Splachnum season

It is Marsh Fritillary larval web survey season, which means it's also time for me to look out for Splachnum spp on dung in the wet acidic pastures I'm surveying.

I've not noticed any on the Gower Commons over the last couple of weeks, but struck lucky today with a small patch of S. ampullaceum on a cow pat at Seven Sisters. The location (SN827090) was in a different grazing unit to the patches I saw in 2015, and a different monad, though the same tetrad.

 Photo courtesy of Chris Jones, taken using a macro lens clipped onto his phone camera.