Fungi season

 Another downpour last night so the moth trap stayed where it was, I'll leave it until tonight.
On Friday, a very quick look for butterflies around the Fell in the late afternoon sun produced Speckled Wood, the first of the new brood Common Blue and Wall
Yesterday another quick look whilst passing did produce a Grey Heron flying over and about 40 House Martin and half a dozen Swallow feeding low over the ground. The fell is at it's peak at the moment with the purple Heather putting on a beautiful display. It was rather breezy for butterflies but a Wall and a Speckled Wood were flying around. Later, a Red Fox was calling on and off at home, for what seemed like most of the night.

Wall

There was no sign of the House Martins today during my walk around, but there was a small but steady movement of Swallows heading south. A Green Woodpecker called, the first for a while and 4 Willow Tit at three different spots was quite good. Quite a few juvenile Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps were scattered throughout and a few butterflies were on the wing, namely Red Admiral, Wall, Small White and Meadow Brown. A couple of Shaded Broad-bar moths were flushed from the tall grass by Brass Castle Pond. Also here were a large flock, at least for this time of year, of 20+ Siskin, with a few more flying over the fell. Presumably these are local birds. Fell Edge Wood had nothing unusual but did have a flock of 15 Long-tailed Tit and a Great Spotted Woodpecker.
A leaf-mine on oak in keys out as that of the tiny micro moth  Stigmella ruficapitella.

Leaf mine of Stigmella ruficapitella.

There are still 100s if not thousands of Marmalade Flies around but surprisingly I could not find anything else apart from a few of another half dozen species of hoverfly I have already seen on several occasions already this year.

A few flowers were added today Berberis vulgaris (Barberry), Dryopteris affinis (Scaly Male-fern), Stachys palustris (Marsh Woundwort), Hydrocotyle vulgaris (Marsh Pennywort), Hieracium agg. (Common Hawkweed )  and Succisa pratensis (Devil's-bit Scabious).

Devil's-bit Scabious

Marsh Pennywort

We seem to to be in fungi season and the Fly Agaric in particular is putting on a fine show. Every bit of wet birch wood seems to have some at the moment as well as a number of other species which I'll post tomorrow.

Fly Agaric