A nice surprise for JP this morning when a Fieldfare flew from the little bridge over the dike towards Sunny Bank, it was the first for the autumn, and unusual in that it arrived before the first Redwing.
c100 B.H. Gulls were on a tilled to the east, 30 Starlings passed over, a Redpoll called and 2 Little Egrets were on the wader scrape (JP/K. Bannister)
Peter and Annefie Roberts ansd 2 oth members of the Barnsley Narturalists Group visited to look specifically for plant galls.
Here's what they found;
On the trees near the Ralph Hibbert’s seat we found quite a lot of Common spangle galls, which are caused by the gall wasp Neuroterus quercusbaccarum (asexual generation).
These galls were on your photo’s, I believe, little hairy discs with a pimple in the middle. The galls, like most, fall in Autumn from the leaves and stay during the winter in the leaf litter, where the insects continue to mature. The adult gall wasps emerge in the Spring and will then be laying their eggs, in this case on the male catkins, to produce galls of the sexual generation.
Other species we found on Oak around the reserve were:
Knopper gall, induced by the sexual generation of the gall wasp Andricus quercusramuli.
Silk button spangle galls, caused by the gall wasp Neuroterus numismalis. These galls have been very prolific this year and some of the Oak leaves are completely covered with them underneath.
A number of Marble galls, caused by the gall wasp Andricus kollari,
Some Artichoke galls, caused by the gall wasp Andricus foecundatrix,
Some Cola nut galls, caused by the gall wasp Andricus lignicolus,
A few Pea galls from the asexual generation of the gall wasp Cynips divisa,
and the tiny egg-shaped galls on the veins of oak leaves of the gall wasp Neuroterus anthracinus (better seen with a magnifier) .
On Alder we found the distinctive pouches near the main veins of Alder leaves, caused by the gall mite Eriophyes inangulis
On Phragmatites, Lesley found us the Cigar galls, caused by the fly Lipara lucens.
No comments:
Post a Comment