5 March 2018

We went up to Apedale in the afternoon, the weather was cool, with lots of grey cloud but some sunny spells. It was really different to the last few days which were really freezing and snowy. There was still some tiny bits of snow on the ground in sheltered places:

Snow in a drainage ditch

There was plenty of evidence of rabbits:

Rabbit pellets

Rabbits eat about 80% of their own droppings to make their grazing more efficient. This process of double digestion is called refection. There are loads of rabbit warrens at Apedale:

A rabbit warren can be up to 3 metres in depth and can cover a large area, with lots of entrances. The warren will contain nesting areas, living areas, bolt runs and emergency exits to escape from predators.

There were some volunteers working in the woods, thinning out some of the trees, so that the remaining trees can have the space to grow bigger. They have left the smaller branches and twigs on the ground, in piles, to provide shelter for wildlife.

The bluebells are putting up their leaves amongst the moss. It will be interesting to see when the bluebells start flowering this year.

And in spite of the snow, the first primroses have started to flower:

The wild primrose prefers damp places and heavy clay soils, which makes Apedale quite perfect for it. One of its main pollinators is the bee fly Bombylius major – we will make sure to watch out for them later in the month.

We looked at the Jelly Ear fungus again – it had gone over and looked really floppy and dead:

This elder was absolutely covered in Jelly Ear – elder is one of its preferred habitats:

In Watermill wood we noticed, for the first time, how very mossy this tree is:

It rarely gets any sun and its branches are covered in thick velvety green growth. We think this is a sycamore tree – but we will check in the spring and summer.

Another sign of summer, are the buds of leaves opening on the hawthorn.

Hawthorn is a very common tree, but so important to wildlife, as the Woodland Trust’s website tells us:

Common hawthorn can support more than 300 insects. It is the foodplant for caterpillars of many moths, including the hawthorn, orchard ermine, pear leaf blister, rhomboid tortrix, light emerald, lackey, vapourer, fruitlet mining tortrix, small eggar and lappet moths. Its flowers are eaten by dormice and provide nectar and pollen for bees and other pollinating insects. The haws are rich in antioxidants and are eaten by many migrating birds such as redwings, fieldfares and thrushes, as well as small mammals.

The dense thorny foliage makes fantastic nesting shelter for many species of bird.

The birds were very busy – we heard green woodpecker(s) several times, and jays too. There was a buzzard flying around and there were loads of blue tits very busy in the trees.

This great tit was making a huge racket with his territorial call.

You can listen to the call on the RSPB site. As we walked down the hill back to the car park, there was another great tit making the same call – obviously it’s the time of year to loudly shout about where you are! There’s a lovely video on the RSPB page of a great tit pecking at a tennis ball to get fibres to put in its nest:

Winter at Apedale

We’ve had a fair few walks at Apedale over the winter, but haven’t been great at taking photos (too cold!). Now that spring is coming, we are planning to write regular posts again.

Here are some photos from our winter trips.

A snowy day – looking over Chesterton school to the Staffordshire Moorlands:

The sun on the snow was very beautiful.

There are signs of spring though – this photo of hazel catkins was taken on the same day:

The gorse is in flower, whatever the month. We enjoy smelling the blooms which have the aroma of coconut.

Some photos of another day in January when there was snow on the ground at Apedale, as well as over the distant hills:

The nature pond looked rather bleak:

But the pussy willow was starting to come out:

In the woods we spotted some Jelly Ear fungus:

This is an edible fungus (Auricularia auricula-judae), but it doesn’t exactly look very appetising. It is growing on an elder tree, which is its preferred habitat.

Watermills wood was pretty cold and grey.

But by the time we got up to the area we call ‘the Beech Copse’, because of the large beech trees amongst the elder and alder, the sun was shining low in the sky giving us a beautiful light:

The ivy seed heads are so attractive at this time of year:

And we spotted more fungus. We wondered if these were oyster mushrooms, but we are not knowledgeable about fungus to know for sure!

Here are some photos from a walk in mid-February.

