July: another month with almost no rain. The hum of summer pervaded the garden, if a little subdued especially in the heat of the hottest days. We’re in the midst of an unprecedented three successive heatwaves and almost continuous drought.

I had a busy month leading walks round the garden, but still found time to sit (in the shade!) and look. The full complement of dragonflies and damselflies has now emerged from the ponds with Willow Emerald, Southern Hawker, Ruddy Darter and Black-tailed Skimmer all flying.

Jersey Tigers have put on their now-expected emergence, a flurry of orange, black and white. Hard to believe that these have been with us for less than five years, having spread here under the influence of climate change. Hummingbird Hawkmoths have also been flying around the garden by day, feeding at Buddleja and other tubular flowers. This summer has seen quite a good arrival of these moths that have flown in from the continent; who knows when they will appear as permanent residents…

The same is true of Painted Ladies, ever-present this month following an influx earlier in the summer. Only Gatekeepers have been in larger numbers, feeding especially on Marjoram, alongside Common Blues, Brown Argus and other resident species.

Some other butterflies included Comma, Red Admiral and similarly familiar ones, including the first new-brood Brimstones, plus a few Small Tortoiseshells, very scarce this year presumably due to the relatively recent establishment of a new parasitic fly in this country.

Other new colonists over the past few years have also been apparent, such as Wasp Spider, Firebug (making more Firebugs, so we should be getting more!) and Rhododendron Leafhopper, only the second time I have seen this in the Gardens.

Parasite-flies have been very obvious, including Tachina fera and Eriothrix rufomaculatus, parasitic on larvae of other insects, and all helping bring natural balance to the garden.

Hoverflies have added their buzz to the soundscape, common species like Batman and Marmalade Hoverfly, together with less common ones like the Furry Dronefly, here in two colour forms mimicking different bee species, and Hornet Hoverfly.

As always there have been plenty of other things to enjoy as well, from Grey Herons around the Reservoir to Forest Bugs and Bee-wolves.

This was also the month we ran a moth trap over two nights, reported in detail here, and this alone added about forty new species to the burgeoning garden biodiversity list. But as always, casual observations added to the total. Several of these were leaf-mines and galls, a bit of a niche study …

… but there were others as well, from a couple of hoverflies (Scaeva selenitica and Eristalis horticola) to a jewel-wasp Pseudomalus auratus, a jewel-beetle Agrilus laticornis and the Viburnum Leaf-beetle.

As to what is in store for the rest of the summer depends largely on whether there is rain. But even if the drought persists, there will be things to see. There is always wildlife to see in a garden that prides itself as putting the right plants in the right place, right for us, the plants and for the insects that depend on them!

The second outing for our moth trap into Beth Chatto Gardens this year came just as the unprecedented third heatwave of the summer broke down, albeit not into a tumult of thunderstorms. The drought remained but the night temperature fell to a delightfully chilly 13 degrees. I had little idea what to expect as I opened the trap: it could have gone either way…

I characterised the previous trapping a month earlier as a qualified disappointment: the overall number of moths and species was lower than I hoped for given the heat of that particular night, and it felt the haul lacked a little in colour and the ‘big game’. The same was true this last weekend: it produced almost as many moths and almost as many species; plenty to see but just lacking a bit of spice.

At first view I was worried, though. Sitting on the outside of the trap was a Hornet. Even a small number of Hornets or other social wasps can cause carnage in a trap, but not this time. Just one Hornet outside, one and an equally predatory Common Wasp inside, and no obvious mortality. And the ‘big and beautiful’ were crown-pleasers: an Elephant Hawkmoth and two Oak Eggars…

Other ones distinctive in colour, pattern or posture included Rosy Footman, Black Arches, Scarce Footman and September Thorn…

Equally distinctive, though less obtrusive, were those hiding in plain sight and reliant on camouflage either as bark (Dark Arches, Iron Prominent) or bird poo (Lime-speck Pug, Least Carpet and Scorched Carpet)…

Another selection of macromoths helps complete the picture of their diversity and the delightful poetry of many of their English names: Large Yellow Underwing, Dingy Footman, Maiden’s Blush, Pebble Prominent, Twin-spotted Wainscot, Nutmeg, Spectacle, Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing and Sallow Kitten.

