All posts by Chris Gibson

Eastern Scotland by train: Dundee – architecture and art

Miscellaneous, Travel by Rail

A couple of weeks ago as the south baked under an unprecedented September heatwave, we had fortuitously booked a rail trip to eastern Scotland where although still lovely and sunny, the temperatures were much more amenable.

This is the first of four blogs covering those six days. Dundee for the first two nights proved to be very exciting and full of interest, and now for me a real challenger to Glasgow as my favourite Scottish city. In no small part that is down to the best-located Premier Inn we have ever been to, overlooking the ever changing beauty of the Firth of Tay, the road and rail bridges spanning the water east and west respectively.

A couple of hundred metres along the waterfront is its cultural heart, the magnificent new V&A design museum, the thing that drew us to Dundee in the first place.

A shapeshifter of a building, close up it seems to be a heavily stratified sea cliff…

… while walking into and under it has all the echoing moistness of a remote sea cave, with ever-changing reflectascapes in its rockpools:

From further away, it transforms into a cruise liner echoing Dundee’s past as a major trading port.

And then from another angle, it is nothing less than an snapping leviathan from the deep – yes, the city has a whaling past too.

A delight to be alongside, at any time of night or day:

Inside the museum there’s some photogenic building design features and interesting artwork and exhibits:

Alongside the V&A is berthed the RRS Discovery, Scott’s vessel for his first Antarctic expedition, with visitor centre:

And the Slessor Gardens, full of sculpture, art… and yes plants too, including fences cleverly reflecting the organised chaos of a reedbed!

 

Then we came to the Tay Road Bridge, a low-rise affair, but providing remarkable disappearing vistas through its underbelly…

And finally on the waterfront (for now – there are plans for an Eden Project there in the gasworks of the old East Dock), the transformed docks surrounded by historic (and modern) buildings. The dock has its historic vessels too, the HMS Unicorn and a lightship rusting into oblivion in a very fetching manner.

Away from the water, the jute-milling past of the city is now firmly in the past:  the many jute mills have mostly been demolished or repurposed as flats. But one remains to keep the memory alive, the Verdant Works museum. Described to us by a friend as ‘the best museum ever’, the other reason for us visiting Dundee, and we found it hard to disagree with that assessment.

 

Other cityscapes included the two hills rising out of it, numerous chimneys, churches, art and other buildings, many in a pleasing warm local red sandstone that didn’t match our southerners’ preconception of a dour Scots town (helped by the sunshine and blue skies!).

Our final main location was of course the Botanic Garden. More about the plants and other wildlife there in the next blog, but it also features interesting art and sculpture, along with views across the firth.

It probably says something about our age, but a highlight of our walk home from the Botanic Garden around Balgay Hill  was what we both agreed was the most comfortable park seat ever. Well done to the City Council!

More than enough to keep us fully entertained for a couple of days, it is a city to which I suspect we will return.

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: September sunlight

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

The past two weeks of unprecedented September heatwave since my previous Wandering Naturalist event have continued to prove one thing: we have changed our climate and will continue to do so unless we turn things around very quickly. Climate change (or as we should be thinking, climate collapse) is made up of shorter-term weather effects and the recent heat has certainly brought the season to a close for many plants in the garden. Likewise, the diversity of insect types is declining, although the numbers of Honeybees, bumble-bees and carder-bees in particular is still rising, presumably as their nests continue to grow. Hornets too, but not generally visiting the flowers themselves: they are working their way around the flowers trying to catch insects which they kill with a sting and take back to their nests to feed to their developing grubs.

The daisy family is really taking over as the main provider of nectar and pollen resources to the bees and a whole host of other insects, and will remain so now until the first frosts:

And a major addition in the Reservoir Garden since the last walk has been the opening of Phacelia flowers, now literally buzzing with life! A great species this to improve the wildlife-friendliness of any garden, they will self-seed merrily into any gaps.

Of course bees and the like are not the only creatures we want to encourage. Lots of others make up the garden food-web, as pollinators, predators, parasites, decayers, food for others and generally providing the services needed to turn a garden into an ecosystem. Just a few examples  are ladybirds, flesh-flies, parasite-flies and harvestmen:

Some dragonflies and damselflies also go on well into the autumn, though most of the summer species have now expired. Those we are likely to see for some time yet are Ruddy Darters and Willow Emeralds (both of which we saw mating), with a few Common Darters and Migrant Hawkers that didn’t hang around to be photographed.

