Blog Archives: WildWivenhoe

#WildWivenhoe Botany & Bug walks: August – The Shipyard and Barrier Marsh at dusk

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

We decided to try something new this month – the long warm nights seemed too good an opportunity to miss –  so we spent two very enjoyable evenings with some of you local nature-fans enjoying the beauty that is Wivenhoe, with some wildlife thrown in!

The jetty is a wonderful spot for admiring the river, the salt marshes and the big Essex sky.  Looking heavenwards on Saturday we were privileged to witness a ‘Sun dog’.  This phenomenon only occurs when the time of day, year, and weather conditions are just so.  Sun dogs come about when the “22 degree halo round the sun intersects with the parhelic circle centred on a point directly the observer” (phew!) and are manifested as two fleeting bright spots like rainbows, either side of the sun.  And like rainbows we all see our ‘own’ version of them, directly in line with our visual gaze.

Monday evening was different,  a more traditional cloud- and water-scape sunset, but those who were waiting on the jetty a few moments before we started were lucky enough to hear and see a Kingfisher, quite unusual for this time of year, although a frequent visitor to the dock in the winter months.

We  discussed the history of the river, and the various benefits/ disadvantages of the barrier.  Of course, it keeps Wivenhoe and much of Colchester safe from flooding  (a distinct benefit!), but at the cost of altering river flows. Along with the cessation of dredging now the upstream ports have closed, this means silt is building up.  This in itself is not all bad news of course – the accretion of mud is allowing salt marsh plants to become established.

Some, like Sea Aster, are useful nectar sources; others such as Marsh Samphire are edible for us humans (though possibly being so near the sewage works at the Hythe makes that a  less-than-appetising prospect!). Sea-purslane is noteworthy, being its own desalination plant – it takes in salt water and excretes crystals of salt from its leaves.

Common Cord-grass has an interesting provenance, being a hybrid of two types of cord-grass, one native and one from America, but unlike most hybrids which are generally infertile has now become able to reproduce by seed and as a consequence is spreading.  At present it is not a problem here in Wivenhoe, but its aggressive growth, at the expense of native plants, is proving troublesome on some salt marshes.

The two-leaved form of the Four-leaved Allseed is a small and unprepossessing plant, but very rare and grows for unknown reasons along patches of Walter Radcliffe Road.  This is despite the best efforts of Trinity Estates to eradicate it  (along with anything else that has the audacity to try to grow along our roadsides) with highly toxic chemicals.  This plant used to be known only in the far south-west of England, but recently been spotted along the Thames Embankment and has now arrived at Wivenhoe.  On boots, boats or car tyres?  We shall never know.

The seawall beyond the Sailing Club is well stocked with plants particularly suited for the salty conditions – including Strawberry Clover and Dittander – which bring some welcome colour and of course food for insects.

On Barrier Marsh itself are myriads of anthills, some very ancient, a good indicator of unploughed and infrequently inundated marshland.  Though we well remember December 2013 when due to the ‘perfect storm’ conditions of low pressure and spring tide, the sea wall was overtopped – here’s a flashback, and perhaps a vision of the future:

A walk across the marsh did not unfortunately bring forth any Glow-worms on either evening but the presence of three species of bat was picked up thanks to our clever detector.  This ‘Batscanner’ automatically switches to whichever frequency is being emitted by any passing bat – each species uses a unique frequency to ‘echolocate’, so if you can find out one you can work out the other.  On Saturday two species of Pipistrelle were picked up, and on Monday the larger, more uncommon Serotine.

Talking of new toys, these evenings  were opportunities  for us to try out our new battery-operated portable LED moth trap.  Not having being road-tested before, we were delighted how far that little candle threw his beams, attracting several species of those most mysterious of nocturnal creatures.  On Saturday a huge number, hundreds in fact,  of tiny white Water Veneer moths, appeared.  These have a very short adult life-span, sometimes only hours, so we were glad to provide an opportunity for lots of them to ‘get together’ to do what moths do, and hopefully when we turned the light off at 10.30 they all had the opportunity to fly off and lay their resultant eggs (the females anyway!).