It is a simple fact though that even the macromoths are not always identifiable to species on external appearance. Some identicouples or moresomes can be specifically identified only by killing them and examining their unique genitalia, which of course is something we will not do. So the below must remain as Ear Moth (one of four possible species), Grey or Dark Dagger, and one of the three possible Common Rustics.

Turning to the numerous micromoths, most frequent were the several species of grass moth, along with small ermines of at least five species: Bird Cherry, Apple, Willow, Iceplant and Orchard Ermines.

Micros may (generally) be smaller but can be very attractive and/or distinctive, such as Agapeta zoegana, Ethmia quadrillella, Calybites phasianipennella, Water Veneer and Catoptria pinella:

Many moths are well-known as migrants to the UK from the Continent, and at this time of year a moth trap may well contain several specimens indicative of a recent immigration event. That was the case at the weekend, despite the fact that the breeze was northerly, with several Willow Ermines, Diamond-backs and Small Mottled Willows, along with single Silver Y, Dark Sword-grass, Rush Veneer and Rest Harrow, the latter until recently being considered a real rarity.

Hitherto migrant moths can and do sometimes establish breeding populations, and we had a selection of those too, with Tree-lichen Beauty, Cydia amplana and Plumed Fanfoot, first recorded in Britain in 1987, 1990 and 1995 respectively, and now likely to be breeding in and around the gardens.

All in all, the night’s haul amounted to about 350 moths of 96 species – see here for a full list and comparison with previous trapping at this site BC MOTHS TOTALS to July 26. This included more than thirty species new to the garden list: because we run the trap here only a couple of times a year, there is always ample opportunity to expand that list further! Running the trap in different locations and in different months would certainly add considerably to our overall biodiversity list.

As always, creatures other than moths found their way into the trap. Caddisflies are regular visitors, especially given the proximity of their aquatic breeding habitat, and included Glyphotaelius pellucidus and Mystacides azurea.

Another pond-dweller was the Supertramp Beetle Rhantus suturalis, one that is well known for dispersing at night and seeking out fresh ponds by the light of the Moon. A plant bug Phytocoris varipes was the first time we have recorded it in the garden, and the most dramatic element of the by-catch was a carrion-beetle Necrodes littoralis, a species best known from coastal strandlines, and indicative of the wondrous, largely unnoticed, flux of insects under the cover of night.

Our group also had time for a quick walk around the gardens and managed to see a couple of characteristic day-fliers, Jersey Tiger and Hummingbird Hawkmoth, along with a selection of butterflies, shield-bugs, dragonflies and damselflies.

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The trap was again pressed into action a few nights later, to prepare for a kids’ mothy session at the start of the summer holiday. With focus on experience rather than identification, we didn’t produce a full list for that event, but just appended new ones to the weekend trap results.

And what an experience it was for them, especially enthralled by the size of the Oak Eggar, the pattern on the Black Arches and the birch-twig camouflage of the Buff-tip. The latter was extremely compliant, allowing itself to be handed gently round all the little hands massed around the trap, one by one until even those who were initially scared had a go. And then it was released into safety, content in the knowledge that it might just have changed the life of one or more of the kids.

And remarkably, given that we had trapped only four nights’ previously, I found about 25 moth species that had not appeared in the trap on Friday night and, of those, nine were were completely new to the ever-expanding garden biodiversity list. Some of the absentees from the Moth Morning event were White Point, Gypsy Moth, Pale Prominent, Peacock Moth and Sharp-angled Peacock.

Hopefully the Moth Mornings will be back next summer, and after the joy of the kids’ moth event, I would love that to become a fixture too. Watch the Beth Chatto website events page for more details.

June was a month of two halves. After the record-breaking May heatwave broke down at the very end of the month, the first two weeks of June were damp, with some very heavy rain, before the even more record-breaking heatwave reasserted itself. Is anybody listening to the cries of the Earth?

My visits to the garden were all in the latter half and included a moth event covered in this blog Midsummer Moths 2026 at Beth Chatto Gardens | Chris Gibson Wildlife, successful up to a point but I think showed signs of the impact of the vagaries of the weather.