First up some more jelly ear:

Some very familiar wildlife, having a sniff around:

Looking over from Apedale towards Wolstanton, which is quite close to where we live:

The very cheering sight of gorse in the sunshine – it was actually quite a warm day for February, although the temperature has sunk right back down again by the end of the week.

Mum managed this picture of a buzzard in flight:

And a better picture of a blue tit, singing as loud as he could, at the top of a hazel tree:

These are alder catkins, which are darker and longer than the catkins we see on the hazel trees:

We call this tree, the elbow tree:

We spotted leaf miner tracks on the bramble leaves:

The remains of a fox’s meal – looks like it might have been a wood pigeon:

The ivy, climbing a silver birch, brings a real note of colour:

And finally more catkins (hazel this time) showing spring is hopefully just around the corner:

 

19 September 2017

We went to Apedale in the morning, it was a very foggy morning indeed, although the sun was trying to break through a bit by the end of our walk.

The view back towards the nature area and car park was obscured by fog.

Everywhere was absolutely covered in cobwebs:

Hawthorn leaves covered in webs.

Cobwebs on a teasel.

All the spiders had obviously been incredibly busy:

This web, we think, is made by a sheet web money spider (Liniphiidae), because it has a flat platform section plus a pyramid section above.

Here’s a another web – this time you can see the spider right in the centre, if you look closely. This web was quite high in a tree, so I could get underneath it to take a photo. Again it is a Liniphiidae spider of some kind.

This ghostly looking gorse bush is absolutely covered in webs – we wonder if some of them might be the webs of gorse spider mites (tetranychus lintearius), but we couldn’t any closer because the bushes are on the other side of a fence in a wildlife conservation area.

This fly has met a very sticky end….

We were on the look out for galls on oak trees again:

We are not sure about this funny looking gall, but wonder if it might be a cola nut gall created by the gall wasp Andricus lignicola.

Autumn is well underway – the leaves are starting to turn. 

In spite of the huge numbers of galls this year, some beautiful acorns have managed to come through! 

This slug was enjoying the very damp weather! We aren’t sure on the ID of this one –  it could be a tree slug (Lehmannia marginata) or a juvenile leopard slug (Limax maximus).

The eyebright is still going strong, although will probably last only a bit longer now, it flowers until the end of September.

The automatic sensor on mum’s camera thought that this was a sunset, because of the lovely rusty orange colours of the rose bay willow herb. 

There were loads of goldfinches flying around in gangs – a group of goldfinches is called a charm. Mum managed to take this slightly rubbish photo of 3 of the group. 

Two seven-spot ladybirds on the dead seed head of wood angelica. Ladybirds often overwinter in the hollow stems of these plants. 

Finally we have some fungi for you:

We spotted these puffballs in the woods.

This tiny fungi on a decaying tree stump is called Candle snuff fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon).  

We also spotted these 2 strange fun guys in the fog:

As yet, we have been unable to identify these weird creatures… 

24 July 2017

We went to Apedale in the morning and had a brief walk from Apedale Rd (near Thorp Precast) up beside Watermills Wood for a little way and back down through the wood. The weather wasn’t particularly warm or bright, although it did get warmer as we went round. This is the gate into the wood:

The first thing we saw were these amazing teasels, they were covered in bees.

Here’s a buff-tailed bumblebee covered in pollen:

Danny spotted and photographed this poor moth/butterfly which had come to a sticky end, on a thistle:

Danny also photographed this huge marble gall on an oak tree. These are caused by oak gall wasps, the larva lives inside the gall.

We spotted this rather large black beetle – we believe it is a galeruca tanaceti:

We also spotted another beetle – a cream spot ladybird – which none of us had ever seen before. Unfortunately this one was dead, which is a shame, there are so many aphids on this plant for it to eat!

We noticed that the brambles are starting to ripen already – in a week or so, we will be picking them to make jam and cordial.

There were also some wild raspberries – but we will leave these for the birds, they are so much harder to pick, and we have some in the garden!

In amongst the brambles, were loads of harvestmen (Leiobunum rotundum) – in this picture the female is on the left and the male is on the right.

