Category Archives: Plants and Animals

Keep An Eye Out For The Cattle At The Pond

Plants and Animals

2013-07-11_Cattle One

Introducing Kite (facing) – an Irish Moiled (rare breed)

From the Hart Countryside Services Facebook site:

Kite and Hazel the cattle at Fleet Pond are very happy in Fugelmere Marsh (the grazing enclosure to the left of Sandy Bay if looking at the water) they are owned by Miller’s Ark there are lots of sedges to eat and in this beautiful weather they have been able to get to areas that normally are too wet for them

2013-07-11_Cattle Two

Introducing Hazel – a Belted Galloway (traditional breed)

Some background on Miller’s Ark:

Miller’s Ark Animals is based on the Earl of Malmesbury’s estate at Hook in Hampshire and the home farm specialises in breeding Irish Moiled rare breed cattle, traditional Belted Galloways, rare breed sheep, Pygmy goats. Kune Kune pigs, standard and miniature donkeys, ducks, geese, turkeys and chicken.

For related posts from previous years, please see here and here.

Photos: David Pottinger

Big Butterfly Count, 20 July – 11 August

Conservation, Plants and Animals

Butterfly Count 2013

From the web site above:

The Big Butterfly Count is a nationwide survey aimed at helping us assess the health of our environment. It was launched in 2010 and has rapdily become the world’s biggest survey of butterflies. Almost 27,000 people took part in 2012, counting 223,000 individual butterflies and day-flying moths across the UK.

They have a nice butterfly ID chart as a free download from the site.

Here are some interesting and informative articles on butterflies that can be seen at Fleet Pond:

As an additional source of information, you can watch the Springwatch Guide to Butterflies and Moths this coming Friday (BBC2, 9 pm):

Join the Springwatch team for an in-depth view of the UK’s most colourful and fascinating creatures, with private lives that are often stranger than fiction. Living all over our countryside as well as in our own back gardens, butterflies and moths are the animal world’s ultimate transformers. Filming their extraordinary life-cycles in ultra-close up, the team bring you the latest science on their remarkable adaptations and lifestyles.

Wildflower Watch around the Pond

Plants and Animals
Yellow Flag Iris
Yellow Flag Iris

Michelle Salter has written a series of posts on the wildflowers that can found around Fleet Pond during the Spring and Summer months.

This year, many plants have bloomed later than usual, and it’s interesting to see how this compares to previous years’ flower sightings.

March: Lesser Celandine and the Brookly Stream

April: Marsh Marigold, Cuckoo Flower, Dog-violet & Forget-me-not

May: Bogbean, Garlic Mustard and Skunk Cabbage

June: Yellow Flag Iris, Honeysuckle and Yellow Water-lily

July: Heather, Lichen, Meadowsweet and Yellow Loosestrife

August: Berries, Rosebay Willowherb and Purple Loosestrife

More On Hairy Caterpillars

Conservation, Plants and Animals

799px-Arctia_caja

Garden Tiger Moth (showing the hindwing pattern)

Peter Martin writes:

“Writing the recent article about hairy caterpillars of the Oak Processionary Moth reminded me of the brown hairy caterpillars of the Garden Tiger Moth that I was always coming across during my youth.

The hairs from these creatures are loaded with histamines and can cause nasty irritations if handled. If more than one is kept together in captivity, they can be cannibalistic (don’t ask me how one can chew the other one without getting a mouthful of those nasty hairs).

I haven’t seen any of these hairy monsters (often called “woolly bears”) for many years and there is now real concern that they could become extinct.

Arctia_caja02

Caterpillar of the Garden Tiger Moth

“Butterfly Conservation” has a moth-night each year and this year it is making a particular request for anyone spotting a Garden Tiger Moth during the period from the 8th to the 10th August to report it.

More information on National Moth Night can be found here.

I am sure that, if you spot any of these caterpillars at any time and are sure that they are not one of the other hairy moth creatures, “Butterfly Conservation” would like to hear from you.”

Photos credits: here.

May Wildflower Watch – Wood Sorrel

Plants and Animals
Wood sorrel along Gelvert Steam by Sandy Bay
Wood sorrel along Gelvert Steam by Sandy Bay

Michelle Salter writes:

Like many other plants, the flowers of Wood sorrel have been late in making an appearance this year. But they are worth the wait, and the pretty white flowers and clover-shaped leaves are currently on display in large clumps alongside the footpath leading to Sandy Bay.

In 2009, I wrote a post called Wood Sorrel, the Easter flower and in that year the flowers bloomed in early April, which would be the usual time to see them blossom.

Wood sorrel is a joy to photograph in indirect sunlight as the flowers open up to reveal five purple-veined white petals. The flowers close as light fades and the distinctive three-part leaves, which open out flat during the day, fold up on themselves at night.

Wood sorrel is a shade-loving plant and can grow in locations that have only one percent daylight.

Wood sorrel on Gelvert Stream bank
Wood sorrel on Gelvert Stream bank

Photo credits: Michelle Salter