Bird broods were very much in evidence, including Great and Blue Tits, Blackcaps and Blackbirds. Three singing male Whitethroats and four Goldcrests were presumably proclaiming territories for their second broods, and my personal first record of a Coal Tit in the garden was also of a singing bird, perhaps a second-brooder that may have first bred elsewhere. Grey Herons seem to be dispersing from their heronries, with several flying over and one at rest by the Reservoir for some hours, while Swallows and a Kestrel were feeding over the long grass of the overflow carpark.

In the garden through the heat, insect activity during the hottest part of the sunny days was much reduced, but by seeking out the cooler times and shady spots, it was possible to find plenty of interest. But not always to photograph it: Silver-washed Fritillary, Rose Chafer and Willow Emerald damselflies were all zipping around, refusing to settle. And always active were the Hummingbird Hawkmoths that occasionally showed especially in the Reservoir Garden:

Painted Ladies have been present throughout the month, those at the end especially being pristine and presumably the offspring of previous immigrants. And the summer butterflies are starting, with Large and Essex Skipper (the latter the first confirmed record for the garden) and Purple Hairstreaks occasionally descending from the Oak canopies, while Speckled Woods loitered in the sunflecks.

Dragonflies and damselflies have continued to perform well, especially around the ponds, including a coordinated emergence of Common Blue Damselflies that proved a bounty for the Cucumber Spiders. But most exciting were the Banded Demoiselles: after a few years when they have appeared with us sporadically and unpredictably, this month finally they seem to have consolidated. Let’s hope they stay!

Of course there was plenty more to see as well, including Yellow-and-black Longhorn, Lily Beetles and masses of pollen beetles…

… mating Fencepost Flies, nectaring Tachina rufa agg. parasite-flies and sunning Dock Bugs …

… plus lots of lovely Hymenoptera: Iris Sawfly larvae, Gwynne’s Mining-bees in the Campanula flowers, Sphecodes blood bees that feast on nectar but whose larvae parasitise mining-bee nests …

… and around the bee hotel, Large-headed Resin-bees and a ruby-tailed wasp Chrysis ignita agg., the latter another parasite but on certain solitary wasps.

And as always a goodly array of new finds for our garden list, as well as those already mentioned, including a couple of moths, Epagoge grotiana and Virgin Bagworm…

… lots of Hollyhock Weevils, a fairly new arrival in the country that appeared for us in Wivenhoe three years ago …

… two ants, Myrmica rubra and Temnothorax nylanderi …

… a parasitic javelin wasp Gasteruption sp., being buzzed by Yellow-faced Bees …

… and Wool Carder-bee nesting in our bee-post.

So it was quite a challenging month because of the weather. Maybe July will settle down, and if anyone wants to join me, my Wildside Walks on 17th July and our Moth Morning on 18th July are all open for booking on the website Courses & Workshops – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens.

Our June moth event in Beth Chatto Gardens took place as normal just before the equinox. On the face of it the night was perfect: calm, humid and very warm, with temperatures not falling below 20ºC. But such are the uncertainties (and joys!) of moth trapping, reflecting not only weather on the night, but also recent weather extremes (eg the May drought and more recent downpours) as well as seasonal trends, that in fact we were a little disappointed. Or thought we were until we totted up the total and found we had recorded four more species than on the equivalent date in 2025, last year being the record-breaker to date. For a full listing over the years, see here BC MOTHS TOTALS.

71 macromoth species and 33 micros is certainly a good haul, but the slight disappointment was at the number and especially diversity of the big, bright ones, the crowd-pleasers. And again, we cannot really complain at the twenty or so Elephant Hawk-moths, a couple of Small Elephants, six Buff Tips, Swallowtail Moth, Ghost Swift and a lovely Puss Moth, mostly compliant and happy to be passed gently around the early morning crowd. The Ghost Swift even laid eggs as we watched, scattering them freely where it was resting, rather than as with most species attaching them firmly to their substrate.

Among the smaller macromoths were colourful ones such as Brimstone Moth and Rosy Footman…

… whitish ones, like Yellow-tail, Brown-tail, White Satin (playing dead!), Miller and Dwarf Cream Wave…

… distinctively speckled and barred ones: Latticed Heath, Willow Beauty and Peppered Moth …

… and a whole host in every shade of brown: Lackey, Fen Wainscot, Dotted Fanfoot, Clay, Cypress Carpet, Uncertain, Dingy Shears, Bright-line Brown-eye and Minor Shoulder-knot, a litany of names almost as euphonious as the Shipping Forecast!

