I think the Slug and Sycamore would make a great pub name! The sycamore shoot is in the bank down beneath the silver birch. We frequently get sycamore shoots in the top garden and the bank because this side of the valley used to be lined with sycamore trees. We have four stumps in one of our flower beds. One is pretty much disintegrated and the other three are home to bracket and other fungus. We will probably pull up this little one as it is too close to the silver birch and sycamores can grow up to 35m tall.
I spotted the black slug (Arion ater) a while back, just before Little Venice got flooded.
Black slugs are not always black. They start life as pale specimens, and there are red and brown variations. Also, there is a tendency to darker shades the further away from the equator you get.
I found out that black slugs have a top speed of 1.8inches per minute – that’s 0.0017mph. This compares to the Leopard Slug (Limax maximus), which is the fastest slug and can whizz along at 6 inches per minute – 0.0056mph.
Finally, not all slugs are bad for the garden. The black slug eats an omnivorous diet including dead plant and animal matter, earthworms, and fungi. It rasps its food into tiny pieces with a band of microscopic teeth called radula.