Other moths that paid us a visit included Ruby Tiger, Dingy Footman (dubbed by one of our group as the ‘Pumpkin seed moth’), Cloaked Minor, Yellow Shell, Maple Prominent and Garden Carpet. Don’t they have brilliant English names?  Of course they all have their Latinised scientific names too, but generally moth-ers only refer to the tiny micromoths, which do not have catchy common names, by these.

But there are exceptions: Water Veneers have already been mentioned, while the Diamond-back Moth, of which a couple dropped in, deserve a common name by virtue of their distinctive markings and habit of arriving on our shores after migrating from the Continent on wings only 8mm long.

Other creatures popped in to say hello too, attracted by the light – Harlequin Ladybird, caddisflies, a  mayfly and a cute Nut Weevil.   Once everyone had had the chance to have a look, all were released and allowed to carry on their nocturnal business unharmed and undetained.

It was surprising how the difference in conditions (more breeze, less cloud cover resulting in a lighter evening) made the mothing less productive on Monday.  Interestingly there was not one Water Veneer, supporting the theory that these, and many other creatures, all emerge at precisely the same time.  After all, it is no good hoping to mate if there is no one else around to mate with!  A few tiny micromoths fluttered in and out, but the main catch of that evening was a Rosy Rustic.

All photos in this report are our own, but other than the moths and sunsets, most were not actually taken on the nights in question, due to poor light conditions.  We hope that everyone who came along enjoyed this venture into the unknown!

The Beth Chatto Garden throughout the seasons: July

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

It’s a garden, so yes there were flowers. Spectacular blooms, interesting forms, a multicultural mix of plants from over much of the world.

But it wasn’t the flowers themselves which grabbed our attention this time. It was the insects, burgeoning biodiversity benefitting from the floral resources, and repaying the debt with pollination and pest control, sprinkling the garden with stardust for anyone with an eye to see and appreciate them. No names here; indeed, we don’t even know some of them. But names are not the point: what is important is that they are here, delighting us, inspiring us, and doing their jobs.

This unpaid army of garden workers, not just bumblebees and honeybees, but solitary bees and wasps, sawflies, beetles, lacewings and a whole lot more are all too easily overlooked and ignored. And abused.

 

So it is good to hear that there are changes underway in the garden management phlosophy and practice at Beth Chatto’s. A trend away from over-tidiness and manicuring. No more slug pellets. Progressive reduction in the use of sprays, those poisons which now drench our world and threaten its life-blood. Step by step, every step of the way is one more step on the road to a sustainable future. All it needs is a more relaxed mindset: there may be some holes in the Hostas, shredding of the Solomon’s–seal,  but think of those as natural art installations, a badge of honour instead of a sign of ungardenerliness….

Would Beth have approved? Maybe, maybe not. She did of course come from a very different gardening era, when perhaps it seemed that it didn’t much matter what was done in the garden because there was abundant wildlife out there in the countryside. But no longer: as the wild world outside has become more and more depauperate, so have gardens assumed an increasing role as a haven for the little things that make the world go round. So thank you Beth Chatto Garden for moving with the times, and stepping up into your role as inspiration for gardens of the future.

 

 

 

#WildWivenhoe Botany & Bug walks: July – the wild side of Wivenhoe town

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

This month’s Walks on the Wild Side were explorations of some of our town’s amenities, which are there on the face of it for us humans to use and benefit from.  However, thanks to now-sympathetic management from Wivenhoe Town Council, each of these is enhanced by the proliferation of wildlife that has been allowed to move in, bringing enjoyment to anyone who takes the time to stand and look.

First up, the Old Cemetery in Belle Vue Road.  This ancient burial ground had for years benefitted from adherence to a Management Plan which prescribed mowing half of it in alternate years, which kept the vegetation under control whilst allowing refuges for over-wintering insects.  Until, however, a few years ago when incredibly the decision was taken to destroy the rhythm of the place and clear the lot in one fell swoop.  Bare and barren,  Mother Nature responded with vigour, and while still not properly back in rotation, in time, assuming the agreed plan is adhered to, this will return to the peaceful and beautifully untidy place that most of us love.