Some of the brown ones are also distinctive by having shaped wings like Beautiful Hooktip or a characteristic resting posture, like the Festoon, the latter a nationally scarce species of old oak trees in the south-east of the country.

Micromoths seemed to constitute a higher proportion of the catch than in previous years. But not all micros are small and some are rather beautiful, and certainly should not be overlooked, even though they often don’t have widely used English names. Here are some of the more colourful ones: Carcina quercana, Agapeta hamana, Lozotaeniodes formosana and Mint Moth…

… and equally striking monochrome morsels: Bird-cherry Ermine, Ethmia quadrillella, Diamond-back, Platytes alpinella, Zeiraphera isertana and Homoeosoma sinuella.

And always interesting is the bycatch of other insects attracted to the light, including pond-dwellers (in their pre-adult stages) such as the mayfly Cloeon dipterum and the caddisfly Stenophylax permistus …

… a green lacewing Chrysopa carnea and Birch Shieldbug…

… a couple of plant-bugs Stenotus binotatus and Phytocoris dimidiatus.

And when all was counted up at the end, we found in the trap some 35 new insects for the garden list: moths, bugs, caddisflies, a mayfly and best of all a Brown Chafer Serica brunnea, with only about four previously recorded sites in north Essex.

Moth-trapping (and release unharmed) provides a window into the night life of the garden, as well as giving the privileged opportunity for attendees to experience the delight of the early morning calm before floods of garden visitors arrive. So if anyone fancies it, our second event is planned for 18 July, booking via the Beth Chatto website at Marvellous Moth Morning – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens

The photo above, a myriad of fairies photobombing a Monet masterpiece, encapsulates the joy of late May in the gardens. Everything is getting on with what they need to do, feeding or breeding or dispersing, furiously because they know the retreat of the sun is only a month away.

The 26th saw peak damselflies mating (mostly Azure, Large Red and Blue-tailed) alongside the first emerging Common Blue Damselflies and Banded Demoiselles AND the mass emergence of dragonflies (mostly Four-spotted Chasers, with a few Broad-bodied and Scarce Chasers, Common Darters, Emperors and a Southern Hawker. Fittingly, and thrillingly, this coincided with my Bug Safaris, a privilege to share it with kids (of all ages!). This was the week our ponds disgorged, a couple of weeks after many garden ponds whose water volume is much lower, so the water warms more quickly, speeding up development.

And the rate of change is just so fast. On a daily basis. A day later, damsels had peaked, dragons were still coming, but the garden was inundated with Painted Ladies, most very fresh-looking so perhaps offspring of the influx a month ago. And the trees and bushes were full of tweeting baby Blue and Great Tits, and Blackcaps: a squeakscape where a day before there was a songscape.

Apart from the Painted Ladies, butterfly action had scaled back from early May: the ‘June gap’ arrived early. But to tide us over were Orange Tips on the Dame’s Violet and onions and Green Hairstreaks on the Thyme, along with a good emergence of Common Blues.

It was a warm two weeks, at times extremely hot, sunny and dry: record-breaking, albeit not-in-a-good way. But generally the insect life seemed to enjoy it: some other highlights included Mint Moth, Cinnabar, Yellow-tail caterpillar and the larval shrouds of Spindle Ermine…

… Thick-thighed Beetle, a soldier beetle Cantharis livida, Adonis’ Ladybird and Two-spotted Malachite Beetles, including this pair in a prolonged bout of ‘kissing’, the male feeding her pheromone-laced food to try and woo her…

… Hairy Shieldbugs and Orange-tailed Mining-bee …

… and a good selection of flies including the lovely hoverfly Xanthogramma pedissequum, and a couple of parasite-flies Tachina fera and Tachina lurida.