And so to the butterflies and moths: during the two hours, good numbers of at least seven butterfly species were seen, taking advantage especially of Buddleia and Verbena.

Notable was a brand-new generation of  Green-veined Whites, along with two species of renowned migrant to our shores, at this stage of the year as likely to be progeny of spring immigrants rather than new arrivals: Painted Lady butterfly and a couple of Hummingbird Hawk-moths, always a delight to watch working their favoured flowers (today, Buddleia):

And all of the above set to a constant twittering background of migrating Swallows overhead, no doubt catching some of our insects to fuel their trans-equatorial flights to come, plus the squeaks of Meadow Pipits and Siskins, birds just arriving here from the far north-east to take up their winter haunts.

So summer may be over but the garden goes on, and will continue to do so until the weather turns much cooler; there are still plenty of flowers still to come and feed our creatures!

If anyone would like to join me in the garden looking at its wildlife, I am planning on repeating this walk (weather permitting) for the last time this year on 29th September, between 1100 and 1300. No need to book, just come to the garden (normal entry price – see our website for details) and ask at the Visitor Information Centre where I will be and when, and come along and find me! Nearer the time, if the weather is looking at all dodgy, please feel to contact me using the Contact tab above to check it is likely to be running.

Blogs of previous events in this series can be found at:

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: a butterfly bonanza! | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the steamy jungles of Essex!! | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the slide into Autumn… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: after the rain…….. | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Each one is fully illustrated with photos taken on the day; if anyone wants to know the identity of anything depicted, please feel free to contact me through the Contact tab.

Visit the Beth Chatto Gardens and be inspired to Rewild your Mind!

#WildEssexWalks – evening in the Wrabness Nature Reserve

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildEssex

‘Hunting High and Low’ – those elusive bush-crickets kept us searching during our lovely stroll, in beautiful evening sunshine, this week.  We knew that the Wrabness Nature Reserve was a hot spot for the glorious Great Green Bush-cricket, but sadly none were seen in the flesh.  Younger members of the group  (and Tim Gardiner, Essex Recorder for Orthoptera – grasshoppers and bush-crickets – who we met very fortuitously) assured us they were there in number, singing away, but it came with rather a shock that most of us ‘oldies’ couldn’t hear them….a well-known phenomenon that as we age we lose the ability to hear certain high frequencies/pitches. Luckily Chris had his trusty bat detector with him which was able to pick up the songs, not only this species but also Dark and Roesel’s Bush-crickets and so we all managed to listen in, even if only by remote! And all is not quite lost – later in the evening, perhaps as it was cooling, the song of some individuals did pop into our consciousness…

We did manage to see a couple of members of this group of charismatic insects, the well-camouflaged Speckled Bush-cricket and the tiny, compact Common Groundhopper.

That aside, there was plenty to enjoy – Wrabness Nature Reserve, managed by Essex Wildlife Trust (who will receive a donation from us for this event), has had a chequered history. From its early days as a mine depot it has been subject to all manner of planning applications, including for a prison, but thankfully all were rejected and it is now in safe hands, for the enjoyment of all, and somewhere that is called home by millions of plants, invertebrates as well as birds and mammals.

Below is a selection of the delights we met on our travels. Birds were singing their evening songs, and we caught a fleeting glimpse of a Turtle Dove as it flew over a hedge, while down the estuary, the air was filled with the evocative liquid bubbing of Curlews, and Redshanks, Dunlins, Grey Plovers and Turnstones fed at the water’s edge.

Apart from Orthoptera, other insects we chanced upon included a Buff Footman moth and one of the largest leaf-beetles Chrysolina bankii:

Reflecting no doubt the rather damp midsummer period, berry-bearing bushes were laden with the bounties of autumn:

And not only fruits, but also galls (here, Knopper Galls on Oak,  Sputnik Gall and Robin’s Pincushion on Rose) and microfungi (Sycamore Tar-spot and Willow Rust)….

