A nice autumnal glow around the orchards at East Malling Research again today with the late-season sun picking out the cherry leaves, Miscanthus and apples beautifully.
More Fieldfares were evident on site, with a flock of Black-headed Gulls, Woodpigeons (including the leucistic bird) and Carrion Crows picking over the newly-seeded fields around Rookery Field.
Cycling through one of the experimental apple orchards I was amazed at the number of snails that were nestled in the grass on the headlands - not sure which species they are but this time of the year obviously suits them, there were literately hundreds of them. Scanning the ground I located tens of what I presume are Bee Orchid rosettes?
A Red Admiral added some unexpected colour - no doubt attracted to the rotting windfalls.
3 comments:
The snail in your pic is a Cepaea species (either hortensis or nemoralis), common and variable species. See here for more info:
http://www.evolutionmegalab.org/en_GB/
Creative composition BTW!
Greg
Adam ,
Believe it or not , I was going for Cepaea hortensis/White-lipped Snail as well .
Anonymous/Greg has been very helpful with IDs on mine too .
Re. the ? Bee Orchid rosettes , off the top of my head I would say that all their greenery would have died back by now , having flowered June / July . At High Elms yesterday , there was no sign of even Common Spotted Orchid greenery on the Orchid Bank .
The leaves on your shot are very ribbed and leathery looking , swaying me towards a Helleborine , which flower later and the greenery was found yesterday at HE.
Did any of the plants have flower heads on them , even gone over , if so a shot might help ID . If not , I would be very interested to see a shot of them in flower next year .
Thanks for snail ID fellas - much appreciated. Greenie, I'll try and get some more shots of the 'orchids', but no evidence of flowering - but they are on a grass headland that is mowed off so I don't suppose I'll get see flowers next year either! I'll have a word with the farm manager to see if he can avoid them.
Adam
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