I enjoyed myself too, taking time out to grow the garden wildlife list. Every visit produced something new, in some cases rare or absent (probably underrecorded!) in Essex but equally some very widespread that we just haven’t noted here before. Two new mite galls are a case in point: the Lime Nail Gall is found on almost every Lime tree, whereas the Silver Maple Bladder Gall is a recent arrival in this country and still spreading:

There were new flies to the list: the parasite-flies Phasia barbifrons and Blepharipa pratensis, and the robberfly Choerades marginata…

… new beetles: the thistle weevil Rhinocyllus conicus and Mallow Flea-beetle Podagrica fuscicornis…

… and new wasps: the parasitic Ichneumon xanthorius, a digger wasp Cerceris quadricincta (a strongly south-eastern species, rare in the UK) and a beautiful ruby-tailed wasp Chrysis ignita agg.

The list is growing every month, and but we hope to have a working draft available in the autumn!

And so we are fast into summer. Maybe time to relax a little as things settle in. Or maybe not: all it takes is a few days of deep south winds, and as we have seen repeatedly the Beth Chatto Gardens rarely fail to produce surprises!

Insect populations are ever-changing and those changes an endless source of fascination. In the first two weeks of May I have been to the gardens leading walks on two days and a further visit to try and reconfirm something I had seen on the previous occasion. And in that time the suite of insects has changed hugely, spring being ushered in by the advent of summer, even given the sometimes indifferent weather.

But there have been other changes too. We have seen several new arrivals to the garden, including sawflies, flies and beetles. Sawflies are actually wasps, ones that lack the wasp waist between thorax and abdomen, and have caterpillars rather like those of moths, rather than the grubs associated with most wasps. This seems to have been a Sawfly Spring, as I’ve seen more this year than ever before. There have been the regulars, Solomon’s Seal and Iris Sawflies all over their respective foodplants, and in a month or two the plants will be bearing the signs of larval chomping. Another species Selandria serva feeds on grasses, sedges and rushes, and has also been prominent around the garden – we have found it in the garden only a couple of times prior to this month. The National Biodiversity Network maps show only a couple of spots for this in Essex, but this is perhaps more down to the fact the sawflies are not a widely recorded group: spots on maps may represent more the distribution of competent observers rather than the beastie itself. All the comment below must bear that caveat!

A couple of new garden records are of Macrophya species. M. albicincta is an Elder-feeder but doesn’t seem to have been recorded from Essex. And M. teutona seems even scarcer: it was first found in the UK last year near to Bury St Edmunds and the map shows just one other location close to the first. So ours might just be the third British record…and we would be a great place for it as its larvae feed on spurges.

And more sawflies apparently new to Essex! Resting on a Foxglove leaf was the distinctive larva of Periclista pubescens, an oak-feeder and so had probably dropped from the tree above. And then were the lovely little black-headed sprites flittering around the bases of our ferns, Ostrich Fern especially. Evanescent creatures that almost disappeared as they were observed, they were Stromboceros delicatulus, the larvae of which feed on ferns and so not surprisingly recorded mostly in the damper corners of our nation.

But new insects for the garden were not all sawflies. The cloudy-winged non-biting midge Psectrotanypus varius and soldier beetle Rhagonycha lignosa are both only sparsely scattered in Essex, most localities being in the west of the county.

But for me the most exciting newbie was another beetle, a spotty chafer Oxythyrea funesta that is an old friend from my travels in Mediterranean regions. It has cropped up sporadically in the UK, probably mostly from accidental imports with plants, but over the last decade seems to have become pretty well established, especially in London and round Portsmouth. There are probably a couple of other Essex records, at least one of which in a garden centre is likely to be an accidental import. No such likelihood with ours though, given that all our stock is home-grown.

It was wonderful to watch it (or just possibly two of them) chomping the poppy and Galactites stamens in the hottest part of the garden, against the south wall of Beth’s house. The image of one sitting in Galactites will linger long in my memory, an instant transportation to one of the places I love most, Menorca. And if I am not travelling to such places so much any more, conscious of our granddaughter’s future in an already overheated world, I can console myself with the thought that I don’t need to: the Mediterranean fauna is coming to me! That impression was solidified yesterday when the soil below the chafer started to crawl with little orange morsels, first instar nymphs of the Firebug. Another constant companion in southern Europe, these have become established in Britain only within the past decade, including many places in northeast Essex. But hitherto, until the staff started seeing the adults a month ago, not in Beth Chatto Gardens: well, they are here now – and breeding!

