Oak Tree study in Phear Park (and associated wildlife)

This single oak tree in Phear Park has been chosen by Exmouth Tree Project and Exmouth Wildlife Group for a 'citizen science' study in 2022 - please join in and help us!

The oak tree itself is a veteran Pedunculate / Common / English Oak (Quercus robur), but there are dozens of other species / organisms that live on it and visit it - and some that the oak depends on for its own survival:

Species #1 - the oak itself (Quercus robur), in January 2022...

...and in May 2022.

It's not the biggest or oldest oak in Phear Park, but it has some lovely low branches that are easily accessible and festooned with lichens, mosses, ferns & fungi. The tree is visited by various bees, wasps, hoverflies, butterflies, bugs and other invertebrates. Several species of birds have also been seen in the canopy, including jays, crows, magpies and pigeons. The ubiquitous grey squirrel has also been noted, nibbling off young shoots up in the canopy.

Some statistics: girth = 5.95 m @ 1.5 m; height = ~25 m; age = ~250-350 years?
Location:Lat/long: 50.624097 -3.404328 / https://what3words.com/exam.tree.purely
Tree #21 on https://exmouthtrees.blogspot.com/p/the-trees-of-phear-park-leaflet.html

Altitude: ~50 feet / 15 meters above sea-level. See maps towards bottom of page.
Canopy: ~18 meters south to trunk and 17 north, plus 2m trunk = 37 meter diameter - over 1,000 m2 area.

January 2022: no leaves (apart from a few stubborn hangers on), a bracket fungus (?) at head height on the trunk and few mushrooms on a low branch (?), moss, lichen, ferns, ivy.
https://www.facebook.com/ExmouthTreeProject/posts/3030519317187373

Species # listed in rough order of appearance... NB. These are suggested IDs by various people involved in the project: please comment / contact exmouthtreeproject@gmail.com with corrections or more information.

So far (May 2022) we have just been looking at ground to eye-level (apart from birds). We haven't got the hand lens out to look at the tiny stuff... or the mycorrhizal fungi beneath!

🐞🐛🕷🕸

🍄Left: #2 bracket fungus (Fistulina hepatica?) (broken off a few months later)
Right: #3 small fungi on low branch, #4 lichen, #5 moss, #6 fern, #7 ivy (below right)

Left: #8 & #9 more unknown lichens (ask us after 7th July)

#10 Ram's Horn gall, caused by Andricus aries - an Oak gall-wasp or Cynipid and # common Ivy (Hedera helix)(Photo / ID: SP)

#11 woodlouse sp.

#12, February 10th: a Jay (Garrulus glandarius), possibly a pair. Jays are the main natural species responsible for dispersing acorns (Photo: SP; ID: SP)

Also seen # pigeon, # magpie

17th March: bud-burst. 22nd March: first flowers / catkins.

26th March: first leaf. 5th April: good sized leaves now. A mature oak can have anywhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 leaves according to some studies.

17th April: the invertebrates are emerging... bees, wasps, hoverflies, ants, flies, spiders, galls (evidence of gall wasps), etc. The following batch of photos were spotted in 4 short visits in a week. Please join in and let us know what you see. Descriptions or drawings are also great if you haven't got a camera / phone that does close-ups. We've had some suggested IDs already (many thanks), but will start collating them in one album for further discussion. Taken from FB post

#13 Hoverfly (Epistrophe eligans) "Spring Epistrophe" (Photo: SP; ID: HN/JG/RC)

#14 A Tachinid fly of some sort. (Photo: SP; ID: RC)

#15 Oak Catkin Mirid Bug (Harpocera thoracica) (Photo: SP; ID: RC)

Oak Catkin Mirid Bug nymph? (Harpocera thoracica) Photo: SP; ID: RC

#16 Face Fly (Musca autumnalis) (Photo: SP; ID: RC)

#17 Crab spider sp. (Photo: SP; ID: RC)

#18 Sandpit Mining Bee (Andrena barbilabris) aka bearded mining bee (Photo: SP; ID: JG)

#19 Cucumber Green Orb Spider (Araniella cucurbitina) (Photo: SP; ID: JG / HN)

#20 Tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva) (Photo: SP; ID: JG)

#21 Common Green Shield Bug (Palomena prasina) adult (Photo: SP; ID: JG)

#22 A few of these dead things, in various states of decay, but still attached to the leaves 😱

#23 Galls on underside of leaves, currant or cherry gall - spangle?

Oak current gall, caused by Spangle Gall Wasp (Neuroterus quercusbaccarum) ?

🦋

#24 Butterfly, just one brown one seen, medium size, fluttering into mid canopy. Speckled Wood perhaps (no photo)

Later in April...

#18b Sandpit miner bee (Andrena barbilabris) female (Photo: HN; ID: HN)

#25 Mining Bee (Andrena chrysosceles - possibly) (Photo: HN; ID: HN)

#26 Aphid larva? (Photo: HN; ID: HN)

#27 Dagger Fly (possibly Balloon Fly - Hilara maura) (Photo: HN; ID: HN)

#28 Hoverfly (Syrphini sp.) (Photo: HN; ID: HN)

#29 Orb spider? (Photo: HN; ID: HN)

#30 Soldier fly sp. ? (Stratiomyidae possibly) (Photo: HN; ID: HN)

#31 Yellow Dung Fly, female (Scathophaga stercoraria) (Photo / ID: HN)

19th May

#32 Common wasp (queen?) (Vespula vulgaris) (Photo: SP; ID: JG / HN)

#33 Forest Bug or Red-legged Shieldbug (Pentatoma rufipes) (Photo: SP; ID: HN)

#34 Unknown dangling grub - green oak moth (Tortrix viridana)? (Photo: SP)

🌳 27th May - acorns forming?