What did we see?  Well some insects are certainly more in your face than others!.  Butterflies were showing off, whizzing around in the warmth – several species of ‘Browns’ (Speckled Wood, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Ringlet), plus Small White and various Skippers.

Damselflies darted about and grasshoppers and Speckled Bush-crickets hopped out of our way as we walked around.  Our old favourites the Hogweed Bonking-beetle and Thick-thighed beetle were hanging about in various poses on a multitude of flowers.  The Bramble, a plant which soon takes over if unchecked, is at this time of year a very valuable source of nectar and was veritably humming with bees and hoverflies.

Some insects, however, are more secretive and can only be noticed by careful searching.  The weeny Virgin Bagworm moth spends its whole life in a little lichen-covered silken bag wedged into minute places –  the carvings on gravestones are ideal for their purpose.

A close inspection of tree trunks revealed a number of delights – a robber-fly tucking into his crane-fly lunch, a splendid plant-hopper Allygus mixtus, a fabulous little moth Dasycera oliviella, plus rather weirdly a mayfly, normally associated with water . 

A Least Carpet moth was in full view on a nearby bush, but, by using its clever disguise as a birdpoo, was almost invisible.  We observed Mrs Nursery Web spider carefully carrying her egg sac to somewhere safe and a Great Pied Hoverfly was enjoying the sun.

Of the plants, the prettiest flower was without doubt the tiny Scarlet Pimpernel, whilst in contrast the spectacular  Himalayan Pine with its amazing cones and long, gracefully drooping needle, was a statuesque example of the splendour of nature.

Next, over the road to the New Cemetery, where it was pleasing to see a new native hedge beginning to take shape on the boundary wall, plus patches where the grass had been allowed to grow up a bit, bringing forth a multitude of flowers with their resident butterflies and other insects.

So onward to our next destination, King George’s Field and the Wildlife Garden.  The field had two interesting areas to look at.  The central ‘seam’ halfway down has this year brought forth a couple of nationally scarce clovers.  Possibly due to last year’s severe drought, the bare scorched ground allowed the seeds of these plants to take hold.  Were they already in the soil, just waiting for the conditions to be right to allow germination, or did they arrive on someone’s boot?  We will never know.

Anyone visiting the field this summer, or last year, will have noticed the patch of ‘hay-meadow’.  The many and varied plants here have all appeared by themselves,  having waited patiently to spring forth once the previously punishing mowing regime was relaxed.  Numerous grasses, Black Knapweed and Lady’s Bedstraw were all looking fine, and again we were treated to butterflies dancing in the sunshine and beetles and flies waiting to be discovered.  Who said flies are black and boring – this little grass-fly was very cute!

The meadow will be mown at the end of the season  and the resultant hay used to provide seeds for other wildlife areas, eg patches of St Mary’s Churchyard where a wild area is also now taking shape.

Many of you will remember ‘GardenGate’ a few years ago when the Wildlife garden, having been lovingly created by locals, was virtually ruined by overzealous mismanagement.  Fortunately the Council stepped in to try and repair their damage  – another native hedge was planted to replace the one which was ripped out, and a more relaxed regime has now been adopted.  And of course the wildlife loves it.  A Heterotoma planicornis plant bug was one of the most interesting finds there, and we were all thrilled to see a number of dragonfly exuvia on reeds in the pond.  These are the empty cases of dragonfly nymphs which they leave behind having spent their first stage of life in the water.  They then crawl out, split their skin, find somewhere to pump up their wings and turn into the aerial acrobats that we all know and love.  It all seems pretty miraculous.

A final mention must be to our old favourite, the Stag Beetle.  We saw just the one, on the ground adjacent to the Wildlife Garden as she went about her business of the day.  Wivenhoe is an important hotspot for these amazing insects and anything we can do to assist them, such as allowing a woodpile to go undisturbed in your garden, is to be commended.

Thank you all who joined us, your observations and enthusiasm, and we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. If anyone feels moved to congratulate Wivenhoe Town Council on is estates management, the Town Clerk can be emailed at enquiries@wivenhoe.gov.uk.

