rush out to buy a packet of seeds, unless you really like white tinyworts. My plants are
about 4cm high, which is quite a good size for them, and the white 4-petalled flowers are
only a few mm across, but I love them.
The annual meeting of the Fungus Group in late January spends some time reviewing the
previous year's findings, and this year we confirmed in some detail the outline I hinted at
in my previous article (Jan 2005). Many people had found species new to them, and
many of us had noticed that species appeared in places where we have looked frequently
for many years but never seen before, and that the same species came cropping up in all
areas. One person mentioned a species on his lawn that he had never seen in 50 years!
This brings to mind the advice I heard years ago that higher plants in an area can usually
be recorded satisfactorily by looking carefully 3 or 4 times in one year, suitably spread
out from April to September, and that is all that is needed; however, with fungi, you
cannot be reasonably sure you have got all the species until you have looked once every
week (because many fruit-bodies are so short-lived), all through the year, for at least 10
years on end. It seems that that should read 50 years!
February 1st was quite a mild and sunny day, but I did not notice anything unusual until
the 3rd, which was quite cold. In my garden are lots of raspberry canes, and at the top of
several were clumps of 7-spot ladybirds. I examined them carefully, being on the look-
out for the foreign invaders with brown, rather than black, legs. All ours had black legs,
so that was all OK. But these ladybirds seemed to be behaving in an unusual way, in
clusters of up to about 20 individuals closely packed together on the tips of the canes. I
try to do the phenology recording organised by the Woodland Trust, and finding 7-spot
ladybirds is one thing to look out for on the list. So, having tried to enter the record on-
line, the date was outside the expected date band so I had to email it separately. 1 got a
lovely reply from Paul Mabbott, known to many of you in our Club as an active
entomologist, and an adviser to the phenology people on ladybirds. It seemed that these
ladybirds were out exceptionally early, but had probably come out in the sunny warmth
of the 1!1, then were caught out when it got cold again. So the poor things had tried to
return to hibernation on my raspberry canes, but in rather more exposed conditions than
usual. A week or so later the ladybirds had moved, or perhaps it was another lot. The
second group were also in clusters on the tops of canes, but not so many at once and on
different canes from the first lot. Paul Mabbott explained all this to me: that the pattern of
hibernation is interesting and related to day length patterns. So before Christmas, when
the days are getting shorter, ladybirds in hibernation will not wake up, even though the
weather be ever so mild. But as the days start to lengthen, they can be lured out by a
warm day that is like a false spring. However, those hibernating out on the exposed
raspberry canes may well have all succumbed to an untimely death, so I fear heavy aphid
infestations in my garden later.
On 21st February snow fell over much of Britain, and even some here. A sprinkling lasted
overnight, so the world was white when we awoke on 22nd. Snow continued on and off
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 47, May 2005
9