National Insect Week

Last week was National Insect Week, held every two years to encourage people to be more aware of them and their importance to the world around us. There are 24,000 species of insect in the UK alone so it seems appropriate to post a few pictures of a variety of insects that I have seen recently in my garden or around the local lanes.Often dismissed by people as a nuisance or uninteresting, they are vital to the ecology of our world.

I disturbed this delicate looking White plumed moth as I did some weeding in the garden. It would normally be flying at dusk but soon resettled on some teasels which are coincidentally providing some bindweed with a climbing structure. Interestingly the food source for the caterpillar of  this moth is bindweed!.

 

There are plenty of hoverflies about at the moment and this one, a Marmalade hoverfly I believe, is quite well camouflaged on this marigold as it feeds.

Bees are working hard at the moment pollinating our crops by gathering nectar and pollen and they home in on any flower that can offer both. We may curse the brambles that invade our gardens and seem to grow very quickly overnight but the flowers are a welcome sight for bees and other insects. Also, come August / September, we get the benefit of foraging for the blackberries for autumn fruit pies!

Grasshoppers and crickets are more often heard rather than seen, but it is worth looking out for them in long grasses if only to see how impressively high they can jump! This is a cricket, identified by its long antennae, the grasshoppers usually having short antennae. Unfortunately it didn't stay still long enough to get a side view to see if it had any markings to work out what type of cricket it was. In researching some information about grasshoppers and crickets I have discovered that it is possible to use a bat detector to determine particular species that make sounds at different frequencies just like bats do. Next time I go looking for them I will take my detector with me!

An unexpected encounter

During a walk one warm evening this week along the lane towards Slade Cross something shot across the road. Was it a mouse or a vole? Unusually, instead of disappearing into the undergrowth as we approached like most small mammals, it lingered on the edge of the tarmac allowing a close up view.

It was a vole, but was it a Field Vole or a Bank Vole? They are quite difficult to tell apart but

the reddish brown fur and length of the tail, at least 50% of the body length, makes me believe it to be a Bank vole as the Field vole is a grey brown colour and its tail is only 30% of its body length.(But I am happy to be corrected!).

It was quite bedraggled and on closer inspection its rear left foot appeared to be being dragged behind it, so perhaps it had escaped from the clutches of a cat or even an owl. This didn't seem to hamper the speed at which it moved though and it continued to dash from one side of the lane to the other for quite some time, seemingly oblivious to us and our dogs presence as you can see from this short video clip.

People living nearby said they had seen a vole earlier that day feeding under their bird table and it to had a damaged foot so despite that it seemed to be able to fend for itself quite successfully! We felt privileged to have been able to get such good views of it, it's amazing what you can see just walking locally.

Glorious pink!

As summer gets going and the weather warms up, different wild flowers are emerging. 

Knapweed is looking lovely and will attract plenty of insects. It will appear in meadows and even on your lawn if you don't mow it for a few weeks!

More spectacular though are the Pyramidal orchids which can be found in a few places around the parish at the moment. Their name is a very good description of the flower head, especially before it fully opens and makes it one of the easier orchids to identify.

Rosebay willowherb, another summer flower often seen on our roadside verges is making lovely splashes of colour now. The seeds are specially adapted with tiny parachutes which blow on the slightest breeze and therefore spread the flowers range. Also known as fireweed as it germinates after fires.

 

The Field scabious, whilst not such a vivid pink, but lilac with a hint of pink, is also flowering now and deserves a mention. This plant was used to alleviate plague sores and other skin conditions, which is probably where it got its name from!

Looking down not up!

I have a tendency, as a bird watcher, to look up and not down, so sometimes I have to remind myself that there are lots of things going on below eye level that are worth watching out for.

Recently, especially on the sunny days, there have been numerous butterflies on the wing and the Meadow Brown in particular have been emerging in good numbers.Walking across any longer grassy areas will disturb them and they will fly away from you in an erratic way before landing again and invariably closing their wings.

If you are lucky they may start to feed holding their wings at least partially open, but they rarely stay in one place for long!

Other more obliging butterflies that will settle and that I have seen recently have been Red Admirals

and Small tortoiseshells.

The warm weather has also seen the beautiful day flying Hummingbird Hawk-moth making an appearance, especially in gardens like mine with valerian growing in them. These large moths have migrated from the Mediterranean during the spring and there are even records of them returning south in the autumn!

This year I have noticed more dog roses in the hedges than usual and the blooms seem to attract insects, often in good numbers, like these colourful hoverflies that seem to be having a non socially distance gathering!

This week on my daily walks I have been keeping a close eye on nettles by the roadside and been rewarded by the sighting of lots of seven spot ladybirds. Of the 46 ladybird species now found in Britain only 26 are readily recognisable as ladybirds and the seven spot is the most common.

