5th April 2016 First
spring trip was on 31st March.
As what I consider to be an omen (for what, I am not sure) as I turned
the corner into Emthree, a fine male brimstone butterfly flew up from Troy
Track and spiralled upwards and over the hedge – an uplifting splash of lemon
yellow. There were also some as yet
unidentified Lasioglossum sweat bees sunning themselves on the white trunk of the birch tree.
Distinctive from their very long antennae.
The following day I found a fine queen of the tree bee, Bombus hortorum, nestling, almost burrowing, into
the grass also on Troy Track. It nests
in trees and under eaves and has been quite common in the garden in recent
years. Having been first recorded in the British Isles in 2001 it has now
spread to mid-Scotland.
Today was the warmest of the year, though not exactly boiling. Some tree buds are expanding rapidly. Hazel followed by birch, then hornbeam. Oak and ash are holding back. The dark shagged fiddle heads on the broad
buckler fern are well visible now. There
are many plants of red campion, (first noted in Emthree in 2008) in
the absence of rabbits and they are more advanced than the other herbaceous
plants. And, of course, they do flower
earlier. They tend to grow in woods and
other shady places so I suspect this faster growth helps them to get into
flower by mid-May when there are still plenty of insects about before the
before the canopy closes completely. Is
the Square Metre now woodland I wonder.
Apart from the usual snake oil remedies, the red campion has little attraction
for the human (but not rabbit) forager. This is
understable as the plant contains the toxin saponin that can have a nasty effect
on the digestion.
