Walking Around Abilly

Simon and I did a 2 kilometre circuit walk around Abilly on 14 March, after checking on the Snakeshead Fritillary colony just out of town. It was 10°C, no wind and starting to cloud over. The fritillaries appeared to be thriving.

 

 Eurasian Red Squirrel Sciurus vulgaris (Fr. Ecureuil roux) in a weeping willow. 'Squirrel' is one of the hardest English words for a French speaker, and conversely, 'écureuil' is one of the hardest words in French for an English speaker to say.

Look how close it came to me! This photo has been cropped, but it was taken with my mobile phone!!

Le Relais de Touraine, an old hotel recently renovated with help from local government grants, and next door the small grocery store.

This side of the water mill has been in this ruinous state ever since we've lived in the area.

This side of the water mill has been restored and is lived in.

A gate made from two old wooden cart wheels.

I wish I had taken the time to take a better photo of this Art Nouveau leaning house. This is just a phone shot taken in passing from the corner of the street.

Cowslips Primula veris (Fr. Coucou) on the side of the voie verte (greenway), with Simon striding out into the distance.

Snakeshead Fritillaries Fritillaria meleagris (Fr. Fritillaire pintade), a species that can be found in the wild in a band across Central Europe from France to Siberia. The species is threatened and is protected wherever it occurs in France, but it has gone extinct in Belgium and parts of France, and is critically endangered in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Snakeshead Fritillaries grow in damp habitat and are one of the earliest spring wild flowers.

Snakeshead Fritillaries are pollinated by Buff-tailed Bumble Bees Bombus terrestris and other early emerging bees.

Glass-winged Drone Fly

Glass-winged Drone Fly Eristalis similis is an abundant hover fly usually encountered in damp woodland habitat. The trick naturalists have to learn is how to distinguish from its lookalike Eristalis spp cousins, especially the even more abundant (ubiquitous even) Tapered Drone Fly E. pertinax and Common Drone Fly E. tenax.

 

Male Glass-winged Drone Fly, photographed by me in early March this year on vegetation alongside the voie verte (greenway) at Chaumussay.

 

The key differences require taking careful note of the colour (light or dark) of each leg, and certain details of the wing markings. 

• E. similis has dark front and middle feet. So does E. tenax, but E. pertinax has pale front and middle feet.
• E. similis has bicoloured hind tibiae. E. tenax has dark hind tibiae but E. pertinax has bicoloured hind tibae. This feature is surprisingly easy to spot, so worth bearing in mind.
• E. similis has a long lightish brown pterostigma (a rectangular mark near the middle of the leading edge of the wing). E. tenax and E. pertinax have small squarish dark brown pterostigma.
• E. similis never has a wing shade (a dark smudge on the transparent wings). E. tenax and E. pertinax often have wing shades.
• E. similis has black hind femora, bands of hairs on the eyes, a dark abdomen with triangular orange marks on the second segment, plumose (feathery) arista (a bristle that projects off the antenna) and a black stripe down the middle of the face. Other Eristalis spp have some or other of these characters too, but not all of them together in combination. 
• E. similis and its lookalikes are about 15 mm long. The species is on the wing from March to September, whilst the lookalikes can be seen in any month. Apart from these three there are a number of other Eristalis spp present in France, and they do all look rather alike. To know if you have a fly in the Eristalini tribe (Drone flies and their relatives) look for the loop in the median vein on the wing. Other flies do not have this.
  

Drone flies are all mimicking honey bees, and they are frequently mistaken for bees by the public. The news media will often publish a stock image of a drone fly to illustrate an article about bees, much to the exasperation of entomologists. Drone flies are terrific and very active pollinators. They spend much of their time as adults visiting flowers, but their life cycle is very different to bees. Drone fly larvae develop in wet pockets that form in rot holes in mature tree trunks, and sometimes they can be found in gardens in containers which have accumulated a mixture of water and rotting vegetation. The larvae are known as rat-tailed maggots, on account of their long thin breathing tubes, which they use like a snorkel while under water and consuming decaying plant material in a bucket, a ditch or a rot hole.

 

For comparison, a male Common Drone Fly photographed by me in early May 2023 at la Cabane, a Zone d'Interêt Ecologique, Floristique et Faunistique (ZNIEFF) that I monitor.

 

For comparison, a male Tapered Drone Fly that I photographed in April 2004 in London, England.

This is how a biodiversity surveyor spends their time -- making sure they can accurately identify creatures that others overlook and disregard.

Golden Ear Fungus

Golden Ear Naematelia aurantia (Fr. Trémelle orangée) is a parasite of the abundant bracket fungus Hairy Curtain Crust Stereum hirsutum growing on hardwood trees, especially oak and beech. 

It is frequently confused with Yellow Brain Tremella mesenterica. The trick is to look for the host. Hairy Curtain Crust for Golden Ear, but Peniphora species crust fungi are the hosts for Yellow Brain.

It can also easily be mistaken for Orange Jelly Spot Dacrymyces chrysospermus, but this species grows on conifers, not deciduous trees.

Golden Ear looks like a sort of crumpled yellow jelly.

Botany Outing to Mettray

On Saturday 7 March I participated in a botany outing to the Parc de la Vallée at Mettray, led by Dominique Tessier. He is their biodiversity adviser. Here is a small selection of the 200 photos I took.

 

 Straw Bristle Moss Orthotrichum stramineum.

The Choisille River winds through the park.

Black Stone Flower lichen Parmotrema perlatum (Fr. Fleur de pierre noire) is a widespread species that occurs in temperate climates everywhere. It is used as a spice in India.

A Douglas Fir cone.

An alderfly Sialis sp. Without seeing the abdomen it is not possible to say for sure which species.

Eastern Sycamore Lace Bug Corythucha ciliata (Fr. Tigre du platane). Pick off any piece of London Plane tree bark and you will find one of these non-native bugs lurking on the underside. The species arrived in France in 1975, from America, and is one of the vectors for two deadly fungal diseases of sycamores, to which London Plane Platanus x hispanca is particularly susceptible.

A rosette lichen Physcia sp.

Oakmoss Evernia prunastri, for once not growing on oak, and distinguishable from lookalike species by its mottled white underside. It is best known as being an ingredient for perfumes.

Hooded Tube Lichen Hypogymnia physodes.

Bitter Wart Lichen Lepra amara. I taste tested this patch. Definitely bitter.

The sports club at the main entrance to the park. The junior soccer team were practicing while we were there, and there were quite a few members of the public strolling or dog walking in the park. Several times we were asked about what we were doing and people seemed genuinely interested.

Wrinkled Crust Fungus

Wrinkled Crust Phlebia radiata (Fr. Phlébie rayonnante) is an inedible resupinate* fungus of dead wood in the white rot family. It forms gelatinous lumpy irregular radiating patches about 10 cm across. It can be anything from pale greyish pink to bright orange in colour, depending on age. 

Widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere it grows on broadleaf and sometimes conifer trees, especially on oak and beech, and in the case of these photos, taken in the Forest of Preuilly, on birch. It doesn't smell or taste of anything in particular.

*Resupinate means the fungus forms a scab like crust, and is stuck to the wood substrate. It does not have loose or projecting brackets.

La Roche Posay in the Sun

As part of my recovery I'm supposed to be walking 3 kilometres every day, but for the last 6 months that hasn't been possible. It took me ages to recover from radiotherapy, and then we encountered one of the longest unbroken periods of rain on record. And it was winter and grey.

On Sunday I finally managed 3 kilometres, non stop apart from taking photos. It's obvious that spring is here.