US social scientist Kenneth Boulding : ‘If you believe exponential growth can go on in a finite world, you are either a madman or an economist’.

Showing posts with label Jersey Tiger moth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jersey Tiger moth. Show all posts

Sunday, 8 August 2010

8/8/10: Jersey Tiger, Dark Mullein - New Cross park

Another of my indirect routes home after an LNHS meeting took me (somewhat randomly) to Fordham Park, New Cross - in the Borough of Lewisham - which is currently being re-developed.

The area by Childeric Rd, slated to be a wildlife zone, was covered with dense stands of tall Goosefoot species, but threw up this Jersey Tiger - a moth increasingly found in the capital (I saw two last year). Apologies for the poor picture quality, but it's good enough to show that's what it was .....

Amongst various common weeds of south east London, including Black Horehound, Yarrow, Hedge Mustard, Knotgrass and Black Medick were Woody Nightshade, Sun Spurge, Hemlock and the less frequently seen Field Pennycress.

I have yet to identify the above, which didn't appear to be sappy regrowth from pre-existing shrubs which had been cut down to the ground.

The best botanical find was this Dark Mullein (Verbascum nigrum), my first (apparently) non-planted find in London - though I have seen it in a Bexley Council flower bed, so you never know .... It had a specimen of the bug Liocoris tripustulatus on it.

There was also a Stinking Iris outside the park fence.

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

29/7/09: Jersey Tiger Moths in Streatham

I saw two Jersey Tiger moths (Euplagia quadripunctaria), an exotic-looking, nationally scarce species and suspected immigrant, near Streatham Hill station yesterday evening - before dusk. It is cited as being active by day.

The first one was spotted by me, on the upper side of an Ivy leaf in a scrappy little car park above the west end of the station on Sternhold Avenue. The second was first noticed by another member of the group I was with, sitting on Lime, just over the other side of the railway line by a slip road to the rail depot off Drewstead Road.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/images/insects/insect_jerseytigermsp2.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/Moth/440/Moth.html%3FMothId%3D168&usg=__ZBFymeqnj8qSeSToGAwfxb7VXtM=&h=218&w=300&sz=57&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=h5jI-Jx3tiVkMM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djersey%2Btiger%2Bmoth%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

I was in Streatham to help with a South London Botanical Institute

http://www.slbi.org.uk/

survey of some waste ground in the area. This didn't turn up a great deal of interest, the most notable specimens being some 'escaped' Erigeron karvinskianus, Campanula persicifolia and Leycesteria formosana on Blairderry Rd, the latter two behind the closed cinema, a non-native, but unidentifiable Clematis on the railway embankment and a Wall Lettuce in a garden on Drewstead Rd.