By our Conservation Volunteers
26th September
From Hazel, Maud and Nicky
There were only 26 moths of 15 species for us to identify. It had been a dry, occasionally cloudy night with a 2/3 moon.
The most interesting moths were:
A Light Emerald, which, like all the Emeralds, was happy to sit on an egg box and didn’t need to go in a pot. A very pretty Frosted Orange and an Angle Shades which spread its wings. We usually see one of these with the wings closed.
From Chris, Howard and John
We cut off the flower heads from about 60 Himalayan Balsam plants in Cae Trawscoed Meadow.
The large flock of goldfinches were still in the meadow. There were great and blue tits in the trees on the meadow’s northern boundary, a jay flew across and a buzzard soaring over the North Lodge Woods. There was a red kite over the top end of Llyn Mawr. No blackbirds in evidence.
We also cleared away the bramble ‘path’ leading to the fallen beech trunk, which once was home to a hornet’s nest.
3rd October
From Colin and Vicky
In the course of looking for Wolf Spiders, Vicky spotted a very interesting fungus just beyond the biomass boiler, a Bolete whose yellow flesh turns blue when pulled apart. The Hornets were very busy, both there and In Cae Trawscoed Meadow.
Around the fallen Oak stump, which contains their nest, we saw a somewhat faded Peacock Butterfly and 3 Lizards sunning themselves. Vicky managed to capture one Wolf Spider which took home to identify.
Nicky discovered a pair of ballerina waxcaps in Cae Gwair. An astonishing discovery. These fungi are supposed to take decades to establish. We know they haven’t been recorded on this restored hay meadow before, and people have been looking here for the past 25 years. Were they lurking unseen in the soil all his time or have their spores settled here since we introduced green hay here in 2019? Our Science Officer Dr. Laura Jones analysed soils from this field in 2020, using DNA barcoding of fungi and microbes. This found no traces of these grassland fungi.
17th October
From David.
Looking at fungi and mosses.
The first is Milking Bonnet, I think, on the log seat near Llyn Uchaf Weir. I just liked all the spent bits of flowers and trumpet lichen around it as though the fairies had been having a party. The Clustered Brittlestem were near the Waun Las bridge gate, at the start of the path on the far side of Llyn Mawr. The Shaggy Inkcap was in the woodland between Snipe Field and Llyn Canol
