Blackthorn, bluebells and buzzards...

Another spring is making its presence felt in Comfort's Wood and Monday 27th of March 2017 turned out to be blessed with cloudless blue skies and warm temperatures. Time to dust off the camera and see what can be discovered on this one particular early spring day...

The surviving ash trees are flowering now

The blackthorn is looking great too

The first beeflies of the year are enjoying the wood anemonies

And there are plenty of them this year. It really does look stunning in the woods right now...

They are also attracting other insects to nectar...

This is a tiny hoverfly

The bluebells are about to burst into bloom

The primroses are already in full flower

For a lot of the time I spent walking around the woods today, I could hear the constant calling of buzzards from high above. This won't be of interest to you but I only had the macro lens on this day. The macro is for real close-up work and so there was no way I would be able to get even a half decent photograph of the buzzards who were a good 200 feet above me. Even so, I wanted to record the fact that they were there and so pointed the camera skywards and hoped. This was the result. Not good but at least I have a record of them being there to share...

I couldn't resist trying to snatch a picture of this robin either...

Back on the ground, I spotted this fungi along one of the rides...

There are plenty of celandine in flower too

A comma butterfly sunning itself

Cuckoo-flower

The cuckoo-flower seems sparse this year compared to others, but even so, there is enough to attract one of my favourite springtime butterflies...

An orange-tip butterfly (male)

It also attracted this large white butterfly

Little violets are flowering right now

The hazel is just starting to come into leaf and quite a few insects seem to find it attractive...

I shall be expecting to see the delightful, red leaf-roller weevils any day now. Meantime, and I think this was my favourite find of the day by a country mile; I discovered this bright blue weevil...

A Blue Weevil (Byctiscus betulae)

And that is about all. Not bad for a couple of hours wandering the woods...

Politicians lose their seats but Comfort's Wood gains one...

It's been quite a while since I last updated this blog and so let me add some of the new things I have noticed...

Well what I noticed first of all was this new....notice (board) on the gates at the Swattenden Lane entrance. There are also new gateposts to replace the rotten ones, and some road-stone has been added to the high wear areas through the kissing gate...

Then on April 21st I saw that a new bench had been placed within the woods at a point just above what we locals call 'the dip'...

No sooner had it appeared, than it disappeared! Well, that's what I thought anyway. In fact it had been moved to a different location, closer to the entrance to the woods...

Here's the plaque showing the dedication...

The woods themselves have really 'greened up' over the past few weeks and are looking quite lush right now...

I spotted a bird one morning that I didn't recognise and have been unable to identify thus far. Unfortunately, I only saw it once from quite a distance and only had the Lumix point and shoot camera, so these two pictures are not great and no help at all as far as ID goes...

I did wonder if it was just a hen pheasant but the shape and size didn't seem right and also that white stripe across and behind the eye seems wrong?

Plenty of hawthorn flowers around in parts of the woods...

I have found quite a number of invertebrates recently and so I will add a few here and put the rest on the wildlife page of this blog...

A Longhorn Beetle

A Brassica Bug

A Mayfly

The Sprawler (Moth Caterpillar)

Actually, I think I will add all of these latest finds to the wildlife page, including the ones above.

That's all for this update but as we enter a new month (June) there will be plenty to follow...

Comfort's Wood begins to burst into life....

Now that we are well into April, things are changing fast in the woods. Apart from the odd frosty start to the day, we have been blessed with some lovely weather that has encouraged growth...

A frosty start to the day......

Although the tree canopy is still almost exclusively bare, down at ground level, there is more colour appearing daily...

Bare trees, blue skies and wood anemones...

There are a few species of fungi to be discovered at present...

The ash trees are budding up nicely...

Ash buds...

Ash keys...

Some of the ash is even bursting into flower...

Unknown fungi...

Loads of primroses...

And violets in flower...

Even a few bluebells flowering...

The willow is looking spectacular in places...

Willow flower...

The upturn in temperatures has encouraged even more invertebrates out in recent days...

A bee feeding on cuckoo-flower

I have never before seen so many of these little ladybirds in the woods. They are on so many tree trunks and in good numbers...

Kidney-spot ladybirds...

I have already spotted Comma, Peacock, Brimstone, Small tortoiseshell and Red admiral butterflies...

A Peacock butterfly

And a closer look at the lovely wood anemones that are everywhere in the woods right now...

February 18th in Comfort's Wood...

A month on from my last little update to this blog and we have seen some mixed weather, with even a little snow. February 18th though was to become one of those days when, at least weather-wise, it couldn't really get any better for the time of year. 
The sun was shining and temperatures were up on recent days. Skies were almost cloudless blue and the light was good-time then to get out the camera and whizz round the woods to see what I could find...

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO FOR A LARGER VIEW

As you would expect-still looking bare...

Plenty of late winter catkins...

Looking up...

The ash trees are showing their characteristic dark buds now and it was on ash that I had my first sighting of an insect...

This male common earwig (Forficula auricularia) was surprisingly sitting in the morning sunshine, amongst the lichen. Common earwigs are nocturnal and usually hide themselves away, under logs or stones during the day.

Amara aenea-A Ground Beetle

Close-by I also spotted this quite large metallic beetle. I am thinking this one might well be 'Amara aenea' a bronze ground beetle, also known as the sun beetle after its habit of running around in bright sunshine. 

There were also a few more 7-spot ladybirds enjoying the better weather...

Coccinella septempunctata-A 7-spot Ladybird

  

Coccinella septempunctata-A 7-spot Ladybird

Under rotting bark I found this soldier beetle larva.

I saw at least six of these largish spiders in the same area...

Nuctenea umbratica-A Walnut Orb-weaver spider

Nuctenea umbratica-A Walnut Orb-weaver spider

These are females but occasionally I find males during the winter too. Again, like the earwig, these are nocturnal and hide themselves away during daylight; their flattened abdomen lends itself well to squeezing into tight areas under bark or even door frames etc.

I'm not too sure of the exact species of this fly, but once again it was sunning itself on an ash tree whilst feeding...

Another unknown fly...

I do know this next bug, even though it has undergone a fairly recent name change and is no longer known as a forest bug it seems...

Pentatoma rufipes-A Red-legged Shieldbug...

This of course is the nymph of the shieldbug; they overwinter as young nymphs, with new adults being seen from about July. 


I didn't have too long to walk the woods on this particular day but even so, I was pleased with what I did find. I'll end this update with a picture of the pussy-willow starting to break out...

Despite a downturn in the weather of the past couple of days, there are signs of spring everywhere; I noticed primroses in flower as well as green bluebell shoots poking through the leaf-litter. I hope therefore that my next update will be less than a month away as things speed up.