Author: nrowberry

2020 – The Year of the Pond

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Well there are probably lots of ways to describe 2020, but most of those aren’t repeatable on what tries to be an upbeat blog. So I will gloss over the obvious and instead try and focus on the many good things that happened in the last year.

First and foremost was that we finally managed to put in a new pond. The timing for this couldn’t have been better – the pond went in during February and of course in March we went into lockdown. Having the pond to sit by and watch develop through those long months was a real sanity-saver. It was amazing how quickly the wildlife moved in and as it matures I’m sure it will only get better.

A real highlight and sense of achievement came at the end of May when George, the Eyed Hawkmoth I’d reared from an egg, finally emerged. I’d been nurturing him for 10 months since I’d found the egg in the moth trap and so I felt like a proud mum when he emerged and flew off into the night. Hopefully there will be sons and daughters of George in flight this summer too.

Another moth related achievement was the creation of our Moon Garden – an area planted specifically to attract moths. And it worked. 39 new moth species were recorded, bringing the running total for the garden to 405. Best of all it attracted a Dark Crimson Underwing – believed to be the first record for this species for the whole of the West Midlands.

2020 turned out to be a good year for butterflies too. Between lockdowns, we managed to add 2 more species (Silver-spotted Skipper and Black Hairstreak) in our mission to see all the British butterflies. We also noted 2 new species for the garden (Silver-washed Fritillary & Brown Argus), although this was more by luck than good management.

The new bee hotels provided lots of interest and again we added 2 species to our garden count (Willughby’s Leafcutter and a Sharp-tailed Bee). Being able to watch both Red Mason & Leafcutter bees build their nests in the tubes was really fascinating.

Despite lockdowns, we still managed to take part in various citizen science projects – including Big Butterfly Count & Garden Moth Scheme. A new project this year is the Slugs Count project.  This is a monthly survey of the garden for slugs and it’s been great (trying) to get to grips with a whole new group.

As I do every year, I’d made various wildlife resolutions at the start of 2020. Of course back in January none of us had any idea of how the year was going to turn out! Not surprisingly the Covid imposed restrictions had an impact on some of my resolutions, but at least this year I’ve got a really good excuse for not completing them all! So here were last year’s targets:

  • New pond – well at least we smashed this one. Many thanks to Gwyndaf the Cycling Gardener who was the one who did all the hard work digging, while we sat back and reaped the rewards.
  • Create a Moon Garden. I think we pretty much nailed this one too. The Moon garden was a big success both aesthetically and for the moths.
  • See 2 more species of British Butterfly. For a while it seemed touch and go whether we would achieve this one. Our planned trip to Norfolk to see the Swallowtails was of course cancelled, but in the end we did manage 2 other species (always good to have a plan B). So we’ve now seen 52 of the 58 species.
  • Visit 5 new nature reserves. I think we only managed 2 new ones (Glapthorne Meadows and Aston Rowant NR), but then many of the nature reserves were closed to the public during the lockdowns, so I figure we have an excuse.
  • Go rockpooling. Had hoped to do this one in Norfolk, but of course that went out the window. Not much scope for rockpooling in Worcestershire, so this one will have to get bumped to next year.
  • Go and see some wild Ospreys. Again we were thwarted by Covid. I had hoped to go up to see the Dyfi Ospreys, but for a large part of the year we’ve not been allowed into Wales!
  • The moth tattoo! I genuinely thought this would be the year I’d get a moth tattoo – I’ve even decided it should be of George the Eyed Hawkmoth. But of course tattoo parlours were one of the first things to get closed down – so that’s my excuse at least.

So to New Year’s Resolutions for 2021. Covid may continue to thwart our efforts, but we can at least hope to enjoy as much wildlife as possible.