… while as a foretaste of what may prove to be an excellent fungus season, we also found a troop of earthballs:

Which just leaves the flowers, of which there were many important sources of late-season nectar and pollen for our insects. As a brownfield site that has been allowed to naturally re-wild, the plants are a wonderful diverse, multicultural mix of species from all round the world, important native species like Red Bartsia and Common Toadflax intermixed with Broad-leaved Everlasting-pea and  a host of others of garden origins.

Our guest Co-Leader Eleanor (when she wasn’t eating blackberries!) took on the role of Assistant Photographer, and here are some of her efforts…

As always many thanks to our interested group for taking part and hope to see you all again soon.

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: after the rain……..

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Heavy drizzle preceded the fourth in my series of  ‘Meet the Wandering Naturalist’ sessions in the Gardens, and although it stopped ten minutes before the start, the first walk was still a pretty sodden affair. Not that it prevented several interested visitors joining me strolling around and looking at nature…

… and realising how lucky we were, given the ring of lowering clouds all round!

Flying insects were relatively few and far-between, most sitting around forlornly, only the bumble- and carder-bees, safely wrapped in their fur coats, creating a buzz in the borders, with Nepeta, Hylotelephium, Salvia yangii, Caryopteris and Vitex agnus-castus being especially sought out.

With a hungry nest to provision, Hornets were busy flying around and entering their nest in a hollow Cherry tree, although the nest entrance was tantalisingly out of sight; however the occupants of one of the above-ground-nesting wasp species (perhaps Median Wasp) remained quiescent.

And even if the insects were few, there were always the rampant scentscapes to enjoy, as always after rain, along with the twittering of House Martins and Swallows migrating overhead and the plaintive autumn song of Robins starting to swell, and of course the displays of rain-drops on many a plant, especially the mercurial spattering on Alchemilla:

During the second hour though the weather changed markedly. The sun came out and turned the garden into a sweltering, humid cauldron, with butterflies (seven species) and dragonflies (three species) responding immediately:

Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Eupatorium, Scabiosa and Foeniculum quickly became the focus for foragers, bees and hoverflies especially, but also a whole lot more …

… and of course for predators keen on making a meal of the pollinators …

… as well as other lookers-on:

Summer may be ending but the garden goes on; there are still plenty of flowers still to peak, to brighten up our lives and deliver their sustenance to the natural world:

If anyone would like to join me in the garden looking at its wildlife, I am planning on repeating this walk (weather permitting) on both 15th and 29th September, between 1100 and 1300. No need to book, just come to the garden (normal entry price – see our website for details) and ask at the Visitor Information Centre where I will be and when, and come along and find me! Nearer the time, if the weather is looking at all dodgy, please feel to contact me using the Contact tab above to check it is likely to be running.

While one can never predict what nature will deliver, I imagine it will be the copious nectar and pollen sources of members of the daisy family Asteraceae, together with Hylotelephium ice-plants in the gravel areas and flowering Ivy in the hedges that will be sustaining insect life. Birds could be heading south overhead and maybe the first fungi of autumn will be sprouting. So much to look forward to!

Blogs of previous events in this series can be found at:

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: a butterfly bonanza! | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the steamy jungles of Essex!! | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the slide into Autumn… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Each one is fully illustrated with photos taken on the day; if anyone wants to know the identity of anything depicted, please feel free to contact me through the Contact tab.

Visit the Beth Chatto Gardens and be inspired to Rewild your Mind!

BOOK REVIEW: The Biodiversity Gardener – Establishing a legacy for the natural world

Reviews

BOOK REVIEW The Biodiversity Gardener: Establishing a legacy for the natural world by Paul Sterry (2023) Wild Nature Press & Princeton University Press.

First published in British Naturalist September 2023, 26-27.

Anyone who has one of Paul Sterry’s many other books will know to expect an array of excellent photos from all corners of the natural world. The remarkable thing though is that the majority in this book have been taken in his own Hampshire garden, in the habitats he has himself helped to create, whether by design or informed ‘neglect’ over the course of the last decade.