As usual, we spotted something really interesting on our favourite flower – the ragwort. These 2 moths were beautiful, resting on the flowers – sadly they have a name which doesn’t do them any favours – they are called dingy footman moths. The larvae of this moth feed on lichens.

Also on ragwort, another insect with a funny name – this one is called the marmalade hoverfly:

On the other side of the woods we spotted this lovely horse in the paddock opposite some of the houses on Apedale Road:

Snails are so hard to identify, but we think that this is a white-lipped snail. Brown lipped snails and white lipped snails both generally have brown and white striped shells, but with a white lipped snail, the band round the opening of the shell is white, and it’s brown on a brown lipped snail. We think that we can just see that this one is white.

The final photo is of a spider we can’t identify, but is rather spooky-looking. We will keep looking to see if we can find out what it is.

There weren’t many other people around because it was quite early, but we did meet two golden retriever/labrador type dogs, called Ella and Abby – the owner told us that they were half-sisters. They were sweet dogs with beautiful amber-coloured eyes.

 

 

18 July 2017

We had a morning visit to Apedale – it was a very warm day, although there was quite a lot of high cloud, and it was early so maybe not so many insects about! We walked to the little lake/large pond at the Knutton end of Apedale. Here’s where it is on the Ordnance Survey map – it’s just between the ‘S’ and ‘T’ of Newcastle-under-Lyme:

It’s very pretty round the pond, but sadly quite spoiled by the amount of litter around about, and evidence of fires. We spotted mallard ducks resting on the island in the middle:

And there was a buzzard flying around overhead – it was quite a breezy morning so it was very hard to get a photo!

We spotted some ragwort that was absolutely covered in the caterpillars of the cinnabar moth. We will have to look out for cinnabars next time we are there.

We also managed to capture this picture of a gatekeeper butterfly.

It soon closed its wings because of the breeze:

We also spotted this moth, again on some ragwort:

We aren’t sure about the identification of this one, but wondered if it is a ghost moth:

We also spotted a 7 spotted ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata):

As we got back to the car we spotted this female red-tailed bumblebee gathering nectar from a pink thistle, and absolutely covered in pollen!

There are two hoverflies in this photo, we only managed to identify the one on the left:

We think this is a Leucozona glaucia.

There was lots of meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) down by the Lyme brook, which runs near the path along to the lake. Not surprising because apparently meadowsweet loves damp conditions:

We also saw some common centaury (Centaurium erythraea) – a very pretty pink plant. It is a member of the gentian family, and closes its flowers in the afternoon.

We met a lovely Border collie type dog, but sadly didn’t get his/her name. (S)he was much more interested in a ball than humans!

14 July 2017

We went for a walk at Apedale on a Friday morning – the weather was cool and cloudy – definitely needed our fleeces/jackets. We walked up past the nature area, and the first thing we photographed was the amazing teasels (Dipsacus fullonum). These will be a feast for small birds – especially goldfinches (there are a lot of goldfinches at Apedale) later in the year.

We also spotted a baby oak tree:

Next up was this creepy plant, just opening up. ID coming soon!

Then we spotted this ladybird pupa:

Mum took this close up picture of the larvae of the alder leaf beetle. We saw these beetles mating back on 23 May!

Danny took this shot from further away, showing the size of the larvae – they are pretty small, although they still look big to turn into the very small leaf beetles!

There are loads of alder trees at Apedale. The alder is a pioneer species – moving quickly onto vacant land, so it’s not surprising that there’s so much of it at this former industrial site. This one has a touch of alder rust fungus:

The alder is a really interesting tree because it fixes nitrogen from the air into the soil as it grows, so it is known for increasing soil fertility. It will not thrive at Apedale as other trees take over, because its seedlings need more light than is available on the woodland floor.

There are also lots of rowan trees – these fruits (they aren’t berries!) will provide food for birds later in the year, especially thrushes and waxwings (hopefully).

Mum spotted this tiny snail, working its way along a reed. It was definitely a day for snails rather than bees or butterflies, we hardly saw any.

Towards the end of the walk when the weather warmed up a bit, we did spot some hover flies that started to come out:

ID hopefully coming shortly!