  • Try and video a dragonfly emerging from the pond. We had lots of dragonfly/damselfly egg laying activity in the new pond last year, so hopefully I can catch some of them emerging in the summer.
  • Expand the moon garden – it’s been great so far, but I’m hoping to double the area.
  • See 2 more species of British Butterfly. We’ve now seen 52 of the 58 species, but we’re having to go further and further afield to see the remaining ones. Fingers crossed we can see the Swallowtail in Norfolk at least this year.
  • Visit 5 new nature reserves.
  • Rockpooling. Again fingers crossed we make it to Norfolk for this.
  • Go and see some wild Ospreys – if we’re allowed back in Wales!
  • The moth tattoo!

If 2020 has taught me anything it is that I am very grateful to have a wildlife filled garden and that I am lucky it brings me so much pleasure. It must be awful for those who didn’t get the chance to enjoy wildlife this year, but then I think it would be awful in any year not find joy in the nature that is all around us if we take the time to look.

Miscellaneous Delights

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Despite being stuck at home like many people, for much of this year, I don’t seem to have blogged as much as I would have liked. It certainly wasn’t for lack of interest in the garden – having spent an inordinate amount of time sitting out, there was plenty to see. Perhaps there was too much, or perhaps I just couldn’t face being cooped up inside to write. Whatever the reason, I’ve ended up with a lot of interesting (to me at least) snippets, that never saw the light of day. So here’s a miscellany of wildlife moments from the garden this year – they all cheered me up and they deserve their moment!

Most of this will be insects, but there are a trio of mammals making the cut.  Hedgehogs of course featured regularly in the garden. Freda our 3-legged hedgehog from the previous year not only made it through the winter, but produced at least one hoglet. Here she is looking like many mums – slightly harassed by her offspring.

 

Bats (most likely Common Pipistrelles) have always used our garden as a hunting ground in the summer months. A weed-filled garden tends also to be an insect-filled garden, so there are plenty of moths and other food for them. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but the bats do seem to be coming more frequently now we have the new pond. The pond is surely generating extra insect activity, which hopefully means more bats. I’ve tried with very limited success to film them – this was the best of a shoddy selection of shaky videos. I reckon there are at least 3 bats visible towards the end of the clip.

Third mammal is this mouse at the bird feeder, for no other reason than it was so cute.

So on to the insects. I was really chuffed to spot a Dotted Bee-fly again this year, amongst all the regular bee-flies. Both species seemed to favour warm stones around the pond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoverflies were abundant in the garden and as usual I failed completely to get to grips with identifying them all. There were lots of different shapes and colours though, including some of the delightful bee mimic ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One I did manage to identify though was the Hornet Mimic Hoverfly (Volucella zonaria) – one of the biggest British species. They really were huge compared to the other hoverflies.

A new species to me and in fact a new group was this Potter Wasp – so called because some species construct little mud pots for nests.

Continuing on the waspy theme, here’s one of the gorgeous ruby-tailed wasp species. I tend to have mixed feelings towards these – they are of course stunningly beautiful, but they do parasitize mason bee nests and I feel very protective of my little mason bees. But live and let live and it’s nice to have diversity in the garden.

The wasps aren’t the only parasitic insects in the garden. I discovered this new addition to our garden bee fauna this year – a Sharp-tailed bee Coelioxys sp.  These ones make use of leaf-cutter bee nests.

Talking of leafcutter bees, I had meant to do a whole blog post on them. I’ve got a lot of photos and a lot of videos – so many in fact I think it became too daunting to sort through. So a full leafcutter post will have to wait until next year. In the meantime here’s a snippet.

 

We’ve had a few interesting beetles this year too. This one I spotted on the garage wall, while out checking the moth trap one night. For a split second I thought I’d got a Stag Beetle, then reality set in and I realised it was a Lesser Stag Beetle. Still a first for the garden, so very pleased to add it to our list.

The pond of course attracted lots of water beetles. This huge Great Diving Beetle misjudged his landing though and ended up in the hedgehog’s water bowl.