#WildWivenhoe: Burnets, butterflies, beetles and bountiful blooming at Lower Lodge

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

Lower Lodge keeps cropping up in these blogs – see here and here. No wonder: it is one of the most exciting places for summer wildlife in these parts, all the more exciting as much of that wildlife has moved in over the past ten years or so.

Farmed until the 1980s and now owned by Colchester Borough Council, until relatively recently it was all repeatedly mown throughout the summer. But now, as an integral part of the Colne Local Nature Reserve, the regime over substantial blocks of the site has been amended to mowing on a two or three year rotation. This is enough to control the incessant attempted colonisation by trees, and provide a rich floral mix which is a magnet for insects.

At this time of year, Hogweed stands proud from the grass heads, great horizontal plates of food – nectar and pollen – for vast numbers of flies, beetles and other insects.

Hogweed Bonking Beetles live up to their name, often multiple pairs per umbel, and with careful searching it is possible to find the deadliest of hoverfly predators, the crab spider Misumena vatia. Coming an a range of colour forms, they are likely to be most effective as hidden assassins on a background which matches their own colour closely.

Another of the valuable midsummer nectar sources is Field Scabious, attractive especially to butterflies and moths.

While the most frequent butterflies – Skippers, Meadow Browns, Ringlets and Gatekeepers – are variations on a theme of brown, some of the moths are a visual treat. Both Narrow-bordered Five-spot and Six-spot Burnets are warningly-coloured, indicating to potential predators their caterpillars may have been eating forms of Bird’s-foot-trefoil which contain the precursors for cyanide formation; those precursors can be carried through the process of metamorphosis making the moth toxic. Although I saw only Six-spots on my walk a couple of days ago, both species fly here together.

But the moth to beat them all for me is the Brassy Longhorn, which feeds as an adult on Scabious flowers, and as a caterpillar on the seeds and then the leaves of the same species. It may be tiny, but the brilliance of its metallic scales is such that it can be spotted at several metres’ range.

Very scarce in Essex (see the Essex Field Club distribution map), presumably largely due to the scarcity nowadays of grassland with Scabious in it, the presence of Brassy Longhorn here raises all sorts of questions. Particularly, how and when did it arrive? Under the former mowing regime, Scabious may have been present, but never allowed to flower, and there are very few, if any, other concentrations of Scabious locally which could have held a  relict population of the moth. As to when it arrived, having got all excited about the ‘first site record’ this year, I have just noticed that we had seen and photographed it for our 15 July blog last year, but not realised its significance!

Always more questions than answers in nature – that is one of the values of a place such as Lower Lodge, to inspire inquiry. It is a model of multifunctional green space, for recreation (both formal and informal), education, providing outdoor health benefits, and very importantly a home for wonderful wildlife. And a model which has inspired a similar relaxation of intensive mowing in other places, most notably a part of Wivenhoe’s King George V playing fields, which I will return to in future blogs.

In the meantime, just a few other images from late June at Lower Lodge:

Plants hiding on our doorstep…

Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

This June has seen several new and exciting British native plants appearing (to us, at least) in the vicinity of Wivenhoe. While not all locally native, each has a story to tell.

First up, Greg Smith was walking over the regularly mown section of the King George V playing field, and came upon a patch of Knotted Clover. When we returned a few days later, it was clearly the dominant plant over a whole swathe across the sloping field. And when we got on hands and knees to look at it, we also found patches of Subterranean Clover in the same area, the fewer-flowered heads of off-white rather than pale pink flowers. Both species are scarce locally, the former found as here on thin, acidic soils, the latter mainly in coastal turf.

Despite years of walking the field, neither of us had noticed either of them here before. The reason why may lie in the geology. The abundance of Sheep’s Sorrel in the same sward suggests a sandy or gravel lens lies just below the turf. Last summer’s drought burned off the vegetation across much of the field, presumably especially where the soil is most freely-draining: the bare ground thus created is ideal for the colonisation of annual clovers, whether from seed-bank or from a few hitherto unnoticed plants.

Then Richard Allen told me of a colony of Purple Gromwell he had seen again this year by Cut-throat Lane, near Alresford. This is rare in Britain, believed to be native only in the far south-west, but occasionally found growing in the wild as a remnant of or escape from cultivation. The Beth Chatto Garden, for example, grows and sells it.

