David

Ivy is flowering early this year. For nectar-loving insects, there’s a glut at a time when it’s normally a dearth. They are making a bee line for the flowers: bees, wasps, hoverflies and more.

These are hoverflies: tapered drone flies to be specific.

A water plantain growing in the canal at Wightwick. I took these pictures from the same spot as the one of the canalside ribwort plantain (yesterday’s post).

Water plantains and ribwort plantains are not actually closely related. Water plantains were given the epithet because their leaves are somewhat similar to those of the others.

A green shield bug, its predominant colour an almost perfect match for the leaf it was resting on.

A ribwort plantain growing by the canal, its long stem and distinctive flower almost overhanging the water.

I first took a few pictures of this small cluster of lurid boletes about four weeks earlier than this set. At that time, the mushrooms must have only recently emerged. Passing them again, their surfaces were more or less completely covered with a mould, or perhaps a fungus, living on them. Do the changes of colour perhaps show that there is more than one species of parasite present.

Judas tree seed pods turning delicate colours as they begin to ripen. These were on the tree next to the West Park Conservatory.