The Lyons Share

I spent the day in the New Forest and surrounding area with Seth Gibson yesterday and what fun we had! I had 28 ticks in total, including 15 plants and one fish. I really was in the mood for letting someone else do all the work whilst I just drank it all up but it turned out I earned my keep in the end. Where to start? Well, the highlight was a trio of ticks all within a few centimetres of each other (two of which were new to Seth too). The first being Coral Necklace, a rather fine species I've wanted to see for years. I knelt down to have a closer look and spotted some Allseed, not a tick but we were talking earlier that it often grows with Chaffweed and right next to it, there it was! Tick number two!

But that was when I noticed the third new species, the TINY Yellow Centaury! I really struggled to get a decent photo but here it is anyway.

Not the most amazing photo in the world but you get the idea with this one.

Nearby, my first UK Large Marsh Grasshoppers, the females are huge!!!

And the rather gross eggs of the Horse Bot Fly Gasterophilus intestinalis.

I think the most ridiculous species I added to my list must be Duck-potato. I had never even heard of this until the other week, Anyway, quite close to the native Arrow-head, here is Duck-potato growing on Hatchett Pond.