It was the day before Midsummer for the June Wildside Walks, just coming up to the peak time for insect activity. But the weather may have different ideas – a couple of months with almost no rain are starting to parch the landscape and if this continues, it may be that the high summer peak is lesser than we would hope for, especially given the busy, buzzy days we have had recently.

But for now, the floral riches are ready and waiting…

Especially in hot weather much activity centres on the ponds, and here there were four species of damselfly…

…and a couple of dragonflies: Emperors, always on the go and typically impossible to photograph, and Four-spotted Chasers, real posers and justifying the four pictures here!

On the Lysimachia round the ponds, there was a sawfly larva with a distinctive black mark on its head. This turned out to be Monostegia abdominalis, the only sawfly that feeds on this genus: although probably overlooked and under-recorded, there appear to be no previous records from Essex on the NBN Atlas. Sawflies suffer from under-recording a lot, especially as there are few good identification resources. Take Iris Sawfly, all over our waterside irises this year and very obvious, that is shown from just three spots in Essex on the NBN Atlas, a wonderful resource but only as good as the data that are provided to it!

Of course some sawflies are rather better known, especially the larvae of Solomon’s-seal Sawflies that are making their mark on our plants (our badge of honour!). And right at the moment there is a huge emergence of what may be Turnip Sawfly adults although they don’t seem to be associated with their customary food plant family, Brassicaceae.

Butterflies are rarely numerous in the ‘June gap’, but their diversity is increasing slowly. A Painted Lady pointed to recent immigration, newly emerged Brimstones, Small Tortoiseshells and Commas were on the wing, while both Large and Small Skippers, Common Blues, Meadow Browns and Purple Hairstreaks set the scene for July.

True bugs included a showy Hawthorn Shieldbug, together with large numbers of the recently arrived species Closterotomus trivialis in both its colour forms. First found in the UK in London in 2009, by 2020 it had reached our garden.

A selection of the beetles on show included a fine, warningly coloured Wasp Beetle, many metallic green Thick-thighed Beetles and (rather less welcome) a Vine Weevil…  And it seems that ladybirds have been breeding well this summer, to judge from the number of larvae, including those of Harlequin and 14-spot Ladybirds.

There were a few Common Scorpionflies flittering among the leaves in search of insect prey…

… and plenty of hoverflies, waspy ones such as Syrphus ribesii and Eristalis arbustorum and less marked species like Xylota segnis and a Cheilosia.

Moving on to the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants), of course Honeybees were everywhere. One has to wonder how many other bees there would be if what are essentially livestock were not taking such a large proportion of our flowers’ resources. But  one didn’t make it: it was only when I looked at the image later that I noticed it was covered in flies, and at third glance that it was dead in the jaws of a White Crab-spider.

It is wonderful to hear the buzz of bumblebees again after the Silent Summers of the last two years. As always, Buff-tailed and White-tailed were most numerous (but with many more of the latter than last year), while Early Bumblebee and Vestal Cuckoo-bee (a species that lays its eggs in other bees’ nests) were also performing.

Solitary bees too. Whereas bumblebees and Honeybees store collected pollen in the saddlebags on their hind legs, others use the hairs under their abdomen, like this leafcutter Megachile on Cistus, and the mason bees on white Galactites.

Mining bees are also very important pollinators, but very had to identify: the ones here may be Andrena minutula, bicolor and flavipes.

Solitary digger wasps didn’t want to be left out of the picture either. These generally feed insects, especially caterpillars, to their developing young, but the adults require nectar: Cerceris rybyensis and Ectemnius continuus were foraging from the nectar-glands of  Euphorbia.

Campanula latifolia was a particular focus of pollinator activity. I was photographing (probably) a Gwynne’s Mining-bee deep in the flowers, but again only on examining the photos on the computer did I realise that it had been photobombed by something even more interesting: a Campanula Carpenter Bee, a first for the garden, and only rather thinly scattered across the county.

And our bee hotels were simply buzzing with life! It was an absolute delight to be immersed in so many insects in every part of the Gardens.

Depending on the weather, this summer could go either way from here. If drought persists, the promise of early summer may fizzle out, but if rain comes (within reason) we could be in for a bumper few months. And there are certainly the flowers coming along to help support such an abundance:

The next couple of Wildside Walks are planned for 18th July. If you are interested in joining me, please book through these links – 11am and 12am. And if moths are something you would like to know more about, there’s our Moth Morning the following day…