A plum tart's tick

One of the good things about reading other people's blogs is that you pick up tips for things to find and look at.

This recent post by fellow blogger, Skev, made me aware of the existence of a certain species of Prunus that I had no idea was even a thing.

So out I went today with my camera and my copy of The Vegetative Key .

Sepals reflexed and rounded

No sepals showing between petals, flower relatively wide ....

New growth green and glabrous ....

So if my 'borrowed' captions are correct then this is Cherry Plum Prunus cerasifera. Thanks Skev!

This particular plant was at the RSPB's Fen Drayton reserve. Despite being very close to home, it's not somewhere we venture to very often. Not sure why. Anyway, for a variety of reasons we ended up there for a brief walk today. The water from the River Ouse was very high and was starting to overflow again. In fact it was rising as we walked with the path becoming noticeably more submerged during our time there.

With so much flood debris knocking about, I just couldn't resist taking a couple of bags home for a look through. It would have been down right rude not to. I was literally grabbing handfuls as it floated by...

The pick of the beetle bunch were these new ones: a staph, a hydrophild and a latrid

I'd assumed that at 4mm that this was a small Philonthus, whilst not a million miles away it is in fact Erichsonius cinerascens. This genus is mainly found in wetland areas and there are 3 species to be found, this being the most commonly encountered.

This 1.4mm globular beetle is one of the two species of Chaetarthria. A tiny hydrophilid found in moss in rafts of vegetation. These need to be dissected as only males can be identified to species.

There was also this latrid. It keys to Corticaria but I've not had much experience with this family so will need to dissect and hope for a male again in order to be happy with my ID. Otherwise it will be carded and compared to known specimens at a future date.

Amazing what you can found during the winter. My last 6 weeks beetling has been a revelation. So many new things seen, Long may it continue....