Also misjudging his landing was this Dung Beetle (Onthophagus coenobita) which ended up on a bit of frogbit in the pond.

Moths I’ve covered fairly extensively in other blog posts, but possibly my favourite odd moment this year was watching a male Black Arches moth flare it’s genitalia at me! It was perched on the edge of a pot and while I tried to photograph it, it started this weird behaviour. Don’t know whether it was trying to warn me off, or perhaps entice me (should I be flattered?), but it was certainly very odd. I sent the video clip to some moth experts and they weren’t sure why it was doing it either.

So that’s it really – a quick round-up of some of the wonderful wildlife I was lucky enough to see in our garden, but didn’t manage to blog about before. I feel very lucky to have had a garden to enjoy in 2020; it really has made things a lot easier to deal with when you’re surrounded by so much wildlife.

I’ll do a summary of everything else we’ve seen this year in the next blog post, with hopes and dreams for next year too. Happy New Year everyone. xx

 

 

 

Slugs Count

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Way back at the beginning of the year (when the world seemed a very different place) I saw an article asking for volunteers to count slugs. The RHS in conjunction with Newcastle University were looking for 60 people to go out into their gardens once a month and count & identify the slugs in their own gardens. Perhaps I need to get out more, but it sounded great! Since I already spend a lot of time looking at the moths, bees, dragonflies etc. in the garden, it seemed a good opportunity to learn a bit about another group. So I applied and then lockdown happened and everything went on hold.

But eventually I heard back; they’d had nearly 3000 applicants for the 60 volunteers needed, so I feel really lucky to have been chosen. Our survey packs arrived, complete with sampling containers, slug guide and pre-paid postage envelopes (the local post office are going to love me). In an ideal world we would have all met up for hands-on training, but thanks of course to COVID, we had to do all this by Zoom.

First thing I learned about identifying slugs is that it’s really hard! They are extremely variable and they either keep moving or they scrunch themselves up so that you can’t see the bits you need to see. They’re also really hard to take photos of, because again they either keep moving or they’re shiny with slime so that the camera struggles to focus.

Splitting them into the major groups seems relatively straightforward until you get very small ones.  If the breathing pore is in the front half of the mantle (the fleshy sort of saddle on their backs) then it’s one of the Arion types like the one below.

If the breathing pore is in the rear half then it’s one of the keeled slugs like the one below. So far so good.

But separating the keeled slugs is also tricky. There are long keeled slugs and 2 groups of short keeled slugs and the keels really aren’t always that obvious.

Originally it was all planned to start in June but in the end it was early November before we all did our first slug counts! A half hour search around the garden after dark yielded 116 slugs! And that’s without lifting anything up, or rummaging through leaves or plants – just scanning around with my head torch (neighbours once again convinced I’d lost it). So here they are before I’d sorted them out – a bucket of slugs.

And then all potted up with their moist capillary matting to stop them drying out and shredded carrot for the journey.

The lovely post office lady did indeed thing I was a bit odd to say the least when she asked what was in the parcels. I have since done my second count in early December; a mere 88 slugs this time. Many of the other slug count participants have been reporting only a few or even no slugs at all, but that’s clearly not an issue in our garden. I suspect it may be because our garden is so unkempt with plenty of decaying matter for them to feed on – slug paradise.

By far the commonest species so far has been Arion (Kobeltia) hortensis – the Blue-black soil slug. They’re only 2 -3 cm long, but what they lack in size they make up for in numbers; the garden is full of them.

There were also apparently some other small Kobeltia species in my samples, but I’m waiting confirmation of what those are. A few juvenile Arion subfuscus had also sneaked in undetected (by me). Differentiating between some of these is way beyond my current skills set.

The next most common species was Deroceras reticulatum, the Netted Field Slug. This is one of the slugs with a short keel. I found these short keeled slugs really hard to photograph and show the keel, so you may just have to take my word for it that there is one there.

Apparently in my samples there were also some Ambigolimax sp., but since I failed to spot these as being anything different, I don’t have any photos.

