July 2020: Perennial Centaury at Gwennap Head, Cornwall

On 11th July we took a drive down to the far west of Cornwall, to Gwennap Head to look for the rare plant, Perennial Centaury, one I'd never seen before. In the UK it only grows in two sites as a native species, one in Pembrokeshire and this one in Cornwall. It was only discovered at this Cornish site in 2010. Numbers fluctuate from year to year depending on grazing pressure and weather conditions and with the warm dry spring we'd had there was a chance I wouldn't find any.

We arrived very early as it was going to be a hot day and we expected it to become crowded later. We were rewarded for this early start by bumping into a family group of Coughs on the coast path. My best ever and closest views of these awesome birds. Unfortunately I didn't have my best birding camera but they were so close I got some nice shots non the less.

The grass did look very parched and the only wildflower which appeared to be doing well was Wild Carrot (on account of its tap root) there were swathes of it everywhere!

A profusion of Wild Carrot

The plant I was looking for was somewhere on this parched slope.

 

 And here it is! It's the bright pink flower in the foreground. Back in 2010 when the plant was discovered there were hundreds, I only counted two. Hopefully it was just a result of the dry spring.

Perennial Centaury - Centaurium scilloides

 

On the way home we dropped in at Penzance where I looked for Green Field Speedwell, totally in vain as usual. It is the commonest plant that I have never knowingly seen, however it is scarce and declining in the west of Britain. I did  see my first 'wild' Maidenhair Fern though.

Maidenhair Fern - Adiantum capillus-veneris

 

Another new plant was Perennial Flax which I spotted at the side of a country lane locally.

 

Perennial Flax - Linum perenne

June 2020: Botany and Bees

I ventured out a bit more in June and saw two new plants and several new species of bee. Firstly in early June I visited one of my favourite reserves Fivehead Arable Fields. I saw some wonderful rare arable plants but nothing new. 

Corn Buttercup - Ranunculus arvensis

 

Dwarf Spurge - Euphorbia exigua

 

Sheherd's Needle - Scandix pecten-veneris

 

Slender Tare - Vicia parviflora

 

Stinking Chamomile - Anthemis cotula

Nearer to home I found some superb arable strips around a couple of fields near Weston. These were originally sown I believe and contained some nice arable plants including...

Corn Spurrey - Spergula arvensis

 

Corn-cockle with some dramatic storm clouds in the distance. All the Corn-cockle plants I've ever seen have been sown ones like these. The plant has been almost totally eradicated from the wild in the UK. One I'm probably never going to see growing wild.

Corn-cockle - Agrostemma githago

 

My first new plant of the year involved a trip to Dorset to see. It was growing on a bank/verge of a small country lane near Batcombe. I had seen it in profusion up in the highlands of Scotland but it wasn't in flower so that doesn't really count. 

The plant is Wood Vetch and in my opinion it's the most beautiful of the pea family and definitely worth the drive to see. I've looked for this at a couple of sites in Devon in the past with no luck, so when I got the gen on this site I just had to go!

Wood Vetch - Vicia sylvatica

 

 

My next new plant was also a vetch and also on a road verge this time in Devon, near Staverton.  

 

 This is Fodder Vetch. It looks very much like Tufted Vetch but is a much deeper shade of purple. It has other more subtle differences so needs to be looked at very closely. Unlike Tufted Vetch, Fodder Vetch isn't a native and is rare in Devon but much more common in the South East and London area I believe.

 

Fodder Vetch - Vicia villosa

On Monday the 15th of June I had an absolutely amazing afternoon on Beer Head. I went in search of the rare plant White Horehound which I have seen once before in Purbeck. That was before I knew that it also grows, almost right on my doorstep, on Beer Head. I found the plant with relative ease because at the time the grassland there was being absolutely grazed into oblivion by hundreds of sheep! It's such a shame because the chalk grassland flora here would be amazing given half a chance. Fortunately for White Horehound it is totally unpalatable, even to sheep! Therefore the only flowering plants to be seen were thistles and the White Horehound. Because these were the only flowers in the area, they were also covered with insects and I found three new species of bee too! Happy Days!

White Horehound - Marrubium vulgare

 

Although the flowers are very inconspicuous they are very attractive to bees. This is the Coast Leaf-cutter Bee a new species for me.

Coast Leaf-cutter Bee - Megachile maritima

 

Spined Mason Bee - Osmia spinulosa

 New species number two.

 

Slender Thistle - Carduus tenuiflorus

Also popular  with the insects, and it was on these that I saw my third and best new species of bee for the day. I heard it before I saw it because this species of bee has a really loud and high pitched buzz. It also has bright green eyes!

Green-eyed Flower Bee - Anthophora bimaculata

I'm Back! .... Again

Well, what can I say? On Sunday it will be a year since my last blog post. I remember that I promised I'd catch up, but that was before all the.... well you know, kicked off. Also back then my illness appeared to be on the mend but during last summer I again got worse and had to give up work altogether. I'm still none the wiser what is wrong but due to a process of elimination the verdict appears to be ME/CFS and some unknown autoimmune disease. It appears that I was in some kind of remission for a few months. I can get out every now and then to do the things I enjoy, but I really have to pace myself. 

Anyway I'm going to do a few posts to cover what I was up to last year. Not a lot by my standards but then again it's been the same for everyone. 

March: 

I made my annual pilgrimage to Lower Dunscombe cliff to look for Early Forget-me-not. It's just such a great photogenic location for them!

April:

Some lovely weather in April but with having to stay local, walked down to Salcombe Beach a few times, although close to home I'd never really been there much. It proved a great place for early butterflies just like the other places along the coast that I usually visit. I saw a very early Wood White on April 20th. Then later in April one of my favourites, the cheeky little Green Hairstreak. A few of these were holding territories on the base of the cliffs along the beach and also a few Dingy Skippers.

Also seen were a Scarlet Tiger caterpillar and several clumps of the rather scarce shingle specialist plant Sea Kale, and in the fields above Salcombe a stunning almost albino Early Purple Orchid.

Early Purple Orchid

May: 

Lower Duscombe Cliff: There's always plenty to see here especially wildflowers and the views are spectacular too.

Ivy Broomrape

Nottingham Catchfly

Salad Burnet

Also on Lower Dunscombe Cliff I saw this lovely Eyebright. They are very difficult to identify but I'm pretty confident that this one is a hybrid between Common Eyebright and Large Flowered Eyebright. It looks very like Large Flowered Eyebright but that flowers much later in the year and the hybrid is known to flower much earlier.

 Hybrid Eyebright

 

Haven Cliffs, Axmouth Beach: I made a visit here looking for the Spiny Mason Wasp - Odynerus spinipes. I'd photographed them here many years ago and thought I'd have another go. It isn't easy in the hot weather as they never keep still. The chimneys they construct from mud at the entrance to their nesting burrow are really amazing.

 

Aylesbeare Common: I made a few visits here and saw the rare Pale Dog Violet and also had some great views of a pair of Dartford Warblers. 

 

 

 Female Dartford Warbler

Male Dartford Warbler

 

That's all for now. Stay tuned for highlights of the rest of 2020.