Unfortunately another non native lady bird, the Harlequin, invaded the UK back in 2004 and are now thought to be causing problems to our native breeds. Along with sightings of our seven spot I have also seen larva (below) of the Harlequin ladybird. These ladybirds are variable in colour and are often more noticeable in the autumn when they gather in large numbers, often on windowsills indoors, looking for somewhere to spend the cold. Last year I believe they congregated in the local church tower! 

The humming, or buzzing if you prefer, of bees on sunny days as they busily gather pollen and nectar is a joy and they seem to like the perennial geraniums in my garden so I can spend time trying to identify them. Not always that easy as they are, as the nickname says, "busy bees"!

So, I hope I have demonstrated that looking down, or at least sideways, and not always up in the air, is really worthwhile!

Recent news from Underway Meade

The Moorhens have been successful on the pond again this year and are currently raising one chick.It is quite active and follows its parent and demands food, though it can feed itself, but it keeps out of sight most of the time hiding in the thick reeds as the rather wobbly video below shows!

There have been some interesting plants appearing in the Meade recently, such as this Water Figwort, which as the name suggests, likes to be near water. This one is growing alongside the stream and will be polinated by common wasps.

The more well known Foxglove has also been appearing alongside the hedges and in small clumps on the mound. This is a biennial so takes two years to go from seed to flower. It is loved by bees, which feed on its pollen by delving deep into its trumpet like flowers.

It is poisonous if eaten but can be used to produce digitalis, a drug used in the treatment of heart failure and high blood pressure.

Another plant that has been quite prolific on the mound this year, probably as a result of the sheep having grazed last year and the scrub clearance, is the birds foot trefoil.The bright yellow flowers are followed by seed pods that look distinctly like bird's feet or claws, ( look carefully at the second picture below!), hence the common name. It is a food plant of the caterpillar of the Common Blue, Silver-studded Blue and Wood White butterflies, so keep your eyes open and you may be lucky enough to see them on the wing around the mound!

Birds in the garden and seen on my local daily walks

For the first time in many years starlings have begun visiting our garden. In fact a family of them have been coming in to the garden and their parents have been busily feeding them in and around the ground feeder.

The parent is the speckled bird with the metallic sheen, the male is often oilier than the female and has a bluish beak, whereas the femaile's beak is pin.The young one, below, is almost plain brown with a black beak.

Don't mistake the young starling (left) for a young blackbird. She is also brown but has a orange/brown beak (below.) rather than black and appears more speckled on the front.

This one that visits our garden regularly has a deformed leg, and has an odd posture. It is too tame for its own good, scarcely moving a I go out to to put out more bird food,  but she is managing to feed ok so far.

Another bird we only get occasionally in the garden is the Stock dove. A relative of the wood pigeon, feral pigeon and the collared dove but it is often overlooked .It lacks the white neck ring of the adult woodpigeon, has a dark eye and, unlike the woodpigeon, it is a protected bird.

The unmistakable call of the Mistle thrush, a harsh rattling noise, usually alerts you to the bird.

This one was squabbling with another bird when I walked along Scrapton Lane recently.

It is larger than the Song thrush and tends to prefer the open fields rather than edge of a garden.

In the winter, when the Mistletoe or the Yew tree has berries, one of its favourite foods, it will often defend this food source if other birds try and come in and start to feed. Watch out for it in the churchyard!

Bugs and creepy crawlies

Various flying insects have been on the wing recently but some have been easier to photograph than others.

The St Mark's fly, named after the saints's day on 25th April, when it generally takes to the wing, have been seen in large numbers recently, especially in the shady areas along Greenway. They are black and fly with their legs dangling, so are quite distinctive.
You will need to click on this to zoom in on this picture to try and see them though!


















Various damselflies have also been emerging recently, such as the large red damselfly (left) and, what I believe is a blue-tailed damselfly. 
The difference between these and dragonflies is that their wings are closed at rest whereas the dragonfly's wings are open when at rest.

One or two other interesting insects that I have seen recently included this Orange striped stonefly. (Thanks to my friend Colin who identified it for me!). Its wings have a beautiful pattern and I don't ever recall seing one before. Apparently they are widespread in the SW and like to breed near fast flowing streams.

Not so great to have seen as it is a non native invasive pest, is this red lily beetle. It devours lily leaves and stems and I saw this one on the Stonydown footpath, so if you have lilies in your gardens watch out!













I'll end this post on a spider. I think it is a woodlouse spider and this chap was actually in our house but I evicted it as it is one of the few british spiders that will give you a nasty nip! .