I did better with 2 species of long-keeled slugs – Tandonia budapestensis – the Budapest Keeled Slug and Tandonia cristata  – the Crimean Keeled Slug. I managed some photos of the Budapest ones (below) but seem to have got so excited when I spotted the second species that I forgot to take any photos. The keel on the Budapest ones is really nice and obvious – my kind of slug!

The only other species to get picked up in my half hour searches was a single Limacus maculatus – the Green Cellar Slug, although this specimen doesn’t look especially green.

The cellar slug above was by far the biggest slug I collected during the counts so far, but I know we have much bigger slugs in the garden like this giant Arion seen last summer.

The weather is now significantly colder (first snow today) but there are still a fair few slugs out at night. Hopefully in the coming monthly surveys I will find more species new to the garden. I’m finding the whole process fascinating and it’s opened up a whole new world of wildlife to me. Hopefully the slugs in our garden and in those of the other slug count participants will help the scientists to expand their knowledge of this understudied group.

Moon Garden

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One of the things on my New Year’s Resolution list, way back before 2020 went crazy, was to create a Moon Garden. I’d got the idea originally from one of Butterfly Conservation’s e-newsletters; amongst the tips for things to do to encourage wildlife was to make a Moon Garden. This is specifically planted to encourage night time wildlife, in particular moths. Most of the plants are white/cream or pale yellow, so they almost glow in the moonlight. Many of them are also more fragrant at night and so should attract plenty of moths. Although at the beginning of 2020 we had already recorded 367 species of moth in the garden, there was always more to hope for!

A patch of garden had been roughly cleared in late autumn, so just needed digging over and any remaining weeds removed.  Here’s the obligatory “before” photo of the soon-to-be Moon Garden area.

Using the list from Butterfly Conservation’s website I ordered some of the plants as ready grown specimens and, to cut down costs a bit, some of the plants as seeds. One of the plants I was particularly keen to grow was the Tobacco Plant (Nicotiana alata) – known to attract the Convolvulus Hawk-moth, a large migrant moth. These grow quite large and tall and have long tubular flowers perfect for the moth’s long proboscis.

Other pale flowers included white alyssums and lavenders, evening primroses, night-scented stocks and phlox, hebe, jasmine and honeysuckle. There were a few, such as white campion, that I simply couldn’t get this year – thanks to covid closures of local garden centres and online sources being swamped with orders. But all in all I was very lucky to get a nice mix of flowers for the moon garden.

A final addition to the garden was Lamb’s Ears (Stachys byzantina)- grown not only for the silvery-ness but also the hairiness of its foliage. This had two-fold appeal – the plant is not only attractive to moths, but the hairs on the leaves are collected by Wool Carder Bees. I’ve only ever seen one Wool Carder Bee in the garden, so had hoped to attract more. Sadly if they did come they did so while my back was turned. But the Lamb’s Ears have grown well, so hopefully next year I can split the plants to get greater coverage.

So this is what I ended up with – or at least this is the stage mid-summer before the Nicotiana and evening primroses took over. For some reason I forgot to take a photo later on before they all died off again! This part of the garden really did smell lovely in the evenings, with the mix of the honeysuckle and other night scented flowers.

So I’d built it, but would they come? Well I may not have got a Convolvulus Hawk-moth yet, but plenty of other species have been more obliging. We started the year on 367 moth species recorded for the garden and to date we now have 405 – an increase of 38.  Of course I can’t prove that all these 38 are a direct result of planting the moon garden, but I’m sure some of them at least must be. And since the garden looks and smells lovely anyway, it’s certainly a win-win thing to do.

Although I was primarily expecting to see the moths in the moon garden at night, it was nice to find the occasional one resting there during the day – like this Garden Carpet on the evening primroses. A slightly more impressive find though was this Poplar Hawk-moth roosting during the day on the Nicotiana.