But this book also showcases the author’s powerful words, full of passion and polemic, albeit drifting into pessimism, sometimes laced with a gentle humour, about the state of nature around us and the perils we have inflicted upon it during our lifetimes. For someone like me who shares almost all his views on the ecological heresy of gaudy annual plantings masquerading as meadows, the glory of Ragwort, the blind (destructive) faith that ‘tree-planting is good’, the de-skilling of naturalists through reliance on dodgy apps etc, it helps validate my own world view.

What it is also is a manual for those who want to try and do this sort of wildlife gardening for themselves, and an inspiration as to what they could achieve. By ‘this sort’ I mean small-scale rewilding, or maybe ‘renaturing’: there is almost no mention of the value of (some) garden plants to our native wildlife.

So, I see this as an important book, one that anyone interested in their immediate surroundings ought to have. It should sit alongside the magisterial Wildlife of a Garden by Jenny Owen which covers similar ground (with more lists) but in the context of a more traditional suburban family garden, and the book that has probably not yet been written: the one that details, in the way these two books do, the wealth of actual creatures that have been encouraged by targeted ‘gardening with wildlife in mind’ using the multicultural array of garden plants we have available from around the world.

The book exudes quality, from its binding to the heavy, non-shiny paper and the colour reproduction, and lack of any obvious errors. The only criticism I could make (and this is maybe very personal) is that the body text looks rather archaic (the sans serif box text I find more appealing) while the juxtaposition of serif and sans serif fonts for headings and subheadings is visually jarring. But do not let that put you off buying it!

Dr Chris Gibson FBNA

Heading Westwards Part 2: … and the power showers of South Wales

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Leaving Bath for the last half of our three-day train trip, it was under the Severn, out of the sun and into the rain of the Vale of Glamorgan.

Llantwit Major, close to the south coast, has a beach with cliffs, a view over the Bristol Channel to Exmoor, and is a place where the vegetation is sculpted by salt-laden sea-spray:

This close to the warmth of the sea, pushed inland by incessant south-westerlies, the landscape also features a suite of plants we are less used to seeing in winter-chilled and droughted Essex, at least in such bounty. Chusan Palms are scattered around, including in the churchyard,  while every stone wall is festooned with Ivy-leaved Toadflax:

In field corners and gardens, Monbretia is naturalized in golden swathes …

and the hedgerows are largely of Fuchsia, now in full bloom.

Notwithstanding the Fuchsia originate from South America, they seem to be much used by local bees, including Common Carders, Honeybees and Buff-tailed Bumbles. In abundance – between the showers every bush was a-buzzing:

St Illtyd’s church is a fascinating place. Looking every bit a ‘standard’ parish church, it is the site of one of the earliest seats of Christian learning in the country, and its internal features reflect that, with remarkable mediaeval wall paintings:

But most impressive of all are the Celtic stones, covered in symbols and inscriptions that hark back to a pagan past. Corralled together inside the restored chapel they are to my mind a little out of context – cut off from the spirits of the outdoors, from which they derive their symbolic power …

… but at least they are protected from the elements, which showed their force as we sheltered inside!

And Nature is never too far away. The stonework at the restored end of the building features an ammonite fossil …

… and the churchyard itself is far from being an over-tidied, pesticide-poisoned waste, the fate of all too many even in these relatively ecologically enlightened times.

It may have been only a short break, but we covered a lot of ground at leisure, and were able to immerse ourselves in landscapes and weather we are most unused to at home!

Heading Westwards Part 1: relaxing in a hot Bath…

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Three hours on a train brought us to a very hot and sunny Bath for a full day of exploration, after years since either of us had been there. And the first impression, particularly in the sun, set against blue skies, was a city defined by, almost hewn out of, its local geology: the beautiful honey-coloured oolitic limestone.

All the classic elements of architecture share the limestone in a remarkable, World Heritage display of geoconcordance, from the Abbey…

 

… to the Roman Baths (notwithstanding the considerable inducements not to sit on the stone shelves!) …

… to the Circus, with its wonderful quincunx of massive Plane trees (sadly under threat, we later learned) …

…and the Royal Arcade …

.. as well as less renowned vistas throughout the city.

So many ‘cliffs’, it is not surprising that there were Peregrines around, along with numerous Herring And Lesser Black-backed Gulls: Bath was renowned as one of the first locations where the inland, urban breeding habit of these ‘seagulls’ was recorded.

