October 2015
15th October 2015 - (Thursday - Csütörtök)
We've recently had quite a lot of rain, and on my visit today, I found that we had water in The Coffee Pool. plus all three Rock Baths. In addition, I heard one Fire-bellied Toad piping from the water inside the reed bed. Despite it being the middle of October, there were still several plant species in flower.
21st October 2015 - (Wednesday - Szerda)
The recent heavy rainfall has resulted in a good volume of water inside the SQ Bowl. This was helped by Teréz paying a recent visit to clear some large stones/rocks from the irrigation channel. Today's visit took place on a very sunny, but also quite cool morning (ice on the car, this morning !). One butterfly was seen, a Painted Lady, and also, a Violet Carpenter Bee was investigating the walls of the site building (SQHQ).
27th October 2015 - (Tuesday - Kedd)
This lunchtime, Teréz and I met Gyuri Csóka and Levente Szűcs at the SQ. Our mission: to remove and photograph the new gall from the Black Poplar tree, and also to positively identify the Oak trees that are on the site. The Poplar gall was duly removed, photographed, cut in half, and photographed again. We knew that, by this time, the occupants were long gone, and so we could examine the woody gall without guilt ! Several Darter dragonflies were flying over the water, and one pair was egg-laying ! A few Queen of Spain Fritillaries were seen (1 photographed) and a Peacock escaped the camera. The outcome of the Oak survey revealed that we had Turkey Oak at 5 locations, and 2 Sessile Oaks at another. The Sessile Oak on the eastern side carried quite a range of galls, some new to our species list. I will wait for final confirmation from Gyuri before formally naming them. Levente also took away some Oak leaves containing leaf mines - again, species names will follow.