At night the evening primrose flowers were particularly well used by Silver Y moths.

I run my moth trap most weeks close to where the moon garden now is. It may be co-incidence but some species certainly seemed to increase in numbers this year compared to previous years. The Elephant Hawk-moths for instance were arriving in veritable herds compared to the usual singletons.

The new species were a mix of macro and micro moths. Some I’d been longing to see for ages like this Peach Blossom.

But others were completely new to me. Here are a few favourites – Triple Barred Argent (Argyresthia trifasciata for the purists – a stunning golden striped micro), Lesser Spotted Pinion and Least Black Arches.

The undoubted highlight has to be the moment I discovered a Dark Crimson Underwing in the trap. I nearly put it down as being one of the regular Red Underwings (in my defence, it did after all appear to have red underwings) which I have occasionally found in the garden before. But it looked a bit different, so I double-checked with those much wiser than me and was thrilled to find it was a Dark Crimson instead. Not only did this turn out to be a new species for Worcestershire, it is probably new for the whole of the West Midlands region – result!

So all in all I’ve been very pleased with the results from my moon garden experiment. So much so in fact that I intend to extend it next year and hopefully double the area. Some of the perennials may take years to grow to their full potential, so hopefully it will get better as time goes on. Again it may be coincidence but we noticed more bat activity over the garden this year (hope they didn’t snaffle my longed-for convolvulous hawk-moth, although I suspect it would be too big!), which is great too. Perhaps next year I might plant an area specifically for caterpillar food plants too – it’s all got to be beneficial after all.

Our local branch of Butterfly Conservation had asked earlier this year for moth related articles for the magazine. I was delighted that they included an article on our Malvern Moon Garden. It was Butterfly Conservation’s article that inspired me to plant it in the first place, so it would be lovely if our garden could then inspire someone else to have a go and encourage more moths into their own garden.

I’m not normally one given to poetic quotes, but there’s a line from William Blake – “The Moon, like a flower in heaven’s high bower, with silent delight, sits and smiles on the night” which makes me think of our moon garden – a silent delight giving both me and hopefully the moths great pleasure.

 

 

 

 

Newt News

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When we had the new pond put in, way back in February, the frogs moved in almost straight away. There was a lot of croaking and and even some amphibious cuddling, but they completely failed to produce any spawn. I guess the pond was just too new and they didn’t feel it was up to scratch yet. The frogs may have let us down (I did try not to take it personally), but the newts, when they arrived, have more than made up for it.

The first newt plopped into the pond at the beginning of April and was quickly followed by many more. We never really knew how many we’d got, but I reckon at least a dozen must have found there way there in the end. Here’s the first ever one, popping up for air (the pond looks so bare looking back at it now, the plants have filled it out so much more since then).

They are all Smooth or Common Newts as far as we can tell, but they are still absolutely fascinating to watch. For the first few weeks in April, the newts we saw looked fairly laid back, with not much action; just occasionally popping up to the surface for a gulp of air. But as the breeding season progressed, we started to see courtship behaviour and could see the difference between the males and females.

The females are relatively plain coloured varying from beige to olive brown to dark grey. Their bellies in the breeding season go yellower with dark spots – you can just about see this in the female below.

The males tend to be much more jazzy. Certainly the ones in our pond were spotty all over, with a yellowy orange belly and a crest running down their backs and along their tails – visible below. (although the crest of the male smooth newt is quite marked, it is apparently nothing compared to that of the Great Crested Newt – clue’s in the name I suppose!)

Courtship consists of a lot of tail waving from the male – sometimes very energetically, almost aggressively in his determination to impress the ladies. Having got her attention, he deposits a packet of sperm, which she then manoeuvres over to fertilise her eggs. In the video below, you can just make out him producing a tiny white packet of sperm at about the 20 second mark.

 

There can be quite a lot of chasing each other around – sometimes more than just a pair; we’ve seen 4 or 5 chasing each other in a conga line across the pond.

