February 2025 – Warwickshire Wildlife/Nature

Please refer to the Introduction Page to understand the context behind the monthly photographs.

Animals

Roe Deer Buck & Hind

Birds

Goosander (Male)

Goosander (Female)

Grey-Lag Goose being ignored by Canada Geese

Grey Heron

Fieldfare

Fungi

Silverleaf Fungus (Chondrostereum purpureum)

Phellinus pomaceus

Witch's Butter (Exidia truncata)

King Alfred Cakes (Daldinia concentriica)

Mollisia cinerea

Mollisia cinerea - Close up

Turkeytail (Trametese Versicolor)

Sulphur Tuft (Hypholoma fasciculare)

Liverworts

Forked veilwort (Metzgeria furcata)

Forked veilwort (Metzgeria furcata) - Close up

Dilated Scalewort (Frullania dilatata)

Dilated Scalewort (Frullania dilatata) - Close up 1

Dilated Scalewort - Close up on Female lobes with flowers

Leafminers

The Bramble Leafminer is a very tiny moth (Stigmella aurella) that feeds on Bramble leaves. The lavre excavate serpentine shaped tunnels just below the surface of the leaves as they feed. The shape of the pale gallery or blotch created as it feeds is usually the better means of identification rather than finding the adult moths. The lavre spend the winter inside the mine and then come to the surface of the leaves to pupate. The emerging moth can be found April to September time. The species is on of the commonest and most widespread in the Great Britain.

Bramble leaf mined by Stigmella aurella Moth

Ferns

Borrer's Scaly Male Fern (Dryopteris borreri)

Lichen

Lichen are only recorded at each new OS Grid location (hover for Grid Ref). They are then entered on the British Lichen Society spreadsheet and submitted for their Warwickshire VC38 Lichen database and Lichen mapping.

To give a sense of scale all the lichen "close up" photographs below use the scale of the photographed scale below which is in millimetres i.e. 1mm to 3mm.