The Andrena clarkella mining bees at Court Hey Park are indeed now active! At the moment there appear to only be a few burrows open and i only saw males so i suspect they have only recently started to emerge, perhaps stalled by the drop in temperature again.
Preempted by Biodiverse Society North Merseyside Officer, Jules at the recent Twilight Session the Andrena clarkella mining bees at Court Hey Park are indeed now active! At the moment there appear to only be a few burrows open and i only saw males so i suspect they have only recently started to emerge, perhaps stalled by the drop in temperature again.
Still a good few things on show in the park though. My first active 7-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) of the year, the parks feral Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) introduced to me a few years ago by the National Wildflower Centre Damian Young, a colony living in standing deadwood and known to have been present at least 10 successive years, appear to have woken and the Amphibians are having a riot.
Nice also to see a pair of Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) setting up shop in one of the National Wildflower Centre bird boxes. You can watch them quite clearly from the fence left of the old entrance (behind the dead tree).
I also couldn’t help but snap a pic of the parks only colony of Wall Scalewort (Porella platyphylla) one of only 3 sites in North Merseyside. Not protected and usually associated with Limestone, it adds a certain uniqueness to the parks biodiversity! Also, some of the beautiful Silky Wall Feathermoss (Homalothecium sericeum), far more abundant but non-the-less beautiful with its golden-green shine.