The female lays the eggs individually on the leaves of aquatic plants. Water Forget-me-Nots are apparently a favourite for this, so we made sure there was plenty in the pond. The females grasp a leaf between their 2 back legs, folding them over and depositing an egg inside the fold. She then glues the leaf together and holds it until it sticks.

I particularly like this zen looking female laying eggs.

The females take so much time and care choosing the perfect spot for each individual egg.  The next couple of videos show them carefully selecting and positioning each egg.

 

The eggs were small white blobs in a layer of jelly. Most of the time they were hidden in their protective leaf curls, but occasionally the leaves popped open to reveal one.

We first started seeing baby newts swimming around the pond in mid-May. These first ones were tiny, less than a centimetre long and with no legs.

By early June mini newts with tiny legs had developed. The legs were virtually transparent still, but fully functioning.

They gradually grew, the legs thickening and strengthening, but still retaining their gills.

To get clear shots of the baby newts swimming/walking I very carefully caught a few and filmed them in a tank, before gently releasing them back into the pond.

 

The tank videos are good for seeing the detail, but it is so much nicer to get them swimming free in the pond (although considerably trickier to film). I love this little one determinedly hunting tiny water fleas as he paddles around.

 

I’ve not managed to find any young newts who have fully metamorphosed into efts and lost their gills yet. I’m sure some of them must have done by now, but they have probably left the pond and dispersed into our plentiful weeds. There is plenty of cover around the pond for them to hide in. The closest I’ve got is this one resting on the frogbit (should that be newtbit?), but he still has gills.

 

A lot of the young newts or efts of course won’t make it to adulthood. Lots of things will eat baby newts, not least of which is this Great Diving Beetle which landed unceremoniously in the hedgehog’s water bowl the other night and may have then moved on into the pond.

The efts won’t mature into adults until they are 2 or 3 years old, so it will probably be a couple of years before these youngsters return to the pond to breed. But hopefully some at least will make it and the pond will have done its bit to increase the newt population in our garden. Watching the newts court, lay eggs and develop into efts, has given us such pleasure during the sometimes bleak year that has been 2020; the least we can do is repay them by providing a suitable weed-filled garden for them to live in. They don’t mind that we’re too lazy to weed.

Our Garden Butterflies

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The Big Butterfly Count results were announced last week, so it seemed a good time to take a look at the butterflies we’ve had in our own garden this year. Sadly the Big Butterfly Count suggested a poor year for butterflies, although the very warm spring may have meant their numbers peaked before the Count took place – let’s hope that’s the reason.

It might not have been a great year nationally, but we have actually done pretty well here in the garden. By the end of 2019 we had recorded 18 butterfly species in the garden in the 12 years or so we have lived here. In 2020 we were very pleased to add two more to that list.

In the middle of July I was amazed to spot a Silver-washed Fritillary in the garden. It was a bit tatty and probably a bit lost, but you take what you can get with wildlife sightings! Having an overgrown, brambled covered garden had paid off. For once I even had the camera to hand, so snapped a few photos before dashing (artistic license here for the speed) back into the house shouting for Chris to come out and see. It moved from the brambles to a buddleia and we both managed a few more photos before it realised it probably wasn’t in the right place and flew off.

Seeing a Silver-washed Fritillary in our own garden was particularly enjoyable as, thanks to Covid, we hadn’t manage to get out to many of our usual places, so hadn’t seen them anywhere else this year.

Then a couple of weeks later we were sitting by the pond (as so much of 2020 has been spent) when a small butterfly landed on the Eryngium flowers. We thought at first it was a female Common Blue, which in itself would be a bit of a rarity in the garden, but it turned out to be a Brown Argus – our 20th butterfly species for the garden.