Although Richard has seen Purple Gromwell here for a few years, no-one else seems to have noticed it, and I can find no previous records of its establishment in the wild in Essex. Although obvious when the flowers are out, it can easily blend into the scrub-edge vegetation for the rest of the year. As is so often the case, when looking for one particular  plant, others appear: just across the track, there was a flourishing population of Hoary Cinquefoil, a genuine local native but far from frequent, and again new to me in this locality.

And finally, almost literally on our doorstep, just 20m from our flat, we stumbled across Four-leaved Allseed growing as a colonist of cracks in the pavement around the Shipyard. And lots of it: I cannot believe we have overlooked this in the past, even though it isn’t much of a looker.

Another nationally scarce south-western plant, I have previously seen it only in Cornwall and Scilly. But it is evidently spreading – perhaps a result of climate change – now being quite widespread along the banks of the tidal Thames and with just a few other occurrences in north Essex.

The arrival of Four-leaved Allseed in Wivenhoe echoes another recent arrival on the West Quay, Jersey Cudweed, which first turned up about three years ago and is now well established. Both are rare southern natives, often coastal, and neither is garden-worthy. So how did they get here? Maybe the movement of pleasure craft between ports is one possibility, or perhaps earlier than that the movement of bulk trader vessels, and the resulting introduction has been unnoticed until encouraged into abundance by climate change?

Whatever the reason, this month shows that nothing in the natural world is ever static. And maybe, just maybe, the diminutive but scarce Four-leaved Allseed will help persuade Trinity Estates to discontinue their regime of spraying the public space around their development with glyphosate several times a summer….although our previous pleas have always fallen on deaf ears. And indeed, just two days after I first wrote those words, there they were obliterating any bit of green that dares to try and soften the hard edges of ‘progress’.

Hopefully some of the Four-leaved Allseed will have survived, and we can build a campaign around it.

 

 

 

#WildWivenhoe Botany & Bug walks awayday to Cambridge Botanic Garden

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, Travel by Rail, WildWivenhoe

Things all got off to a rather inauspicious start – a poor cow got hit on the railway line and so our connection to Colchester (and onward to Cambridge) was in considerable doubt.  We debated whether to get a taxi (unavailable), bus (would take too long), or to rouse Helen’s husband from his slumber (it seemed a bit rotten), whilst Anita, already at Colchester, had been befriended by a helpful knight in shining railway-uniform and was relaying messages by text.  We decided that the most painless thing to would be to just abandon all hope of going and have a nice walk on Lower Lodge instead, until a shout of ‘All Aboard for Colchester’ rang out from the station master and we all broke into a sturry  (see The Meaning of Liff !) and managed to get all aboard just in time.  Our select group of local nature watchers (Pippa, Helen and Jenny), as well as us of course , eventually arrived at Colchester where Anita was calmly waiting.  We piled on to the train to Ipswich and set off, shaken but not stirred.

Cambridge was rather overcast and decidedly muggy, but all the same pretty good conditions for a Grand Day Out in the superb Botanical Gardens. First impressions from the group (most of whom had not visited before) was ‘WOW’.  Not only are these famous gardens an important centre for plant science and research, but are also beautifully laid-out and well-managed, showcasing plants typical of specific habitats e.g. chalk, dry, fenland, tropical and alpine, to name but a few.  Evidence of ‘managing with wildlife in mind’ was apparent- large swathes of grass left unmown for wildflowers to grow.  To use their blurb – “the Garden (is) a green oasis in the City that’s great for spotting wildlife’ and “ our wildlife friendly approach ensures that the Garden has an army of birds, insects and amphibians to help control pests and diseases.”

First stop was for a much needed coffee in the café where we also eyed up the lunch options.  We were then treated to an hour and a half’s walk lead by Chris, looking at some of the many interesting plants and insects.

Nearly everything seems to have a story  – the Birthwort, which due to the decidedly ‘gynaecological’ appearance of its flowers was thought to aid abortions; the Common Reed which the Devil took a dislike to, due to it being so perfect, and so bit into each leaf out of jealousy (each leaf has visible ‘tooth marks’);  the Broomrapes which need no chlorophyll to live as they parasitise other plants and get all their nutrients from them, hence they always look dead and brown even when fully alive.

