There were two particularly pleasing aspects to this year’s Bioblitz. The first was finding that the newly restored pond in The Copse is already teeming with life. Alan found the waterweed soft hornwort, and a variety of aquatic animal life, smooth newts, water boatmen, pond skaters, chironomid larvae and mayfly larvae. In addition broad bodied chaser and large red darter dragonflies were hunting over the water. As the pond matures I am sure we will find many more species.
The second pleasing aspect was the variety of insect life and spiders that Myles found with a sweep net, including 5 different species of ladybirds, 2 crickets and 3 spiders, most of which we had not previously recorded.
Marie and I set a moth trap the night before the bioblitz and recorded 6 new species
In all 77 species were recorded in little more than an hour of activity and of these 34 had not been recorded before. The new species are listed below.
As always the picnic food was delicious and the conversation informative and entertaining!
The new species recorded take the total number of species recorded in Grove Woods to 269, split between the various groups as shown below
Flowering plants 137
Stoneworts 1
Birds 40
Fungi 6
Insects 70
Spiders 3
Lichens 1
Molluscs 3
Reptiles and Amphibians 2
Mammals 6
Total 269
New species in this year’s Bioblitz
Flowering Plants
| Arum | Arum maculatum |
| Bird’s foot trefoil | Lotus corniculatus |
| Lesser Burdock | Arctium minus |
| Charlock | Sinapis arvensis |
| Common Sorrel | Rumex acetosa |
| Creeping soft grass | Holcus mollis |
| Foxglove | Digitalis purpurea |
| Groundsel | Seneciovulgaris |
| Hedge Garlic | Alliaria petiolata |
| Mares Tail | Hippuris vulgaris |
| Marsh Willowherb | Epilobium palustre |
| Primrose | Primula vugaris |
| Reedmace | Typha latifolia |
| Soft Hornwort | Ceratophyllum demersum |
| Timothy Grass | Phleum pratense |
| Insects | |
| Moths | |
| No common name | Eudonia mercurella |
| Muslin Footman | Nudaria mundana |
| Garden Grass-Veneer | Chrysoteuchia culmella |
| No common name | Clepsis consimilana |
| Beautiful Hook-tip | Laspeyria flexula |
| Barred Straw | Gandaritis pyraliata |
| Emperor Dragonfly | Anax imperator |
| Wasps | |
| Digger Wasp | Amophila subulosa |
| Shield Bugs | |
| Rhombic Leatherbug | Syromastus rhombeus |
| (formerly Verlusia rhombia) | |
| Lady birds | |
| 2 spot | Adelia bipunctata |
| 7 spot | Coccinella septempunctata |
| 10 spot | Adelia decempunctata |
| 22 spot | Psyllobora 22 punctata (formerly Thea 22) |
| 24 spot | Subcoccinella 24-punctata |
| Orthoptera | |
| House Cricket | Acheta domesticus |
| Speckled Bush Cricket | Leptophyes punctatissima |
| Spiders | |
| Common candy striped spider | Enoplognatha ovata |
| Nursery web spider | Pisaura mirablis |
| No common name | Tetranganatha stiata |
Blyth Woods 