It almost felt like normal – a dozen wildlife fans and us being able to spend time together enjoying the natural world. Our venue this time was the large churchyard of All Saints’, Brightlingsea, followed by a potter along the adjacent lane.

All Saints’ Church itself is impressive – the decorative flint indicating its historic wealth and importance. The churchyard covers a vast area with quite a few trees and features such as log piles and an Insect Hotel, all of which are valuable homes for invertebrates. However, with the exception of some patches of Lesser Calamint (a sweet-smelling and Nationally Scarce plant), most areas seem to be mown (too) regularly to provide much assistance to wildlife. It is commendable to provide homes for things to live in, but these creatures also need places to feed and breed. But on the plus side, the church does welcome the large colony of Soprano Pipistrelles it hosts!

The morning got off to a dull start (and we were grumpy that the No 62 Bus had failed to turn up!), but things were soon brightened by a lovely Speckled Bush-cricket who was sitting on the fence hoping for some sun. Other invertebrates in the churchyard included a large spider (brought to our attention by its long legs poking out of a grave), plus a  Harvestman sheltering away from the wind. We spotted a brilliant green sawfly larvae on a gravestone – and it demonstrated very nicely the arrangement of legs on sawfly (which are types of wasp) larvae as opposed to lepidopteran (butterfly and moth) larvae, which in technical terms have fewer pro-legs.

Lichens are doing well in this holy space. These fascinating organisms are in fact each a composite of an algae living with a fungus, so not really species in their own right, though each are scientifically named, e.g. the Sunburst Lichen is known as Xanthoria parietina. Their ubiquitous presence is an indicator of the general comparatively good air quality as opposed to that of the pre-Clean Air Acts era, when acid rain had a negative effect on them.

It was lovely to see a few areas of pink Ivy-leaved Cyclamens – the phrase ‘small is beautiful’ is so apt, compared to the blowsy horticulturally enhanced varieties that are available. This is the only cyclamen that stakes any claim to native status in the British Isles, but not around here where it is derived from cultivation or deliberately planted. Irrespective, it is a welcome splash of autumn colour.

The weather brightened just as the walk was drawing to an end. The Ivy bushes along Moverons Lane were teeming with all kinds of life in the sunshine – Willow Emerald damselflies (a species which has colonised Britain over the past 20 years), Red Admiral butterflies and many types of bees and hoverflies.  Such a joy to stand and watch, listen and smell the flowers! Ivy gets a bad press, but it is such an important source of food and shelter to all kinds of insects and birds; it does not kill trees and it can provide protection to buildings that it grows up.

Elms are present along the lane – not large Elm trees that had once graced our countryside – but now thanks to Dutch Elm disease only the smaller shrub-like trees, which only grow for a few years before becoming overcome with infection by the fungus-carrying bark beetle  Scolytus scolytus. However, the galleries these creature make under the bark are truly beautiful and artistic. Other recent artistic additions to the nation’s fauna include the Zig-Zag Elm Sawfly which makes rather charming zigzags as it chomps its way along the leaves.  A sharp-eyed member of our group found a well-camouflaged Dark Bush-cricket nestling on a post, whilst Chris noticed this crazy moth caterpillar (a Grey Dagger moth).

Just as we were wandering back to the cars a Devil’s Coach Horse beetle scuttled across the road – rearing its back end up as a warning to us. These are a type of rove beetle, and totally harmless. We managed to shepherd it out of harm’s way before saying our goodbyes to the group.

Many thanks to you all for attending, hope that you enjoyed the morning and that you will be able to join us on another exploration of  nature before too long.

It is amazing how much there is to be discovered on a short walk along the lanes and salt-marsh edge, even on a damp and dark morning.

There was no shortage of plants! Closest to the town, as always, there was the ‘Dog wee plant community’ – Common Mallow, Wall Barley and Hedge Mustard, all of which thrive on the high nutrient-levels.

Other plants we noticed in this area included the Hairy Bindweed, which is not at all common and it is good to know where it has a stronghold. It occurs here in two forms, including the ‘split-trumpet’ type.

Along the field margin we saw Hairy Buttercup and False Fox-sedge …

… and here we were also treated to a few insect delights: a Striped Slender Robberfly enjoying his (substantial) lunch, a Small Heath butterfly and the unmistakeable red-and-black Cinnabar moth. The combination of red-and-black (as well as yellow-and-black) in nature acts as a warning, and a deterrent to would-be predators – in the case of Cinnabars their larvae (yellow-and-black) feed on Ragwort which is known to contain toxins.

Along the sea wall more insects were waiting to be noticed (and not trodden on…some insisted on sitting in the middle of the path!).  These included the Nationally Scarce weevil Liparus coronatus (wonder if it is ‘coronatus’ due to the gold ring around its neck?) plus a rather splendid Ground Lackey caterpillar – again Nationally Scarce and a specialist of coastal and salt-marsh areas – and a magnificent Cream-spot Tiger moth, again largely a coastal species.