So many of the plants we seemed to catch just at their right time: the beautiful Hoary Plantain in magnificent flower; fruits of the Hound’s-tongue; the fabulous spiky leaves of Henry’s Lime; and, once you look closely, the multi-coloured Wild Candytuft.

Insects were looking marvellous – just a few of our favourites – a male Thick-thighed Beetle; a new-to-us, tiny Bordered Shieldbug;  a Painted Lady butterfly (an immigrant butterfly at the moment very plentiful in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire); the Garden Chafer beetle; and the ubiquitous Harlequin Ladybird, a useful friend to gardeners as it ravenously devours aphids, though has also had bad press as it may have lead to the decline of a once-common species, the 2 spot ladybird.

The afternoon session, where we were joined by Annette,  a very keen naturalist and ‘moth-er’,  looked at some of the more specialised areas of planting and as the group went their separate ways, some of us had time for a quick tour of the glass houses before leaving.

We hope that everyone who came along enjoyed the Day Out – we certainly had fun and would like to thank the group for their enthusiasm, calmness in the face of traffic adversity, and wonderful company.

 

The Beth Chatto Garden throughout the seasons: June

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

Midsummer’s Day, and the garden is in full flow. At last the season has caught up with the calendar after a couple of relatively cool months, and spring is but a distant memory.

Now is the time for sweeping vistas of colour, but also more detailed plantscapes, celebrating the skill with which the garden display has been orchestrated.

And not forgetting the innerscapes of the plants themselves, the often surprising details of which are revealed by close up images.

The summer garden show-offs, Alstroemerias and Lilies for example, try to steal the show, but for at least for their evident value to nectar- and pollen-feeding insects, it is hard to beat (and even harder to walk quickly past) the Astrantias and Thalictrum.

So many insects, which way to turn? But speed was of the essence, as life was rushing by in the heat.

And where there are insects there are things that feed on them, valuable additions to the gardeners’ army of helpers in the control of what some may call pests.

As the water warms, so the lakes come into their own, with five species of dragonfly and damselfly seen in just an hour and a half.

And for the first time this year, butterflies in some abundance, with a total of ten species.

Lest we start to get maudlin, with the nights starting to draw in, at least the garden left me with a strong sense of the invertebrate riches to come, in the diverse forms of the nymphs of all sorts of late summer attractions. Nature has its way of healing both body and mind!

 

The Beth Chatto Garden through the seasons: May

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

Late May, and the gardens are burgeoning – flowers are flowering in abundance, insects and other visitors are active everywhere. And this year, the green bits are still green, such a contrast to last year when we were already in the grip of a severe drought. In fact this year overall the rainfall totals have been low, but there have been just enough downpours to keep the garden going. And with temperatures through May being on the low side, the flower colours set against the canvas of greens is simply vibrant. Feast your eyes on these, from plant panoramas ….

…to the finer details, the inner plantscapes:

It’s always a pleasure to see in the Beth Chatto gardens that the ‘gardeners’ curse’ of overtidiness doesn’t feature too much. While some may find long grass and dead flower heads unsightly, others – especially the insects and birds to which the garden is a home – don’t. Nature’s bounteous growth harbours food and provides shelter, all part of the natural ecology of the garden:

All of the insects and other invertebrates we found were exciting, but two bits of behaviour we had never seen before were thrilling to observe.  A pair of Malachius bipustulatus (Two-spotted Malachite Beetles) indulging in courtship behaviour, ‘kissing’ to transmit pair bonding pheromones….

… and it was especially good to see the first emergence of Scorpion-flies of the summer. The males have the eponymous ‘scorpion tail’ although it contains no sting, just a genital capsule, but both sexes have a protruding snout with jaws located at its tip. Widely supposed to be an adaptation to extracting insects from spiders’ webs without alerting the owner, this is certainly not the whole story. For the first time ever, we found one feeding, its beak deep in the body of its hapless prey – a spider!

