Lords and Ladies puzzle.

Trudging up the hill to Ewelease Dairy today, stopping frequently to admire the newly emergent ferns, both Hart's Tongue and Soft Shield Fern, as well as the frequent Lords and Ladies, my eye was caught by one of the Lords and Ladies which had a yellow spike or spadix in contrast to the dull purple usually found. The last time I saw one of these was in the mountains of the Czech Republic some years ago, where it was frequent and easily identified as Italian Arum, Arum italicum. This does occur in Dorset, but only in narrow coastal belts in Purbeck and Portland. Could it have made it over the sea wall?

Arum italicum??. Photo John Elliott. Click to enlarge.

Checking in CTW however, the spadix of Lords and Ladies, Arum maculatum, is stated to be '7 -12 cm., upper part dull purple, rarely yellow'

Arum maculatum. Photo John Elliott. click to enlarge

There is supposed to be a difference in the midrib of the enveloping spathe but it is not apparent in any of the specimens I have examined. The leaves of italicum are said to emerge in December while those of maculatum arise in the Spring.so I will be keeping an eye on it.

Dandelions.

 

 Goldfinches feeding.  Photo. John Elliott. Click to enlarge.

My wild front garden has produced a lovely crop of sunny yellow Dandelions which, once seeded, are proving to be a great food source for the Goldfinches.

News of my Cuckoo.

 The latst bulletin on the BTO's tagged cuckoos incuding mine,  Cuach Torc.

 

 

Cuckoos Trent, Cuach Torc and Sayaan are more or less neck and neck, some 100km south of KP. Trent is in a wooded area just north of the village of Belmez in Córdoba, Andalucia. Cuach Torc is just south of Trent, in the Parque Natural Sierra de Hornachuelos (which KP also visited). Meanwhile Sussex Cuckoo Sayaan is slightly further east, in the Sierra de Andújar natural park, part of the vast Sierra Morena mountain range.

The first Comma.

 The first Comma of the year appeared today in my front garden.

 

   Comma. Photo John Elliott

 

The Comma, Polgonia c-album, is one of the butterflies that regularly overwinter as adults, the others being Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell and Brimstone, and are thus the earliest butterflies to be seen in the spring. 

The Comma became very scarse in the 1800s, being confined to the Welsh Borders, but a remarkable recovery started early in the 20th century, with Dorset being among the leaders with the butterfly 'everywhere' by 1929.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cuach Torc

 

 

Latest bulletin from BTO.

As some of our birds have been in West Africa for several weeks, and we have had a few reports of Cuckoos here in the UK already, we have been waiting with baited breath to see when the first of our Cuckoos would attempt to cross the Sahara. We were very excited when we logged in on Tuesday to find that Irish Cuckoo Cuach Torc had travelled 2,364km (1,469 miles) north over the Sahara from Ghana to Algeria. Further updates received early this morning show that Torc has continued north, successfully completing his desert crossing and taking him into Morocco. He is now on the northern edge of the City of Settat, approximately 60km south of Casablanca. Having flown over 2,500km (1,553 miles) over the last week or so, will Torc now pause here before pressing on into Eur