Bee Orchids at Oxwich

(c) P. Tyrrell

Paul Tyrrell wrote: 'Although the wet weather we had in April, may not have been too everyone's liking it certainly doesn't seem to have had an adverse effect on our orchids, particularly it seems the bee orchid (Ophrys apifera). While on Oxwich burrows on Saturday in bright sunshine I counted 85 in just two of the large dune slacks toward the back of the reserve I'm sure there must be a lot more.'

Bluebells above Rhossili

A lovely walk at Rhossili, armed with phone!

Dune flora

It's well worth venturing onto the dunes at present to witness the stunning diversity of flowering plants and associated invertebrate fauna. Below is a small selection of dune plants flowering at present :

Japanese Rose (Rosa rugosa)
A locally frequent alien at Kenfig Rivermouth - rather invasive hence
not particularly desirable, but gives off a powerful fragrance.

Sand Cat's-tail (Phleum arenarium), Sticky Stork's-bill (Erodium 

lebelii) and Kidney Vetch (Anthyllus vulneraria) at Baglan

Basil Thyme (Clinopodium acinos) Nicholaston

Common Rock-rose (Helianthemum nummularium) at Nicholaston

Bloody Crane's-bill (Geranium sanguineum) at Nicholaston

Beaked Hawk's-beard (Crepis vesicaria) at Baglan Burrows

Sea Stock at Kenfig rivermouth

Kenfig Rivermouth 21st May 2012

The embryo dunes around the Kenfig Rivermouth currently support a strong population of Sea Stock (Matthiola sinuata), with over 300 plants counted recently. Outside of Glamorgan the species is known only from North Devon, so it's good to report that it is doing well at a number of our sites. Plants are now starting to come into flower (below right) and can be found just behind the strand-line on most West Glamorgan beaches.

The yellow-flowered sub-species of Wild Pansy (Viola tricolor subsp. curtisii) also occurs here along with a wide range of other fore dune species.

A Soldier Beetle

A Soldier Beetle (Cantharis rustica)

Martyn Hnatiuk has informed me that the Beetle shown in these photos is a Soldier Beetle (Cantharis rustica) and not the Tanbark Borer (Phymatodes testaceus) as I had initially claimed. I've decided to re-write this post since quite apart from being misleading the original post now makes no sense whatsoever.

A Soldier Beetle (Cantharis rustica)

I wasn't quite expecting a beetle of this size with 'long horns' to be anything other than a longhorn. No wonder I couldn't find a photo match of it online! This species is quite abundant and could possibly have been a feature of one of Martyn's posts on this blog last year and maybe one of mine (identified correctly).
Thanks for letting me know Martyn. We live and learn...and sometimes forget again!

Red-eyed Damselfly at Neath Canal

male Red-eyed Damselfly

A total of 17 Red-eyed Damselfly were at the Neath Canal yesterday afternoon. They were showing along a stretch of canal located in the Penrhitwyn area. Some other notables included Variable Damselfly(12), Azure Damselfly(38), Blue-tailed Damselfly(20), Large Red Damselfly(3), Hairy Dragonfly(50+) and Four-spotted Chaser(1)

More photos and location details can be found on the link below

VC41 dragonfly blog

Green-winged Orchids at Lewes Castle

West Glamorgan can boast plenty good displays of interesting plants, but Green-winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio) is not one of them. Compared to adjacent areas, where the species can flower abundantly, it is a very scarce plant in our area and this BSBI monitoring site shows one of the reasons why.

sheep-grazed cliff-top turf above Fall Bay

The cliff-top grasslands at the few sites in Gower where this species occurs are grazed exceptionally close by sheep and rabbits, with any thing juicy or succulent like an orchid flower or seed pod also being targeted at night by slugs and snails. Thankfully orchids can be long-lived and will survive in a vegetative state for many years. Successful reproduction must be an extremely rare occurrence where these conditions persist and you can't help wondering about the viability of small isolated populations such as this one.

the best example of a Green-winged Orchid I could find at this site

Whilst the Green-winged Orchid appears to have a rather tenuous hold on the heavily-grazed cliff tops, there are plenty of other species that appear to thrive in these conditions. Western Clover (Trifolium occidentale) is a rather unimposing species, but has a very restricted UK distribution. It flowers earlier than the similar, but much commoner White Clover (Trifolium repens) and smaller, thicker leaves and a notched standard are two good characters to look for.

Western Clover above Fall Bay