#WildWivenhoe Botany & Bug Walks: June – the leaves are alive on Lower Lodge

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

Thank you to all the nature-addicts who joined us on Saturday.  The warm sunshine and gentle breeze made for very pleasant walks (if 400 metres in two hours qualifies as a walk!), and we certainly found lots to look at.  So much so we aren’t going to put many words into this month’s report – but let the pictures speak for themselves. We haven’t even labelled the pictures: please ask if you would like to know what they are…

As we know, as well as being vitally important for our ecosystems, insects vary hugely and are in fact classified into 22 different major groups or ‘orders’, reflecting their respective structures.

Beetles belong to the order  Coleoptera.  Coleos – a shield,  pteron – wing, and have hard wing cases which protect them.  They probably outnumber in species every other order of animal.

Moths belong to the order Lepidoptera   Lepidos – a scale,  pteron – wing.  We discovered several types of moth,  plus a couple of ‘cases’, ie  pupae where a moth has chewed out a section of leaf, to a very precise pattern, (how DO they know this?) as well as a couple of magnificent moth caterpillars. Sadly we were a week or two early for the spotted Burnet moths which will soon be abundant on Lower Lodge.  Butterflies are also Lepidopteran, but relatively few were out and about on Saturday, apart from Common Blues and Speckled Woods.

True bugs’ (as opposed to ‘bugs’ being the general term used for many insects) belong to the order Hemiptera   Hemi – half, pteron – wing.  This is an extremely varied order, and are further classified into suborders.

The three orders listed so far are three of the ‘big five’ insect groups, the others being Diptera (‘two-winged’) – Flies; and Hymenoptera (‘veil-winged’ – bees, wasps and ants). There are however many other smaller orders. Grasshoppers and crickets belong to the order Orthoptera   Orthos – straight,  pteron – wing.  Being early in the season, the bush crickets we found were nymphs, i.e. in their early stages of development.  They pass through a number of ‘instars’,  shedding their skins as they go,  before becoming adult.

Spiders – of course, these aren’t insects (ie they don’t have the requisite 6 legs) but are such interesting critters we could not possibly ignore them!

And of course Chris was also looking out for what was flowering, photographing a few flower heads (including the first Field Scabious, awaiting its complement of Burnet moths) and seed-head structures as he went, together with the remarkable fruiting structures of the Goat’s-beard Rust-fungus.

Happy nature watching.

#WildWivenhoe Botany & Bug Walks: May – Cockaynes Reserve

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, Cockaynes Reserve, WildWivenhoe

So, which of these is a weed? Dandelion or Silver Birch?  The answer seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it, but in reality they both may OR may not be thought of as weeds.  It all depends on where you are and what you want from the land on which they are growing.  A weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place.

This was a topic of discussion on our Botany and Bug Walks this month.  Two groups of hardy souls (given the weather which was thrown at us) enjoyed a visit to one of our least-known beauty spots, namely the Cockaynes Reserve.  This reserve comprises two woods, with a patch of bare sandy soil near lakes which are the happy result of intensive sand and gravel extraction some years ago.  The whole site is a wildlife haven.

The sandy open ground is well managed by the Cockaynes Wood Trust specifically for our ultra-important (considering the state that we have all got ourselves into) invertebrates.  Without insect life, humans would disappear within a short time.  So….the Birch which naturally wants to grow in the sandy soil area is removed to allow room for insects to move in, nest and generally do what comes naturally to them.  A prize example of the insects is officially called the Early Colletes bee, though we would like to make a case for it to be known as the Bunny Bee.  The second half of its Latin name ‘cunicularis’  shares the root with that for Rabbits.  And it does share some rabbit-like characteristics, in that it is furry and burrows in sandy soil ( not sure about the fluffy tail though).   And (at least when the weather is warm) many hundreds of these bees can be seen nesting and buzzing along the sand banks.  This is nationally a very important colony for these useful pollinators.

So what about the Dandelion? Well, this old favourite is ‘Welcome at Cockaynes’ as one of the most important late-spring sources of nectar and pollen for insects.  A curious fact…what we think of as the dandelion flower, is in fact many closely packed in together.  Each little orange blade is an individual flower, which is easier to comprehend when it has turned itself into a beautiful clock seed-head… each seed comes from an individual flower.

