Fred's Carnivorous Plants and other oddities

[fredg]

A fun time, yesterday morning, at Pleasley Pit trying to get a Brown Hawker in frame. She was a big tease hovering close by, even gliding, then doubling back at warp 9.





It's late in the season but there were still a few Dragonflies looking in good condition.

A male Common Darter.



A Ruddy Darter female who was happy to pose.



Get an eyeful of the twin engines.



A damselfly I've been unable to get a positive ID on. Any ideas?

[Maren]

Wonderful pictures, Fred, most enjoyable.

[Maggi Young]

One for you , Fred .....





Link to info:
http://www.callicarpa.org/when-we-arent-looking/

[Peter Maguire]

Lovely pictures Fred, I especially like the flight shots which always an interesting challenge.

I think your mystery damselfly has to be a large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula. Young specimens (known as 'teneral' forms) start yellow and the red develops with age, and apparently some females never turn red. The yellow (which should be red) stripes on the thorax and the black legs are the diagnostic features.

Having said that, it's very late in the year to be looking freshly emerged (the brown spot on the wing will darken to black after a day or so). I've watched them emerging from a cold pool on Speyside in May.

[fredg]

Very interesting Peter, thank you for that. I didn't explain that photo properly, it wasn't taken with the others I was struggling for ID. It will be an immature as you say. Amazing really, a 6 week life span in that form and they start off as an immature.

Thanks Maggi, my Drosera regia are like that, they run at you and try to take an arm off. I'm still undecided as to which is gooier. Drosera regia mucilage or slug goo. Neither washes off readily 

[fredg]

An update on the Pilularia globifera. I repotted the main bought plants into sphagnum and they definitely prefer this medium to the peat I had them in. The "two frond wonder" I removed from the Darlingtonia tray into its own half tray of sphagnum has progressed and raced from on end of the tray to the other. Whatever was cropping it ceased to so it now occupies a larger area than the combined area taken up by the originals. Sometimes one has to wonder how a plant as vigorous as this is in its current conditions becomes red listed.

Here's a photo of about 25% of it

[fredg]

I'm hoping this drought will end this afternoon although I've been hoping that for the last month. Luckily I had enough rainwater in storage but so far I have 900 litres of empty capacity. I've been religiously performing the nightly rain dance on the roof (naked with inside-out and backwards Y-fronts on head) but it's just not getting the desired results.

[Maggi Young]

 That's all you know Fred - we've had more rain up here than we know what to do with -  something in your dance has the wrong coordinates. 

By  the  way, we've heard about your neighbours  making megabucks selling tickets for the "Show"   

[fredg]

By  the  way, we've heard about your neighbours  making megabucks selling tickets for the "Show"   

Now I had noticed that they were taking a lot more holidays Maggi. I assumed that the strangers that kept appearing were house sitting 

[fredg]

I positioned a couple of new barrels next to my Arisaema patch ( 3 large tubs acting as raised beds) which is in a slightly secluded part of the garden. The area beneath the Arisaema is pretty dark during the growing season as it's surrounded by Acers, Bay and a large Azalea so I reasoned ferns were a good option. There are many available at very reasonable prices which is also an encouragement.I had to remove and re-position elsewhere one raised bed so this meant I could expand my fernery a little. I have also used large gravel (10mm and 20mm), pebbles and river stone to try and protect the ferns from cat disturbance ( so far it's effective) and I'm hoping to get mosses and liverworts to colonise.

Here's how it looks at present.







MrsG says that best of all, when I'm sitting down there I'm completely secluded and totally out of her sight.

[Maggi Young]

The ferns are looking very happy and healthy - it's good when a plan succeeds, isn't it?

[fredg]

I sowed a few(hundred) seeds of Darlingtonia last year and germination was quite good. I therefore decided to prick out a few and drop them into baskets of live Sphagnum moss just to see if, as many say, the Sphagnum will swamp the seedlings and kill them off.

This is the result of growing in a slower growing finer red sphagnum. The seedlings are keeping their heads up.



Now grown in a more vigorous green Sphagnum.



Yes there are healthy seedlings in the green moss.

A couple of the small baskets developed a problem in the green Sphagnum so I removed the Darlingtonia and replanted in peat to prevent possible contamination in the new moss.

Removed


Replanted


So now it's a wait until next year to see how the ones still in the live sphagnum cope.

Here's what the seedlings look like in the original sowing tray, they were sown rather thickly.



These will be left to fight it out. The fittest win.

[Maggi Young]

Crikey! looks like a rare case of 200% germination!! 

[fredg]

MrsG found this in her garden rubbish bin. It's Opilio canestrinii, the Red Harvestman. Thirty years ago this chap (yes it's male) would have only been seen in the Appenines (Italy). But like its historical human counterparts the Romans it has taken Europe by storm. Why the sudden expansion of its territory? No-one knows. It has almost conquered every corner of the British Isles, the rest will soon follow.



Dates of recording ( Conquest years) Denmark 1987 - Sweden 1990 - Holland 1993 - England 1999. Looking at the distribution map for Nottinghamshire, that one shouldn't have been here 

[fredg]

This is off one of the original plants of Pilularia which has recently shown a new lease of life. It was attempting to escape and colonise a Darlingtonia tray.



it's not really what was expected originally  . A rampant little devil when it's happy