Cup fungus

I found this strange rubbery cup fungus in one of my gravel patches today.


I haven't been able to identify it but it looks similar to peziza types.

Any suggestions are welcome.

First butterflies in the garden

Yesterday was sunny and there were several brimstones passing through the garden.



Today I went out to see the heather buzzing merrily with bees and found my first comma of the year trying it out too.

Runner-up again!

I entered a photo competition in August organised by the Freshwater Habitats Trust. They wanted pictures for their 2015 calendar. I didn't win one of the three major prizes, but my entry was selected as the September page of the calendar and I received a runner-up prize of a mug picturing a very handsome toad!

My picture of a swimming grass snake has already appeared here on this blog. Their caption in the calendar reads "Even ponds full of alien invasive plants and algae can provide a habitat for priority species like the grass snake." Is that praise for my garden pond or are they telling me to clean it up?

Autumn in the birches

There are lots of birch trees in my local patch so my latest finds are not really surprising.

The birch polypore is a fairly large fungus that appears in autumn and can last for over a year. This is a fresh one which appeared this month. The tree is dead and a favourite haunt of greater spotted woodpeckers. (As seen here)

The fungus is said to have many medicinal properties but is unpalatable for eating. A piece of this fungus was carried by "Ötzi the Iceman" – the 5,000 year old mummy found in the Tyrol.






Another unsurprising find was this little shieldbug.





It's the birch shieldbug, Elasmostethus interstinctus. This one was probably looking for a place to hibernate today. They overwinter as adults and emerge to mate and lay eggs in the spring.

A fly for a sunny day

A pretty sight on a September day! This hoverfly is known as the sun fly (helophilus pendulus).

It spent some time feeding from the Michaelmas daisies. They are at their peak this week so the sun flies are probably happy.

Their larvae are some of the "long tailed" maggots that are found in very wet situations - marshy ground, wet compost heaps or buckets of water with rotting vegetation inside. Leave some around if you want more of these pollinators.

An invader!

It's another bug but this one is an American! The western conifer seed bug, leptoglossus occidentalis, arrived in Europe in 1999 and immigrants have been reported on the south coast of England since 2008. This one is the first recorded in this part of Sussex. Apparently they live on pines and there are lots of those in Heath Common, where I found it.

Box bug

 

I've seen a couple of these in the garden in the last few days. I love its latin name - gonocerus acuteangulatus. I've seen that described as a perfect example of "Harry Potter" latin.

It was named the box bug because it was originally known only on Box Hill in Surrey, feeding on box trees. It is now known on other hosts and probably comes from the yew tree in my garden.