Many other woodland plants were to be seen and enjoyed.  Of course, the favourite, the Bluebell, as well as Wavy Bittercress, Opposite leaved Golden-saxifrage which just loves living near the brook, and Red Campion (which grows as either an all-male or all-female plant) plus a myriad of others.

Three types of fern are found in  Villa Wood – Broad-Buckler and Male Ferns thriving in the lush conditions beside Sixpenny Brook, plus Bracken on the higher, drier soils. ‘The degree of pinnation’ Chris used to help identify them sound complex, but all it really means is ‘ferniness’….

Given the cold wind and sharp hail showers insects generally were pretty thin on the ground.  But our eagle-eyed groups did discover some nice examples – a Squash Bug sunning itself, bumblebees, flies plus a few moths.

In fact we found the smallest moth in Britain!  Micropterix calthella enjoys spending time in the cups of buttercups. They may only live for a few hours and so have to do what they have to do as a priority.  We caught a couple doing just this…..   Aren’t they handsome, and only 4mm or so long!

Another rather lovely moth enjoying a brief spell of sunshine was the Clouded Border.  It boldly lies out full view of any passing predator, knowing that it is partially protected by its disguise…it does look rather like a bird poo.  It belongs to the Geometrid group of moths, this term meaning ‘earth measurer’ and their caterpillars are the ‘inchworms’.

Having walked up past the lakes now full of water plants and a few birds, we finished our walk at the top, at Cockaynes Wood.  This is a much drier habitat than the lower, Villa Wood. And near it are a few patches of Heather, a very rare plant to grow in Essex.  Near here is a lovely field, which has been just left and apparently un-herbicided for a while, to allow many pretty annual plants to take root.  Many of these may be considered ‘weeds’ in a garden…they grow readily in disturbed soil.  But here, they were just delightful to see, and much better thought of as less-prejudicially as ‘Arable Plants’: Field Pansy, Groundsel, Fumitory, Poppy and Wild Radish.

Pipers at the Gates of Dawn

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous, WildWivenhoe

At the Gates of Dawn we stood and listened
To the piping song which filled our hearts
And souls with joy.

Why do they sing so?

At the Gates of Dawn we filled our lungs
And shouted out to the whole world
To announce the day.

Why do they listen so?

To survive we need to attract a mate,
Defend our space, alert a danger
Of a stranger.

That’s why we sing so.

In this world of greed we have a need
To feed on good things, calm things,
Nature

That’s why we listen so.

By Jude, inspired by our recent Dawn Chorus walk.

 

The Beth Chatto Garden throughout the seasons: April

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

Three weeks since our last visit. Three weeks which would normally see one of the greatest transformations in a garden, from winter to high spring: not this year though, when unseasonably warm spells in both mid-February and early March lit the flames of spring very early, and the cool northerlies of early April then held its advance at bay.

But the daffodils were largely over, their place being taken by fritillaries and Erythroniums…

…  Epimediums, Archangel and Uvularia.

Time for interesting angles and close-ups…

… and celebration of the spring greens, punctuated and highlighted by splashes of  colour.

From beds and borders, unfurling ferns rearing up like cobras…

… and Alchemilla leaves bedecked with dewdrop pearls, some magnifying the russet tooth tips, others reflecting the sky, before coalescing into the mercurial pools which give rise to the name of the ‘little alchemist’:

As always keeping our eyes open for the animal inhabitants, the more sheltered areas produced an array of basking bugs – Squash Bug and Green, Hairy and Gorse Shieldbugs:

   

… and beetles, including an almost spotless Harlequin Ladybird, and Rosemary Beetles, here transferring their allegiance to sages:

As befits the season, love was in the air for pairs of Green Shieldbugs and the large, wing-marked crane-fly Tipula vittata:

A few butterflies were on the wing, including our first Green-veined White of the year:

And of course, with insects showing, their predators were out and about, with Zebra Spiders well camouflaged on lichen-covered walls, and a Heliophanus jumping-spider waiting with hi-viz palps raised, ready to leap upon a suitable morsel.