Given its location in a loop of the River Avon, bridges and riverscapes are another major feature:

Along the riverbank there was welcome dappled shade from many Tulip-trees, while several of the Sycamores where showing a remarkable infestation of Horse-chestnut Scale-insects: …

… and riverside flowers included Himalayan Balsam and Shaggy-soldier (both attracting insects) with another rapidly spreading non-native, Water Bent-grass.

Tumbling down from a higher level in a series of vertiginous locks, we walked along the Kennet & Avon Canal to Widcombe …

 

… one lock gate in particular being a lovely vertical garden, nicely complementing the village telephone boxes.

Last but not least the Botanic Gardens. Always a delight to visit such places, as much for the insects and other wildlife as for the plants themselves:

… including a single Globe Artichoke attracting the attention of a carder-bee, a Honeybee and a leafcutter-bee, all delving deeply and being liberally coated with pollen.

But then we were off, further west, into Wales…

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the slide into Autumn…

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

What a difference a couple of weeks makes! Compared with my previous walk The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the steamy jungles of Essex!! | Chris Gibson Wildlife, the third in my series of  ‘Meet the Wandering Naturalist’ sessions in the Gardens coincided with a rather dull, blustery day; that and the advancing season combined to reduce the insect activity substantially. Nevertheless, there was more than enough for all who joined me strolling around and looking at nature.

Butterflies in particular were well down from their superabundance of the past month, with just a few Small Whites, Holly Blues, Gatekeepers and Red Admirals on show.

And the available insect food sources have moved on with the season.  Buddleia, Lavandula and Eryngium are all but over (though where any flowers remain they are still exerting strong attraction) ……

… Bistorta, Nepeta and Origanum are perhaps starting to fade but a major draw nonetheless ….

… and now the daisy family is really beginning to assert itself as a force in the garden. Echinacea in particular is a magnet for bees, hoverflies and many more.

Of course we are lucky to have the space and different ground conditions to grow plants that provide sequential nectar and pollen resources through the year, and at the moment there is a whole host of others sharing the  role:

Honeybees, bumblebees and hoverflies are among the most numerous of insect visitors …

… while parasitic tachinid flies also seem to be especially abundant at the moment. While often overlooked, their role in parasitising lepidopteran and other larvae cannot be overstated. The more the garden supports predators and parasites, the more its insect abundance (what some may call ‘pests’) are kept in check without recourse to poisons. Let’s hear it for our army of tachinids, ladybirds and wasps!

Dragonflies, damselflies and bush-crickets are also part of this predator realm, albeit relatively minor players numerically. This normally camouflaged Speckled Bush-cricket showed up remarkably well on the vivid Lythrum flowers …

… and damselflies included both the typical late-season Willow Emerald and this beautiful lilac-fronted form of Blue-tailed Damselfly, echoing the colours of its chosen perch.

But the bonus from their being fewer insects on show was that there was more time to talk about other wildlife, plants in particular. Coming into late summer, many are in fruit, and none is more distinctive than the unique churro-like seeds of Meadowsweet:

And although it may be a stretch too far to call planted plants ‘wildlife’, certainly anything that has embraced its wild side by spreading itself around the garden deserves that name. In the Gravel Garden, Fox-and-Cubs is doing that in such an artistic way that surely Beth would have approved…

… while in the same area, Sickle-leaved Hare’s-ear weaves its filigree fronds as a golden thread, linking the beds thematically and also through the years: once native to Essex, and only to Essex, when its habitat was threatened by roadworks half century ago it was rescued by a band of botanists – and it is likely that some of the seed came into Beth’s hands, and garden.

If anyone would like to join me in the garden looking at its wildlife, I am planning on repeating this walk (weather permitting) on 1st September, between 1100 and 1300. No need to book, just come to the garden (normal entry price – see our website for details) and ask at the Visitor Information Centre where I will be and when, and come along and find me! Nearer the time, if the weather is looking at all dodgy, please feel to contact me using the Contact tab above to check it is likely to be running.

While one can never predict what nature will deliver, my guess is that with the end of the season firmly in sight, it will be the copious nectar and pollen sources of members of the Asteraceae and also just-now-opening ice-plants of the genus Hylotelephium (perhaps better known as Sedum) that will be sustaining late breeding attempts and provisioning others for hibernation.