The yellow ragwort is in flower – and there’s loads of it. Ragwort is a rather smelly plant (its common names also include stinking willie or stinking nanny and mare’s fart!), and is poisonous to mammals. It provides food for about 77 insect species in the UK – including this lovely red soldier beetle (from the Cantharidae family).

Later on we spotted a pair mating – also on a ragwort plant:

We also spotted a couple of wildflowers to identify:

Mum said hi to Pepe the dog, who we’ve met before.

27 June 2017

We visited Apedale in the morning – it was very wet and rainy, and quite cool too. We walked to the pond/small lake in the direction of Knutton.

It was definitely the weather for slugs and snails. We don’t know much about molluscs, but we wonder if this one is a brown-lipped snail:

This is a large black slug (although it looks a bit brown to us). It is enjoying a breakfast of clover.

We saw some holes in the side of the pond – we were wondering what creatures might live there. Danny thought it might be rabbits.. Mum thought it might be rats!

The best spot of the day was on the small island in the centre of the lake. This is not a great photo because we were quite far away, but we identified this bird as an Egyptian goose:

These geese were originally introduced as ornamental wildfowl species on private lakes and ponds, but some escaped into the wild. They are most common in north Norfolk, so we are very lucky to see one here in Staffordshire.

These bright yellow flowers cheered up quite a gloomy day:

It is called black broom, apparently because when the shoots dry they become black.

There was a beautiful patch of orchids up by the edge of the wood:

And we also spotted these black seed pods of the bush vetch:

Danny spotted this interesting spider’s web amongst the reeds, but we didn’t have time to look at it closely.

There are lots of small anthills by the side of the path:

We picked up this stripy feather, but we have no ideas about it, sadly.

It was sad to see so many burnet moths which had not made it out of their chrysalises. We aren’t sure why this happens – we wondered if it was because of the cold, or perhaps because the moth is diseased in some way.

Danny took this great pic of a tree complete with holes in it. We think it’s an ash tree, judging from the bark.

He also photographed this car tyre covered in plants, in the middle of the forest. It shows the power of nature!

The lime trees along the main road to the Visitors’ Centre are covered in flowers. They smell beautiful, but it was so rainy, it was hard to tell. These lime flowers can be collected and dried to make delicious tea:

And something to eat with your cup of lime-flower tea – hazelnuts! But they won’t be ready until autumn, and no doubt the squirrels will get to them first!

We met a lovely black and white dog who had a ball in her mouth. Sadly we didn’t manage to get her name – which is always disappointing. Maybe another time…

 

 

 

20 June 2017

We went to Apedale in the afternoon. The weather was sunny and warm – it was good to get under the trees in the little beech copse near the top of the hill:

We spotted a 6-spot burnet, perched on a blade of grass. It was very still, and didn’t move even when I knocked the grass a bit, so we thought that maybe it had only just come out of its chrysalis:

Mum spotted this moth with its huge antennae:

It is a a yellow-barred longhorn moth, which is a very descriptive name for exactly what it is. As you can see, the antennae are nearly 3 times as long as its body:

We also saw a meadow brown. I don’t think we realised what a furry head it has:

This hoverfly is called the footballer because of its stripy thorax:

We also spotted a harvestman spider with its really long legs:

Another spot was this iridescent shield bug – we aren’t sure of the identification of this one:

Danny took a great close-up pic of the animal path through the bushes:

He also investigated the path – he didn’t find anything though!

We also spotted a really weird creature up a tree:

Lots of the grasses were in flower. We are going to try and learn some of their names – this one is called crested dog’s tail:

The elderflower was looking very beautiful:

And we identified this pretty little white flower which is called eyebright (euphrasia officinalis). It used to be used to try and treat infections and soreness of the eye, which is why it is called eyebright.

We can’t remember meeting any of our dog friends – it was very hot, so perhaps people were avoiding the warmest part of the day.

 

 

 

16 June 2017

We went to Apedale in the morning – it was cloudy and warm.

