More excitement too on the plants front .... but all untickable. Several orchids are now very visible, sprouting out of the wild flower bank around the parking area here. Never seen these in this bank before although other typical local orchid species - Common Spotted and Early Purple - are both present around the plot. Most likely suspects are Green-winged and Bee Orchids - possibly both - as three of the plants are very different to the one in this photo (much narrower leaves). I last had Bee Orchids here in 2000 and assumed they were monocarpic (flowering once and then dying) but not so, apparently. They are in fact polycarpic much like other 'perennial' orchids. But unlike the resident spotty-leaved species, both Bee and Green-winged develop their (un-spotted) leaves in the autumn months, hence are visible now.
Still having trouble with lichens and mosses. Can anyone recommend an on-line key or photo-guide for the latter? Slugs and snails too? My normally trusty, elderly Roger Phillips book is throwing up more questions than answers re. mosses as the photos aren't that great or consistent. The moss in the photo (left) is very common here but could be any one of several in the RP guide. Think this one's on a beech or birch stump but it has some mystery fungus growing out of it too .... so yet more species to identify.
This Challenge has become a huge learning curve and should be recommended to all wildlife watchers, regardless of experience!
On another plus note, the real Creeping Jenny has finally turned up on a ditch-edge by the stream above .... as opposed to the Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage version which I found in wet woodland and mis-identified last time (thanks to Mark T. for putting me straight). Meadow Vetchling and Bitter Vetch are also now visible .... if you grovel around on hands and knees in a suitable meadowy/grassy spot. I also noticed a bit of invertebrate activity yesterday in the main wild flower bank .... a small house-fly and a very small spider, both unidentified but enjoying a bit of sun-bathing. They won't be doing that tomorrow ....
Lastly, I've got this one down as a very common yellow/orange alga (algae?) on trees, possibly Trentepohlia abietina (?)
I know even LESS about algae - are we even counting them?
So now on 227 species .....
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