What of other sightings? Well, the butterflies seem to have hit their ‘June gap’ early. Most overwinterers and spring specialists have gone, but the summer emergers are starting, with both Common Blue and Brown Argus. And one of my groups was entranced by half-a-dozen Green Hairstreaks nectaring on a bed of Thyme, and resting much less obtrusively on surrounding vegetation.

There was been a reasonably large emergence of Green Longhorn moths, dancing around when the weather was warm and still enough. And there seem to be Brown-tail Moths everywhere, thankfully not it seems in rampaging, defoliating hordes, but in some cases experimenting with food choice, such as Large Lord’s-and-Ladies.

As summer approached so we are expecting the songs of grasshoppers and bush-crickets to fill our quit moment. And here they come, a first instar Speckled Bush-cricket is out of the starting blocks…

It is this time too when the ponds start to disgorge their delights around the gardens. No dragonflies yet (our ponds are large and take longer to warm up than garden ponds), but Alderflies are everywhere, along with three species of damselfly: Azure, Large Red and Blue-tailed (in two colour forms).

Bees have done well, with Red-tailed and Early Bumblebees more numerous than in recent years, and lots of foraging Red Mason-bees taking advantage of our floral offerings.

And other lovely things to see included flies, the Narcissus Bulb Fly, the cranefly Ptychoptera contaminata and a couple of parasite-flies, Thelaira nigripes and Tachina fera.

Beetles included lots of click-beetles, mostly Athous haemorrhoidalis, the shining-green weevil Polydrusus formosus and a whole herd of stag-beetle larvae the garden team found (and saved!) under a rotten tree trunk slice. Most probably these are Lesser, not the rarer Greater Stags, but we can hope!

And finally a few bugs have been out and about, here Rhabdomiris striatellus, Harpocera thoracica and Hairy Shield-bug.

So a month of many delights, and the good news is there is another half of it to go! If you fancy looking at insects in Essex, there is really nowhere more exciting than Beth Chatto Gardens. You might even fancy joining one of my walks or moth events as advertised on Courses & Workshops – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens? And if you turn up and it’s too cold or wet for insects, there are always the fantastic flowers…

… including my absolute favourite, the gorgeous Bogbean. How can you resist?

April saw me heading to the gardens on three occasions in mid-month, twice to lead walks (two for the National Garden Scheme and the first two of my summer monthly WildSide walks) and one just me and my camera, a moment of peace in a mad world.

Five walks on three days in just a little over a week might seem like overkill, but this time of year it really isn’t. In the full flight of spring, nature can change perceptibly every few days. And this year was no exception, especially as the lack of rain for about five weeks and rising temperatures completely changed track from the past wet winter, and pushed us into incipient drought. These mood swings of nature, actually more like handbrake turns on a sixpence, are what we must expect and live with in the climatically weirded future. And so must our garden plants and wildlife. Some will not be able to, so my advice as always is get out there now and appreciate just what riches we have!

The speed of change was almost frightening. Take that wonderful yellow peony Paeonia mlokosewitschii (aka Molly the Witch), in tight bud on my first visit, full flower six days later and three days futher on, starting to fade. A plant of highly transient glory, but a favourite of the garden bees!

Many other flowers of course, a plethora of potential food sources for insects and a delight to photograph:

And not to be outdone, the unfurling fern fronds and red maple foliage added their own highlights to the masterpiece of spring:

Butterflies have yet to emerge in real force, especially since the overwinterers have started to fade. But the whites are putting on a strong show, with Small, Green-veined and Orange Tip by the first visit, Large White joining them by the final date, along with the first Green Hairstreak and Speckled Wood.

The first visit also coincided with the first emergence of the year of Large Red Damselflies, always the earliest of its group to appear, along with other aquatic insects like Alder-flies, and remarkable numbers of adult Iris Sawflies, on and around the emergent iris leaves and whose larvae will be responsible for nibbled edges to leaves this summer.