Besides the newcomers above, we’ve had a fairly steady stream of butterflies throughout the summer. As with the Big Butterfly Count results, the white butterflies were the most numerous ones – Small Whites in particular seemed to have a good year here in Malvern. I try and record the butterflies I see daily for the Garden Butterfly Survey and for most days through the summer I was seeing at least some Small Whites and some days up to 8 or 9 in one go.  The numbers of Painted Lady butterflies we saw were down on last year, but then last year was a particularly good year for them nationwide.

Commas, Red Admirals, Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells all appeared, although never in more than 1s or 2s, despite us having a lot of Buddleias in the garden. The grassy areas (we can’t call them lawns any more) produced Ringlets, Gatekeepers and Meadow Browns and the Speckled Woods & Holly Blues liked the brambles and apple tree. I’d planted up a few Bird’s Foot Trefoils in the hope of attracting some Common Blues, so was really chuffed when one finally deigned to appreciate my efforts and land on the flowers.

The final treat for the year was a second brood Small Copper which took advantage of some of the late summer Asters growing wild all over our garden. It’s got blue spots in the wings which apparently makes it the caeruleopunctata form, which was an interesting snippet to learn about.

So it may not have been particularly good news nationally for butterflies, but it seems our Malvern garden has been lucky.  Whether we’ve genuinely had more species visiting or whether we’ve just been seeing more because, thanks to lockdown, we’ve spent more time in the garden I don’t know. Whatever the reason, they have certainly been very welcome little rays of sunshine in an otherwise troubled year.

Damsels & Dragons – Part 3

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I knew as soon as I posted the last dragonfly update on the pond that it probably wouldn’t be the last and sure enough over the last month or so there has been plenty of dragon activity in the garden.

The darters have continued to be the predominant dragonflies at the pond, but with a new addition – at least one Ruddy Darter.

Very similar to the Common Darters, there may well have been more than one Ruddy visiting, but unless they sit still enough to get a decent photo, I find it hard to tell them apart.

The Ruddy ones have all-black legs (left), whereas the Common ones have a dingy yellow streak down the legs (right).

 

 

 

But it’s impossible to see any of that when they are flying. And they’ve been doing a lot of that, often paired up and laying eggs together. Unless they pause and rest, I’ve no idea whether it is Ruddy or Common pairs I am watching. This pair did take a bit of a break, with the male seeming to have made himself comfy on the perch, while leaving the female clinging on for dear life! (I’ll refrain from commenting on a woman’s lot!)

They flit around the pond, laying eggs with a dab of the female’s abdomen in the water. They are very hard to either video or photograph as no sooner have you focussed than they’re off across the pond. So apologies for the shaky video and fuzzy photos. The male holds onto the female at the back of her head using claspers at the end of his abdomen.

 

They then fly in tandem around the pond depositing the eggs. The eggs are just laid apparently at random in the water, rather than being carefully placed onto vegetation as some species do.  The males hold onto the females while they lay the eggs to prevent other males from mating with her. I don’t know which one of them controls the movement – whether the female decides when to dip or whether the male just dunks her in the water when he feels like it.

Occasionally we’ve been lucky enough to find a pair of darters at the earlier stage in the mating cycle, when they are curled together in the wheel position, before they take off on their tandem flight. The male clasps the female at the back of her head and the female curves her abdomen up and round to collect the sperm from the top of his abdomen.  When they are stationary like this it is possible to get sharp enough photos to determine which species we’re looking at. So far all these pairs have turned out to be Common Darters, but hopefully the Ruddy Darters have been mating in the pond too.

We had some very hot weather for a few days in August and one Common Darter in particular spent a lot of time in the obelisk pose (I’ve not made that up, it’s a real thing in dragonflies!). They align themselves so that the tip of the abdomen is pointed towards the sun – it’s supposed to reduce the surface area exposed to the heat and so stop them overheating.

One of them even did it right in front of me, its abdomen pointing right up and pulsating slightly. Again apologies for blurry camera work, but I hadn’t been expecting a pulsating bottom to be pointed at me this way!

