Three Small Moths

While I can recognise most of the butterflies that are common locally, identification of moths is always more of a challenge as there are so many of them. There were a lot of these tiny white moths flitting around in the Serpentine Walk. I think that it is a Common White Wave but there are a lot of similar 'wave' moths.

Another from the Serpentine Walk, a Snout Moth.

With the warm weather and the windows open, some moths attracted by the light fly into the house at night. This one is I think a Lunar Yellow Underwing.

Pebble Pattern on the Beach

Two or three times in the last week or so I've noticed a raised pebble pattern at the edge of the water. Today, at low tide, I was able to have a look at it. It looks like the spokes of a large wheel, around 12feet in diameter, made out of pebbles and small stones. Not sure if it's recent or something that was made a while ago and has just been uncovered. The stones and pebbles look well bedded in.

Little Wheel Fungus

Noticed these tiny but beautiful little fungi by the side of the path in the Serpentine Walk. They are little wheel fungi (Marasmius rotula).

They are really tiny!!

Largo Law with its Cap on.

Quite a misty morning yesterday but by lunchtime the sun was beginning to break through. However, Largo Law still had its misty cap.

Red Bartsia

Noticed this flower that I hadn't seen before on the edge of a field bordering the Serpentine Walk. From a field guide I think that it is red bartsia (Odontites vernus) which I'd never heard of before. It is a common plant of roadside verges, waste grounds and other disturbed areas. These areas often have low-fertility soils, so red bartsia is partly parasitic, gaining extra nutrients from the roots of its nearby host grasses. As its name suggests, the whole plant is tinged with red and leafy flower spikes appear from June to September.

Linnaeus originally named the plant Bartsia odontites: the generic name after a follower of his, German physician and botanist, Johann Bartsch, and the specific name for its medicinal use in soothing toothache. Odons is the name for a tooth in Greek.

Close-up of the red bartsia tiny pink flowers. The corolla is 2 lipped. The upper lip is entire and concave. The lower lip has 3 lobes. The stamens protrude slightly from the top lip.