Blogs of previous events in this series can be found at:

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: a butterfly bonanza! | Chris Gibson Wildlife and

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the steamy jungles of Essex!! | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Visit the Beth Chatto Gardens and be inspired to Rewild your Mind!

#WildEssexWalks – an evening with trees and bats in Wivenhoe Park

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Towards the end of a sunny summer day, #WildEssex headed for Wivenhoe Park, home of the University of Essex. Landscaped around Wivenhoe House in the mid-18th century, the park boasts lakes and grassland, some now commendably being allowed to bloom through the season, providing for both flowers (like Common Knapweed) and insects, here the galls in thistles formed by the picture-winged fly Urophora cardui ….

…. but most importantly, a collection of magnificent trees from all over the world. The oldest, native Pedunculate Oaks, certainly pre-date the hall, and provide habitat for all sorts of wildlife, including cracks and crevices for roosting bats, as we saw at the end of the walk.

This summer all the oaks are afflicted by Knopper Galls, taking the place of the acorns, in densities greater than we have ever seen before. The Jays may go hungry this autumn, although the also very abundant beechmast may help compensate.

Other exotics included Red Oaks, Mulberry and Walnut, the latter with the most wonderful sweet smell when its leaves are scrunched. So too with the many conifers, Coast Redwood with the most invigorating resinous aroma, mixing bitter oranges with parsley. Much more alluring than the other two of the redwoods of the world, Giant and Dawn Redwoods, also featuring in the park, or the north African Atlas Cedar and mid-USA Swamp Cypress: all have distinctive scent but none as memorable as Coast Redwood.

A  Cedar-of-Lebanon, de-rigueur for every aristocratic house in centuries past droops gracefully outside the main entrance, and in the same area there are groves of the more prosaic Horse-chestnut (aka Conker Tree). These two species do however share one feature: they are nowadays very rare, endangered even, in their aboriginal habitats, the mountains of the Middle East and Cyprus, and the Caucasus respectively. Thank goodness for parks, gardens and arboreta, Arks to help species from seriously troubled parts of the world survive into the future.

As the sun set around a quarter past eight,  twilight soon descended and we set up camp by the lower lake to await the emergence of bats. It started slowly but within an hour, just before it was fully dark, we were among them in abundance, between the trees, overhead and over the water. With the bat detectors we recorded mainly Soprano Pipistrelles, but also Common Pipistrelles and Daubenton’s Bats joining the feeding frenzy, a wonderful end to a lovely walk.

That’s it now for #WildEssex in August. Our next planned trips are to Wrabness Nature Reserve 4 September (also an evening trip) and Brightlingsea on 18 September, our annual charity event, this time supporting the wonderful work of Springmead Garden.

Late Summer at Landguard Point

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

It was a perfect summer day for a short foot-ferry trip from Harwich to Landguard Point…

The Harbour was millpond-still, overseen by huge blue skies and dramatic cloudscapes:

Waves lapped gently on the shingly shores as the port activities clanked softly in the background…

Out on the Common, most  flowering was over, apart from Sea Mayweed and Sticky Groundsel now at their peak …

…  with Rest-harrow erupting from the Rabbit-grazed turf and Yellow Horned-poppies still sending out blooms that flutter in the slightest breeze.

Otherwise it was the fading delights of a floral summer:

Duke-of-Argyll’s Tea-plant, as so often simultaneously flowering and fruiting, its goji berries having survived the depredations of superfood hunters and birds alike:

Some magnificent Robin’s Pincushions, galls caused by tiny wasps, adorned the Dog-roses, while several much larger Sand Wasps were provisioning their nests in the shingle:

A couple of mating Common Blues posed well, although the star insects – Dune Villa fly and Jersey Tiger moth –  were simply too fast in the mounting heat, and evaded the camera.

All this and more, including on the Essex side of the Haven, the mean streets of Harwich, nowadays lined with Shaggy Soldiers, a street-plant that wasn’t there a decade or so ago when we lived in the area…

… and the  biodiverse, bounteous, blooming beauty of brownfields: a magic multicultural mix of species from all over the world, today thronged in Small White butterflies!