 

The Emperor dragonflies were still visiting in August and laying lots of eggs. This one made good use of one of the barley logs we have in the pond to keep the water clear. I know I shouldn’t anthropomorphize a dragonfly, but she really does seem to have a look of concentration on her face to me.

 

There have been some other large dragonflies zooming around the pond this last few weeks, but it took until a few days ago for a couple to stop long enough to get a photo. For some reason both chose to rest on the Himalayan Honeysuckle that hangs over the pond from next door.  After some debate the first one was identified as a female Southern Hawker.

I thought the second one was probably the same, but turns out no, it was a female Migrant Hawker.

I think these two hawker species will be another pair that I can only reliably separate with decent photos. Both stunning dragonflies though.

So that brings our dragonfly/damselfly tally for the new pond to 9 species. Pretty impressive for a pond that is only just over 6 months old. And there are still a few species that we might yet hope to see in future years. Hopefully next summer we will have plenty of dragonflies emerging from the pond and the cycle will begin again. Now that’s something to smile about.

 

 

 

Butterfly Number 52!

/ nrowberry / 2 Comments

Last weekend we decided to venture out in search of a new butterfly species – the Silver-spotted Skipper. Our original plans for butterfly spotting this year had of course been stifled by the lockdown, so the skipper was a bit of a plan B. At this point we had seen 51 of the 58 species of butterfly on the UK mainland, but most of the remaining 7 were too far away to contemplate for a day trip. The Silver-spotted Skipper though was just about in reach, down in South Oxfordshire at the Aston Rowant Nature Reserve.

Butterfly watching and bad weather don’t go well together, so for days beforehand I’d been checking the weather forecast for Aston Rowant. While not ideal, Sunday was going to be the best day with sunny intervals throughout the morning – no mention of rain! So we set off early and got there before 9am to be greeted by very overcast skies. After our usual faffing about trying to find the entrance to the reserve, we got into the first fairly ordinary looking field and spent about 20 minutes fruitlessly searching for butterflies, before it started chucking it down. We took shelter under some trees for a while before deciding to head back to the car to wait it out. While trudging back through the rain we looked over a fence to spot another field on a sloping bank absolutely covered in flowers – a much more promising place to look for butterflies, although not while it was still raining.

Once the rain had stopped, we hurried back to the flowery slope, pursued by another couple with the same idea (there’s always a bit of friendly rivalry when you’re both looking for the same butterfly, who will spot it first? I hate to gloat but….). This chalk slope (with lumps of flint dotted around) was really beautiful, covered in wild flowers – wild thyme & marjoram, thistles, scabious and all sorts of other things I can’t name.

The area is also known for having a population of red kites. We saw two circling around while we were there. Because we were fairly high up on the hill, they were virtually at eye level with us sometimes, although that didn’t make it any easier to photograph them.

With the sun finally out, the slope was alive with butterflies and also 6-spot burnet moths catching the eye as they flashed their red underwings.

We saw lots of butterfly species – Marbled Whites, Small Heath, Red Admirals, a fritillary, Meadow Browns and lots of Chalkhill Blues. In one area there must have been 50 to 100 of them – the air above the grass and flowers was almost shimmering with blue butterflies. We’ve never seen so many.

Eventually though amongst all these blues we found a couple of our target species – the Silver-spotted Skipper. They’re really quite small and are almost impossible to spot unless you see one in flight. Then, as soon as they land, they disappear, perfectly camouflages in the undergrowth. But they are lovely little butterflies – very dainty and beautifully marked.

I did try a brief video of one, although the wind was blowing quite strong by then so I’m wobbling about a bit.

 

We had about an hour chasing butterflies before the rain came again and as if by magic all the butterflies disappeared back into the undergrowth. So we gave up and headed back to the car and the long drive home. But butterfly number 52 had been ticked off, so despite the weather we were more than happy with the outcome. The remaining 6 will have to wait until next year when hopefully we will be able to travel further afield.