Two plants stood out as particularly interesting – Crow Garlic and the Duke of Argyll’s Tea-tree.

Important salt-marsh plants which we discovered at the furthest point of our expedition included Golden Samphire, Sea Wormwood, Shrubby Sea-blite, Sea Purslane and Sea-lavender. Each has different mechanisms for coping with living in salty conditions – some are more succulent-like and preserve fresh water in their stems, whilst others excrete salt onto their leaves – desalination plants in the true sense!

Birdsong accompanied us throughout the morning – amongst other avian life we heard Whitethroats and Skylarks, and saw Swallows, a Little Egret and an Oystercatcher chasing Crows away from its nest.

We so enjoyed the tranquility of the walk, thank you all, and hope that your efforts (and hopefully also our joint discoveries) will help to prevent the area being spoiled by yet more unsustainable and intrusive human activity.

It all started so well – warm and humid –  though the darkening skies were a portent of the heavy rain that was to follow and which eventually brought our morning to a rather abrupt end!

Anyway, back to our morning which began with a look at the ‘Splash-zone’ salt marsh plants which make their home along the promenade, and thrive there thanks to the frequent splashing of the waves and, fortunately, the lack of applications of the dreaded Roundup, of which so many councils are inordinately fond. These plants included Sea Beet, Lesser Sea Spurrey and Buck’s-horn Plantain.  A rather attractive soldier-beetle Cantharis rustica put in an appearance whilst we were walking along this section.

Various birds provided the backdrop sound-scape  – Lesser Black backed and Herring Gulls over the water, whilst Cetti’s and Reed Warblers, Skylarks, as well as Blackbirds and Robins, accompanied us throughout the rest of the morning. Along the sea wall we were pleased to see flowering of lots of typical plants, both natives and non-natives, including Cow Parsley, Alexanders, the beautiful pink/purple Salsify which goes to bed at lunchtime, plus the pink-flowering Tamarisk, a lover of coastal regions.

Either by accident or design, (the previous growth of Gorse bushes having been removed last year), the bank along the road opposite the Lido is a mass of flowers including the not-so-common White Ramping Fumitory and Field Scabious, both loved by insects. Although insects were not out and about as much we would have liked, several were apparent, including a three-some of Dock Bugs on the dock leaves along this bank.

Once up on the sea wall, other insects presented themselves – green tortoise beetles, stretch-spiders (shining almost like burnished gold in the gathering gloom), a Bramble Sawfly, plus numerous other flies, bees and spiders. A few beetles made an appearance including Seven-spot Ladybirds and the relatively large leaf-beetle ‘Banksy’ (officially Chrysolina banksii)…

Some insects are only apparent by the traces they leave, for example leaf mines ( here, on the Spear-leaved Orache) – where very small insect larvae live the first part of their lives within leaf-tissue, and galls.

Galls are fascinating and a result of a plant’s reaction to an ‘attack’ by another organism, be it fungus, insects or mites. The affected plant, as a kind of damage-limitation exercise, creates a specific area to keep the perceived infection separate from the rest of the plant, hence the wonderfully varied galls that can be seen on many plants. The Oak is the champion as far as galls are concerned, and over 50 different types have been recorded on these trees, and today we did spot two – cherry and currant galls (above right) – on trees in the Lozenge.

We were disappointed not to be able to linger (because of the now persisent rain) in the delights of the Lozenge Community Nature Reserve, but perhaps we can revisit at another time.  Perhaps a summer evening with the bat detector and moth trap?  Let us know if this would be of interest to you. And next time hopefully we will get to sample the fare in the new Lido café!

As a recce for our new series of #WildBrightlingsea walks coming up (sadly tomorrow’s is postponed because of potentially dangerous winds), we headed there today. Only a short distance from Wivenhoe, it is more maritime in nature, with Tamarisk already looking its best, before the flowers actually burst open and the coral tones are diluted, and Duke of Argyll’s Tea-tree is now well into flower.

With winds rising in anticipation of the spring storm, some sheltered areas were teeming with insects, many of them getting into the summer of love, to the fragrant accompaniment of Hawthorn and Cow Parsley, the very embodiment of May. Dock Bugs were abundant on Hemlock, presumably insensitive to the toxins that render it so poisonous to us.

A selection of the other insects and invertebrates we found included Parent, Woundwort and Green Shield-bugs…

… a selection of hoverflies and dance-flies…

… along with weevils, crane-flies and Nursery-web Spiders …

… and finally, the stars of the day, a Large Velvet Ant and the fly Argyra diaphana, both pretty uncommon in Essex and the former also Nationally Scarce.

One thing that struck us as we walked around the town is that the benefits of reducing mowing may be gaining traction: a grassy bank opposite the Lido has masses of Bur Chervil (a rather scarce, largely maritime plant), and also White Ramping Fumitory and surprisingly early flowering Field Scabious. Whoever manages it, well done!