Back on dry land, there were plenty of the usual bumblebees, including rather more Red-tailed than we have come to expect in recent years:

Hairy-footed Flower-bees were still patrolling the borders of comfrey and lungwort, not only for food but also for each other, with many interactions between amorous males and seemingly uninterested females noted! Other solitary bees included Yellow-legged and Chocolate Mining-bees, one of the furrow-bees, and Flavous Nomad-bee. The several species of nomad-bee seem to be in remarkable numbers this spring compared with previous years…

Two others from the same insect group, Hymenoptera, were queen Common Wasps, feeding and rasping wood to build their nests with, and the currant galls of the spring generation of the Spangle Gall Wasp on Oak catkins:

Moving to flies, some of the most numerous were the Bibio species. first B. lanigerus and B. anglicus, with the first true St Mark’s Fly B. marci on the first visit. 14th April is early for this species, named because it emerges on or around St Mark’s Day, 25th April. During the second visit, they were very numerous, and by the third, almost gone – perhaps down the throats of birds, as they are favourites of Swallows.

Hoverflies increased greatly through the month, and included many flower-flies Syrphus sp., together with Batman and Footballer Hoverflies , and lots of Epistrophe eligans.

Other easily recognised flies were Yellow Dung-flies, the dance-fly Empis tessellata and the parasite-fly Tachina fera…

… along with many other less distinctive, but still important , parts of our garden’s biodiversity.

Ladybirds are still more abundant than I have ever seen before at this time of year, the offspring no doubt of those that arrived en masse last July. And while most are 7-spots, a selection of other species such as 14-spot Ladybird is starting to emerge.

Bugs included the first Harpocera thoracica of the year, with plenty of Hairy and Green Shield-bugs, and also a lovely find of a mating pair of Gorse Shield-bugs, a rather uncommon creature in the garden.

On the reservoir, Dabchicks were singing and a pair of Tufted Ducks has seemingly settled in. All around the garden, birds are in song, residents like Greenfinch, Robin, Goldcrest and Song Thrush, alongsideside the summer visitors, especially Chiffchaff and Blackcap.

On the first two visits a Cetti’s Warbler was singing on the edge of the garden, only the third record for the site, but on the third visit its apparent territory had been filled by a singing Whitethroat, again not common in the garden. And overhead plenty of action too, from feeding Swallows to displaying Buzzards, flyover Egyptian Geese and Red Kites, along with Mediterranean Gulls and a Lesser Black-backed Gull, both rarely appearing in our sights.

Another fantastic month in the Beth Chatto Gardens, the incidental nature reserve!

It was the last day of the month, and the day dawned mizzly. When I arrived in the Gardens, it had stopped drifting down from the cloud, but moisture had congealed on every surface, mercurial drops turning every leaf into a work of art.

As the air dried out so the spring flowers perked up; only two weeks since my previous visit, but the whole floral palette had changed. Spring happens so quickly when the weather allows, a whole unfurling package of distinct microseasons, just a few days each.

Two plants for me were particularly noteworthy. The dramatic parasitic Purple Toothwort had erupted next to the Willow Room, and several of the damper borders were laced with a lime filigree of Town-hall-clock. One of my favourite unassuming native woodland plants, where else can it be seen bringing the sense of wildwood into our daily lives?

Birds were at their spring-singing best, with the first Blackcap joining the many Chiffchaffs, and up to half-a-dozen vocal males of both Chaffinch and Greenfinch. And in complete contrast, small groups of both Grey-lag Geese and Egyptian Geese flew over squawking.

After the dampening, it took the insects a while to become active, but the still warmth coaxed a few out. Two plants are the superstar attractors at this moment. Firstly, there is Skimmia, each plant producing a pool of sublime scent in the still, moist air, attractive to us, but also crucially also to pollinators, especially bumblebees and blowflies.

And then Euphorbia! So many different species and cultivars now in flower. All recognisably spurges, with their unique inflorescence structure known as a cyathium…

… but each with a different suite of shapes and colour of the obvious nectar glands.

And they really pull in the insects of all sorts, open inflorescences with lots of pollen and masses of nectar that are now doing the heavy lifting of feeding our insects. There were ladybirds everywhere…

… soggy solitary bees …

… and flies of all sorts, including several hoverflies, including a pair of Platycheirus: P. albimanus and P. scutatus.

For me Euphorbia is one of the most valuable, but overlooked, genera for insects in the garden, with one or more forms flowering almost throughout the year. Is ‘Euphorbiophile’ a real word? If so, I am one of them!

