Plants and Inverts

Ian and I spent a day botanising (if there is such a word) with botanist extraordinaire Eric, who recently completed the Flora of North Lancashire. We took Eric to some sites around the peninsula that we thought he might not have looked at before and that might be good for plants. He did find quite a few interesting plants and some of them scarce records for Lancashire, but as Eric speaks plant names in forked tongues (latin) I can't tell you now what they all were. Once he has compiled the full list I'll be able to have a look properly at what he found.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day and I took a few snaps of some common plants and a few inverts that we came across and you can see these below.

Amphibious Bistort. This was on a pond that Eric hadn't surveyed for 

forty years!

 Bittersweet.

 Blue-tailed Damselfly.

 Common Blue

 Green-veined White on Water Mint

 Marsh Woundwort

 Meadow Brown on Water Mint. In fact the Water Mint at all the wetland

sites we visited were full of invertebrates.

Purple Loosestrife

Small Skipper

Strawberry Clover

Tufted Ducks. We came across two broods on our travels.

Water Mint - insect magnet!

The forecast is looking okay for another ringing session at the Swallow roost this evening so I'll let you know tomorow how we got on.