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.

Signs of new life even in the depths of winter...

January 14th 2015 and at long last a chance to have a scoot around the woods to see what's happening at this time of year. You would expect everything to be well and truly shut down for winter, with little or no signs of life? Not the case this year, as I soon began to realise when after entering Comfort's Wood from the Swattenden Lane entrance, I hadn't walked more than a few metres when I stopped to look at how the hazel trees were doing and spotted this little fly...

I think this is Episyrphus balteatus, sometimes called the marmalade hoverfly, a relatively small hoverfly of the Syrphidae family and one that I don't recall ever seeing in January before.

 The hazel itself seems to be quite advance, as well as the male winter catkins there are already female flowers, which appear before the leaves...

I am still finding fungi in the woods and spotted this one which I haven't seen before and haven't managed to get an identity for yet...

This bracket fungus was growing on a coppiced tree stump that also seemed to be a favourite spot for rabbits...

There is also lots of fantastic lichen to be seen, especially on ash...

New growth appearing on some of the trees as well..

Some of the blackthorn is bursting into leaf already...

This bluebottle fly (above) was sunning itself on the ash along with a couple of chums.

I found a few strings of bryony berries hanging in the bare branches of some saplings beside the seasonal pond...

I wasn't at all surprised to find hibernating green shieldbugs in the leaf litter...

Palomena prasina-The Common Green Shieldbug

Palomena prasina-The Common Green Shieldbug

But then I came across something that you don't see every day, a hairy snail! Yes, I did say hairy...

Now this isn't the usual type of hairy snail that I see, namely Trochulus hispidus which is quite dark and plain looking compared to this one. I am wondering therefore if this could be Pseudotrichia rubiginosa, or the German Hairy Snail as it is sometimes called? I think this species is possibly more related to water and so I am not too sure but will try and do a bit more research on it.

This little caterpillar was my last find of the day and again, was in leaf litter...

Late November in the woods...

November 28th and 29th 2014 both turned out to be very nice weather days and ideal for me to get out and about in Comfort's Wood to see what, if anything, was happening. There's always something new to discover actually and even late November had plenty to hold my interest...

There are still plenty of fungi around in the woods. These little fruiting bodies were on one of the entrance gates.

Click any photo for a larger view on black

I'm sure local folk who walk these woods will know what I mean if I say that these ones were in 'the dip'. For everyone else, they were at the bottom of the big trees at the top of the little climb, after crossing the bridge over the stream.

There are still a few late bugs to be seen if you look hard enough and I came across this Green Shieldbug  on some bramble stalks...

Under some fallen wood I spotted a ground beetle that had been attacked by fungi...

A different type of fungi again now-this one seems to be attacking this dried rose hip...

Whilst I was looking at trees for signs of life, I discovered this strange looking insect...

This is a flightless, female moth. Possibly a winter moth? The females have no wings and their sole purpose in life seems to be the ability to climb somewhere high enough to spread their pheromones to attract a mate, then lay eggs that will emerge the following spring.

Back to fungi again; at least, I think this must be fungi? It was present in quite large amounts (this one is about golf-ball size) and had affected several plants...

Then under a fallen leaf I found this moth caterpillar. Not too sure on the identity of this one but it could be a Straw Dot moth larvae.

One more fungi to end this update then and I think this might be ear fungus of some kind, but I am no expert on these, so don't bet your house on it...