Wych Elm

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 The only truly native elm in the British isles is  the whych elm. We have a handful of these trees on and around our land. This tree is much less common following the outbreak of "Dutch Elm Disease" which decimated the elms in the country in the 1970's. This is a fungal disease carried and spread by a type of bark beetle. Wych elm can grow to 30m tall but the ones we have a young trees maybe 8m tall. The seeds are dispersed by wind. Birds eat the seeds and many species of insect use the tree. Caterpillars of moths and some butterfly eat the leaves.


Pub quiz fact - before the introduction of metal pipes for water supply elm wood was used in England to make water pipes. (In Scotland they used Scots pine for the same purpose).

Diary
I have seen a hedgehog in the garden over the last two nights at about 2200 hrs. The moth trap had over 100 large yellow underwing moths and any least 50 crane fly last night. There was one Brimstone moth which I am showing a picture of.

Quite a few slugs are about in the damp grass of the field. Some early mushrooms showing through too.  Camera traps showed a female roe deer and a wood mouse. It's the first time in 6 months that the camera traps haven't picked up rabbits! The noisy tawny owl was outside our bedroom window again last night
I was out with the bat detector over the last couple of nights and added Brant's Bat and Daubenton's bat to my list ..taking the list of mammals seen here this year to 21



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