Charlton Wildlife September 2021

 Charlton Area Wildlife September 2021

The start of autumn and wildlife is starting to be less obvious than in the summer... 
However it is a good time of year to check the edges of fields for specialist flowers (aka arable weeds) left behind after the harvest, they tend to be very small and best appreciated on hands and knees: look along a field edges and corners for places which have escaped the farmer's spray. There is a colony of Chiltern Gentian to be found, these are a really unusual plant to find around Hitchin, needing chalky soil. In the UK this plant is only found only in Buckinghamshire (their county flower) and Hertfordshire (plus a very few in Wiltshire). It is difficult to catch the flowers properly open but here is a spike about to open...


Other arable weeds spotted include Sharp Leaved Fluellen (left) and Dwarf Spurge (right)...

 

...and there were easier to see things too, this particular Poppy took my fancy...



Comma and Red Admiral butterflies were taking advantage of the Ivy flowers, Ivy really is important for all sorts of wildlife.
 

Basking in the sun, on the Winter Heliotrope leaves by the footpath at the side of the Hitchin bypass, two lovely jumping things, on the left a Field Grasshopper, the small angled shape on the top is unique to this species. In the same spot a Roesel's Bush Cricket, the key identifier here is the cream tick mark behind the head, this species is expanding its range despite 99% of them being flightless, it must be the 1% with wings which are more mobile. 

 
A final 'spot' in the Charlton area is (on the left below) the very common Mugwort plant (Artemisia vulgaris). On the right the photo shows one of its leaves held up to the light with a "leaf miner" at work. This particular type of mine is referred to as a "blotch mine" and I suspect the darker area to the left is "frass" ie its droppings, with the larva visible towards the right. This is a fly larva Calycomyza artemisiae and this is a Hertfordshire first (hang on while I place a feather in my cap)! As is quite common with leaf miners they can be identified at the larval stage but the adult fly is very undistinguished and not readily identified. 
 






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