There comes a time every spring when one suddenly realises that whatever the vagaries of the British weather, spring is here to stay. The tipping point is sometimes as early as the start of March, but in other years it can be a good month later. In 2026 it seems to have come right in the middle of those extremes.

While the first two weeks of March saw a few glimmers of warmth, the overall impression was of cool days, sometimes breezy, damp (if not as downright wet as the preceding winter) and the occasional snatch of welcome sun. When Jude and I visited in the first week, it was misty and grey all day, rather chilly, and mist turning to fog in the afternoon. So we weren’t really expecting to see much in the way of insect life, and most of what we did find – masses of Seven-spot Ladybirds – were well hunkered-down or wrapped in a fur coat like this Common Earwig…

Of course Jude with her incredibly acute close vision also found some noteworthy stuff, including two colour-forms of Ten-spot Ladybird. Although this is one of the commoner British species, remarkably it seems to be the first time it has been found in the garden, at least according to our as yet incomplete biolisting. The two-spotted form was sharing a cosy niche with an Acorn Weevil and a spider.

Also new for the records, certainly overlooked in the past, was the moss Bryum capillare, its spore capsules standing bright and proud in the gloom.

And the same comments apply to the first record from the garden of a Yew gall caused by the fly Taxomyia taxi. This may be present wherever there is Yew, in gardens, parks and the wild, but it seems always to be under-recorded: the Essex Field Club map has only two spots on it.

Almost apologetically in the mirk the really special spring flowers like species daffodils and tulips were starting to appear. And Chiffchaffs were singing, probably newly in from their Mediterranean wintering sites, carried here a little prematurely by the Sahara-dust-laden winds at the end of February.

But two weeks later it was a very different picture. A couple of warm sunny days saw spring unleashed into the lives and hearts of a myriad of happy, smiling visitors. The Chiffchaffs, now perhaps half-a-dozen, expressed the joy of the season very effectively. As did two singing Stock Doves, the first time I have noticed territorial behaviour in the garden, and (now I come to think of it) possibly the first Stock Doves I have ever recorded there. Adding to the chorus were Chaffinches, at least three male Goldcrests and a Green Woodpecker in song, along with the mewling calls of displaying Buzzards overhead.

Four species of butterfly were on the wing: Comma, Peacock, Red Admiral and a rapid fly-past couple of male Brimstones. All species that overwinter as adults, it won’t be long before the spring-emergers like Orange Tips are with us!

Bees too, with bumbles (Buff-tailed and Red-tailed queens, the latter for me the first of the year) and lots of Honeybees especially on Skimmia ‘Kew Green’ and Scilla  bifolia.

The Scilla was also the focus for many solitary bees, including Andrena dorsata and A. minutula agg.

Ladybirds were everywhere, as seems to be the norm this year, AND now getting active, strutting their stuff as predators, pollinators and partners; most were Seven-spots with just a few Harlequins.

Several Dark-edged Beeflies were feeding or resting around the flowery borders: the first beeflies of spring are always a thrill!

And shieldbugs were also out in force, mostly Green Shieldbugs greening up nicely out of their brown winter plumage, together with a few Hairy Shieldbugs.

As with the previous visit, there were also new records for the Gardens. A couple of very common species whose names have seemingly evaded being written down anywhere in the past were the Common Pond-skater Gerris lacustris and the ink-cap fungus Coprinellus micaceus, equally common although of course only fleetingly visible when its fruiting bodies emerge.

On Anemone blanda there was the distinctive stripy Orange-legged Furrow-bee Halictus rubicundus, new to the garden and indeed with only a few records, mostly coastal, in the Tendring district.

And an exciting new bug for the garden was the ground- bug Graptopeltus lynceus. This is traditionally associated with Echium species but seems increasingly to be moving to other Boraginaceae, of which we have lots; it was very close to a flowering patch of Trachystemon. It is classed as Rare in Essex, with just eight scattered records, the nearest being one just west of Colchester.

And of course spring flowers of every description, no hint of apology now and a wonderful pick-me-up after a dreary old winter!

Beth Chatto Gardens, THE place to be at this time of year. Where else would you find Lesser Celandines blooming in the lawns rather than being hounded out as ‘weeds’? Do visit, and help Rewild your Minds.