We saw lots of wildflowers:

This purple flower is called tufted vetch. This plant climbs up other plants with the help of curly leafy tendrils.

There were loads of foxgloves (digitalis).

There is a beautiful patch of meadow orchids (Dactylorhiza maculata).

Mum got photobombed several times whilst trying to take photos of the orchids:

Photobomb by Barney

Photobomb by Danny

We also saw a (we think) spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata):

There is loads of dog rose (Rosa canina) – the rose hips (which come later in the year) are extremely rich in vitamin C.

The brambles are also flowering:

Insect-wise, there were lots of burnet moths buzzing around. Here’s a 5-spot burnet moth:

A burnet moth cocoon recently vacated – there are a lot of these on the wire fences at Apedale, this one is on a grass stem:

Ladybirds are so hard to identify, but we think that both of these are harlequin ladybirds of different types:

Another photobomb!

We managed to get a picture of a blue damselfly, perched on some reeds:

This ringlet butterfly (Aphantopus hyperantus) was sitting on a bramble – which is not surprising as it is its favourite plant:

This rather nasty looking fly with furry legs and brown eyes is a dung fly – so-called because it generally lays its eggs on cowpats.

Here’s a picture of brown ants ‘herding’ black aphids on a dock plant. The aphids produce a sweet secretion called ‘honeydew’ which is a staple food for the ants. The ants have chemicals on their feet which subdue and tranquilise the aphids. They also sometimes bite the aphids’ wings off!

There are loads of little paths made by animals through the grass. We aren’t really sure what animals are responsible for these – maybe foxes or badgers?

There are certainly loads of rabbit holes:

Even in very inaccessible places:

We saw a couple of little rabbits as we drove to the carpark, but we haven’t been able to take a photo of one yet – maybe next time!

13 June 2017

We went to Apedale in the afternoon – and it was a warm cloudy afternoon, with a bit of sunshine now and again. We parked at the car park near the Energy Centre for a change, and walked up to the ‘Spinny Wheel’ (the mining monument at the top of the hill).

Unfortunately we forgot the camera battery so had to take the photos with a phone – so they’re not as good as usual!

We saw and heard lots of things we didn’t manage to photograph: speckled wood butterflies, a kestrel hovering and hunting, a skylark flying really close through the field next to us, we heard a cuckoo again and a white throat flew across the path ahead of us.

We did manage some pics though:

There were a few a few burnet moth chrysalises attached to the wire fence.

We saw one of the burnets that had already emerged from its chrysalis. This is a 5-spot burnet.

We were very pleased to spot, photograph and identify this butterfly, which is a female large skipper (ochlodes sylvanus):

We saw this really odd bug, with beautiful lacy wings, covered in black markings, and a strange upturned tail. Ali had a hunch that it might be a kind of lacewing, so a quick Google search later, we discovered that this is a scorpion fly (panorpa communis):

Here are some great facts about the scorpion fly from the Wildlife Trust website:

The scorpion fly is a strange looking insect which is found in gardens, hedgerows and woodland edges, particularly amongst nettles and Bramble. It has a long beak-like projection from its head that is uses to feed, scavenging on dead insects and frequently stealing the contents of spider’s webs. It lives up to its name by sporting a scorpion-like tail, which the male uses in courtship displays. Adults usually mate at night, but mating can be a dangerous game for the male, who might easily be killed by the female. So he presents her with a nuptial gift of a dead insect or a mass of saliva to placate her – the equivalent of a box of chocolates! The resulting eggs are laid in the soil and the emerging larvae live and pupate at the soil surface.

We spotted this bright green spider in the grass:

Sandy identified it, using one of our brilliant ID sheets from the Field Studies Council, as a green orb weaver spider.

We also spotted these orchids:

And, as a nice change, we spotted this orchid with spotted leaves:

Orchid identification is a bit complicated so we need to have a closer look at these, with a better camera before we can be sure which ones they are!

We saw Lucy, Jake and Amber, as usual – and we were very impressed by Amber’s fence leaping! We also met Camillo and his dachshund friend, and a lovely big black dog called Daniel. He was very sweet and liked a big fuss.