A couple of days in Cambridge…

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

A couple of lovely sunny days in Cambridge last week, Eleanor’s first holiday with Granny and Papa, proved a real success all round. Centrepiece of the first day was the Botanic Garden: well known to us, but seen now with new eyes – flowers from all round the world, complete with a kids’ passport-stamping discovery trail …

Given the time of year, fruits were also a feature, along with foliage sprinkled with mercurial stardust and brought to life with welcome sunlight:

Insects were everywhere of course, from leaf-cutter bees to Cinnamon Bugs, butterflies to dragonflies, the Ruddy Darter being one of Eleanor’s photographic efforts!

One poor Southern Hawker was giving especially good views, but only because it had been captured and beheaded by a Moorhen. It was then presented to a well-grown chick, which proceeded to turn up its bill at the offering!

Finally on the insects, we were saddened to see the killing fields of Thalia dealbata unleashed. A previous blog Murder at the Garden Pond: Thalia dealbata – the (not very) beautiful assassin | Chris Gibson Wildlife has catalogued the unsavoury habits of this plant, and we hope that contact with Garden managers will result in the removal of the pollinator-killing flower-spikes, as we now do at Beth Chatto’s Garden.

The following day, the Museum of Zoology kept us out of the fierce sun, and occupied for a good couple of hours. A REAL museum, with lots of fascinating actual specimens, an absence of buttons and lights, but child-friendly display cases, the right height to get eye-to-eye with specimens of every kind.

And that apart from some bits of intentional and unintentional street art was it…

… except for the delight of the funfair for our little treasure!

 

 

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the steamy jungles of Essex!!

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Yesterday it was the second of my ‘Meet the Wandering Naturalist’ sessions in the Gardens – strolling around and looking at wildlife (insects in particular) for a couple of hours and showing it to any interested visitors.

Insect abundance was not quite as great as the first, two weeks ago, and many of the butterflies were distinctly worse for wear after the downpours of the past week, but there was more than enough to fill our time, helped by the sultry, warm, humid, still weather, more jungle than Essex summer. Much better weather in fact than the forecast for thundery showers – the sun was patchy, but very warm when out, a thunderclap mid-morning preceded a very light shower until five minutes after the session finished when the heavens opened with what was probably the spikiest rainstorm of an already wet summer.

The star performers plant-wise were Bistorta and Lavandula, especially for wasps/hoverflies and bees respectively, and Origanum for the whole spectrum of insects. And the favourites from last time, Eryngium and Buddleia, although fading fast still have serious pulling power…

But of course these plants were only a small selection of the resources on offer to our insects, as the photos below show:

Showiest of all the insects of course were the butterflies, with 14 species logged, including a major emergence of second-brood Holly Blues, although the very best, a stately Silver-washed Fritillary didn’t hang around for a photo!

Hoverflies too were everywhere, and included two of our largest species Volucella zonaria (Hornet Hoverfly) and Volucella inanis, among numerous other species…

… along with other flies from a whole range of families:

Honeybees, bumblebees and wasps, including the locally scarce Median Wasp on Ruta, as seems to be usual, added to the pollinating hordes…

… along with less celebrated but no less important pollinators such as beetles.

Of course not all insects are subsisting solely on nectar and pollen: in our garden jungle there are also predators. Below is Kite-tailed Robber-fly with a Marmalade Hoverfly dinner and a Bee-wolf wolfing a bee!

When flowers are on offer, it is always too easy to overlook other wildiife action around the garden, or perhaps more aptly ‘inaction’, sitting around on the foliage basking, looking for food, or nesting…

So, another wonderful two hours immersed in the Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens …

If anyone would like to join me in the garden looking at its wildlife, I am planning on repeating this (weather permitting) on 18th August and 1st September, between 1100 and 1300 each day. No need to book, just come to the garden (normal entry price – see our website for details) and ask at the Visitor Information Centre where I will be and when, and come along and find me!

While one can never predict what nature will deliver, my guess is that, as we slide gently towards autumn, it will be members of the daisy family such as Echinacea and Eupatorium that we will be celebrating next time!

Visit the Beth Chatto Gardens and be inspired to Rewild your Mind!