

28 June. Llantarnam Ponds - Common blue, azure, blue tailed and large red damselfies.

28 June. Cwmbran Boating Lake - Blue tailed, azure and beautiful demoiselle damselflies

29 June. Magor Car Park - Lucerne and white stonecrop.

29 June. Magor Marsh - Emperor dragonfly 

30 June - Garn Lakes - Broad bodied chaser (3)

1 July - Llantarnam Industrial Estate - Narrow-bordered five spot burnet moth and the bee mimic hoverfly Volucella bombylans var. plumata 



161 not out!

An evenings scramble around Coity Pond, Blaenavon was full of valley naturalist delights. First up was a record busting count of fruiting moonwort. In a small area of partly vegetated coal spoil I chalked up a total of 161, but many more could have been added if I hadn't been clock watching.



On reaching the wetland I was greeted by a pair of tufted duck which eventually took flight towards the northern end of the pond producing some interesting vocalisations on the way. I looked for the fir clubmoss located last year (or was it the year before?) and was successful in relocating.

A female mallard with five chicks was disturbed from a hiding place amongst waterside rush  provoking the adult into a flapping feigning frenzy. Other assorted birds included a male stonechat, distant calling peregrine and a reeling grasshopper warbler. On the issue of grasshopper warbler I remember a statement on Springwatch a couple of weeks ago that reeling had now ceased. Sorry Springwatch this is not my experience as I have  recorded reeling as late as mid July.  



Idle speculation

This is a late posting based on a visit to Llandegfedd Reservoir on Sunday 16th June. I was a little concerned that the meadows around The Island were being grazed heavily in early spring this year. But it seems Welsh Water has got the balance right as the floristic diversity is as good as ever, with many thousands of orchids and yellow rattle dominating the sward. Nonetheless, this success masks some concern within ornithological ranks that the SSSI is being neglected and therefore contributing to declines in species such as wigeon. There will of cause be many reasons why wildfowl numbers fluctuate but trends in numbers do appear downward - although no definitive survey has been conducted. I certainly remember from the 1970's/80's clouds of grazing wigeon using The Island to feed. As you can see from the image below the same area is now out of bounds to wildfowl (other than Canada Goose) due to a thick mature shroud of willow around the shoreline that prevents access for grazing birds.