6th June 2022

#35 Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) (Photo: SP; ID: JG)

#36 a self-seeded holly (Ilex aquifolium) sapling growing ~10 feet up at the first branch union :-)

#37 Ladybird - 19/20 spot Harlequin (Harmonia axyridis) ?

#38 Blue Bottle fly? (Calliphora vomitoria) very small

Small brown-ish spider - same as #17?

#39 Caterpillar / grub (?) caught in old spiders web next to bracket fungus.

#40 + this one from mid-April, looks different to the others

14th June

#41 Magpie (Pica pica) 99% certain ;-)

#42 Two crows (we presume) - or rooks?

16th June (hot / sunny)

More buff-tailed bees, #43 two smallish birds (pulsing / chirping flight), #44 blackbird, pigeons cooing,

#45 Speckled wood? (Pararge aegeria)

#46 Butterfly flying in and out of the tree. Red Admiral? (Vanessa atalanta)

🐝🐞

#47 Something very much like a Wasp Beetle (Clytus arietishttps).

Camera lens jammed - again - so no photo.

#48 metallic gold/green fly

#49 Not entirely sure... some sort of scale bug mass?

August 2022

#50 Knopper gall (Andricus quercuscalicis)

Late, low, evening sunlight in August

30th September 2022

Leaves falling fast - Hurricane Ian?

New fungus?

6th October 2022

Loads of wasps, flies, etc.,

New species #51 garden spider, #52 white butterfly (with one leaf spot I think) - and #53 several purple-ish mushrooms - Charcoal Burner (Russula cyanoxantha)?.

More leaves turning yellow / brown

#54 October 20th, a pale mushroom - Amanita sp.?

#55 November 29th overwintering eggs of an aphid Lachnus roboris (Variegated Oak Aphid)
ID: https://twitter.com/Norwichbirder/status/1598011494892912640

2nd December 2022 - still hanging on to a lot of leaves

Tuesday 6th December - our oak was visited as part of the Devon Wildlife Trust / Saving Devon’s Treescapes lichen monitoring event - led by April Windle of the British Lichen Society. Six or seven species of lichen (all quite common) were recorded by one group in a quick 10 minute search. I wonder how many more April would have found if she'd done a full survey herself!? Anyway, as far as we could make out, the species recorded were: Flavoparmelia caperata, Parmotrema perlatum, Ramalina fastigiata (#56), Ramalina farinacae (#57), Diploicia canescens (#58) and Xanthoria parietina. Some oak moss (Evernia prunastri) #59 was also found on the leaf litter so we'll count that one too ;-)

Diploicia canescens #58 and Ramalina farinacae #57

Ramalina fastigiata (#56) and oak moss (Evernia prunastri) #59

(Earlier lichen photos near top of page)

Xanthoria parietina - and Parmotrema perlatum?

Also seen on the day, some sort of 'plaster fungus'? And the ferns greening up nicely again.

29th December 2022

Managed to get a photo just before the weather turned on New Year's Eve. Very few leaves hanging on now, maybe less than 5% cover - and mostly in the shelter of the smaller oak to the SW.

Lots of tiny invertebrates wandering up and down the trunk, no idea what they were, but a few blurred snaps below on the phone. A few spiders, bugs and a slug in the leaf little right near the base. And a few dead 'uns:

Also, moss doing its reproductive thing - more complicated than you might think.

And, just to round the year off, the girth is about 5.98m now, so it's put on about 2-3cm

2023

January: blue tit (BL)

Saturday 18th March 2023: noteworthy for green and great spotted woodpeckers only two branches away from each other. The green seemed to be pecking at a branch wound and then flying to and from the big London Plane just to the north-west. The great spotted was about 10 feet below pecking up and down a major branch. Also, those unusual aphids seem to be waking up! See below...

Green woodpecker (Picus viridis) high up in our oak - and then lower down in nearby London Plane

Low quality phone-camera zoom of Great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) very high up. Attempting to measure the aphids for helping ID: body about 1.5mm?

The aphids seem to be walking up.

Later the same day: our first Harvestman seen on our oak - not actually a "spider", but in the arachnid order. Look at those legs (well, 7 of 8)

Not sure which species: https://www.naturespot.org.uk/harvestmen

5th January 2024 - Happy New Year!

Red Admiral sunbathing on the trunk, magpies and crows in the canopy.

18th March 2024

Hawthorn Shieldbug (Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale).

Amazing patterns 💚🌳🐞- and new species for this tree ✅

Same day - bud-burst

Some historical photos, map and information

Tree #21 on https://exmouthtrees.blogspot.com/p/the-trees-of-phear-park-leaflet.html

20th December 2010 Photo: Steve Dombkowski

Our oak tree is actually marked on the beautifully detailed 1889 OS map, just to the left of the A of MAR(POOL) : https://maps.nls.uk/view/128597732