Corizus on Schizostylis

The brightly coloured plant bug  Corizus hyoscyami (Hemiptera: Miridae) seems to be reasonably frequent in our area.  Yesterday I found this one sitting on a Schizostylis (or, more properly Hesperantha) flower in our garden in Sedlescombe, East Sussex.

Chilli fly

I have been looking after a chilli plant for one of my granddaughters and, having persuaded it to come into bloom, I have noticed that some of the flowers are dropping off.

I learnt from a chilli-growing web site that this might be due to the absence of pollination by insects or the wind so, if the weather is good enough I will put it out in a sheltered place in the fresh air.

Today there were two insects running about on the leaves, though not visiting flowers.  One was a very small, black hoverfly, the other a shining black sepsid fly frantically waving its wings as sepsids do.

Some May pictures

There are several plants of greater celandine or swallow-wort (Chelidonium majus) in the garden.  They were brought in originally by our granddaughter but seem to have naturalised as they have in many other places in the British Isles.

The plant is actually a member of the poppy family and not related to the lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria).  The greater celandine has a prodigious medicinal reputation and a huge array of toxic chemicals in its orange sap.

According to Wiki, for example, it was used in Ukraine as the basis of an anti-cancer drug called "Ukrain".  This was created in 1978 by the Ukrainian chemist Vasyl Novytskyi and manufactured in Austria. Although the drug was never approved by any regulators, Novytskyi “claimed it to be a complete cure for all cancers, radiation-induced diseases and AIDS and [he]was arrested in Vienna for aggravated fraud on September 4, 2012.”

On the path to the village there is an old and battered oak tree festooned in ivy.  If you look carefully at the picture you will seen that someone has sawn through the ivy trunks, an event, in my view, of environmental vandalism.  I think the ivy would have been very unlikely to kill the oak and would have produced quantities of nectar and pollen in late summer and early autumn for the benefit of many invertebrates.  The dense foliage would also have provided much shelter for birds, bats and other creatures while the berries would have been a spring feast for woodpigeons.

After the recent high winds, the ground under oak trees has been littered with currant galls, the agamic stage of the gall wasp Andricus quercusbaccarum, usually found on oak catkins but also on young leaves.  ‘Agamic’ means this stage is female only and the resultant wasps will lay their eggs on the fully expanded oak leaves and create the spangle galls which will produce both sexes next spring.

A spring leaf-miner & saproxylic moth

I found a leaf mine on a leaf of snowberry (Symphoricarpos) growing in the hedge at Balcombe Green that separates the lane from Red Barn Field.

It was made by the larva of an Agromyzid fly, Aulagromyza cornigera, and the grub has already fed up and left the mine.  It addition to its shape, identification is made easier by the fact that its larval stages are spent in April and early May.

I also found an Oecophorid micromoth, the sulphur-underwinged tubic, Esperia sulphurella on a nettle leaf.  This is a widespread species and, I think, the name ‘tubic’, comes from the fact that the larvae, which feed on dead wood, conceal themselves in an under bark tube of spun silk.

How did this happen?

Wandering through a local wood I came across this sycamore tree and have been speculating ever since as to how the branches achieved this cruciform shape.

My best idea is that a normally shaped tree was half crushed under the weight of another blown down by wind (perhaps in the 1987 storm that did considerable damage to this wood) and managed to hold the branches in this espaliered shape for long enough for them to become a permanent feature.  It is too far from any boundary to be a result of deliberate pleaching into a hedge.

More spring in Killingan Wood

The early purple orchids (Orchis mascula) are now at their best and I thought it was worth posting another picture of one of the white-flowered examples.

Along the bank where the old beech trees grow there are quite a few beech seedlings indicating that last year was a good mast year with plenty of viable seed being produced and not too much of it taken by seed predators.  It remains to be seen how many of these seedlings will survive into adulthood.

There seems to be a growing number of slime moulds about too.  The yellow example is one about to change from a plasmodium to a spore bearing example, while the orange balls are the spore-bearing bodies of one of the Lycogala species – difficult to determine to species level.  They have some interesting vernacular names: wolf’s milk, toothpaste slime and groening’s slime.  ‘Groening’ is spelt both with a capital and a lower case ‘g’ so it is not clear whether it refers to something or someone, though bird-catchers have been known as ‘groenings’ in America, so maybe the slime mould is thought to resemble birdlime.

Crozier cradle

In Killigan Wood today I found this male Reaumur's longhorn moth, Adela reaumurella, cradled in the uncurling top of a soft shield-fern frond.  If you look carefully you can see a long antenna like a white thread running down from the head of the moth.  I also found several more plants of this fern in the wood, though it is not as common as the other ferns.  It is easy to pick out at this time of year as the frond tips bend outwards and the pinnae unroll from neat silver balls.

At the entrance to the wood I noticed a spray of oak leaves that appear to belong to the ‘other’ British species, Quercus petraea, the sessile or durmast oak (no lobes at the base of the leaves, stellate hairs on the underside, five lobes etc.).  The word ‘durmast’ is often spelt with a capital, but it does not appear to derive from a place-name.  The Oxford English Dictionary suggests it might have derived from a misspelling of ‘dun mast’.

Purple, blue, white and yellow

Spring is now advancing at full speed and the woods are at their wonderful best.

In Killigan Wood about quarter of a mile from our house, in addition to the usual astonishing spectacle of the bluebells, there were many early purple orchids (Orchis mascula) with several white-flowered examples among the purple, and more plants of goldilocks buttercup (Ranunculus auricomus) than I have seen for many years.

Service recommences

The wild service or chequer tree (Sorbus torminalis) in the lane outside has quite suddenly started into leaf.

There is a fat flower bud within the layer of silver leaves and so it looks like we shall have a great crop of fruit this year.

This phase of the tree is very brief.  The flower will soon be open and the leaves turned to the sad green (as one author described them).  If you are interested in this scarce British native species, now is the time to look for it in hedges and woods before it becomes almost invisible again.

Brimstones & buckthorn leaves

I have often wondered at the striking resemblance between the fading , autumnal leaves of alder buckthorn (the food plant of the brimstone butterfly in our area) and the yellow of the butterfly itself.  Even the antennae of the insect are the shape and colour of the buckthorn leaf stalks.

I have wondered because brimstones do not seem to be on the wing when the buckthorns are turning yellow, but on 30 October I saw the fine fresh male above fluttering around a bramble patch in nearby Brede High Woods.  This is the latest I can remember seeing an adult on the wing though, according to the literature they have often been recorded in mild weather into early November.

The male I saw was in that part of the woods where alder buckthorn reaches its greatest abundance, and these butterflies are common here in spring.  My interpretation of this late October event is that the male was looking for somewhere to hibernate (bramble patches are a frequent choice) but was positioning himself near the buckthorns that would attract the females after hibernation in spring.  The butterfly I saw was visible from a long way off, but I think I would have been hard put to it to spot him if he had chosen to settle in a buckthorn like the one below.

On this principle I suppose one of the butterflies settled among the buckthorns in spring or summer might be thought to be an unseasonal dead leaf.

On a slightly different point, I wonder why the females are paler than the males.  Does this dimorphism convey some evolutionary advantage?

The arrival of autumn, 2013

There have been many interesting moments after the last few weeks as summer has given way to an Indian summer.

In the sunshine the ivy flowers in our garden hedge has proved a great attraction to insects and I have seen more hornets here than anywhere else this year.

A welcome addition to the usual visitors was the ivy bee, Colletes hederae.  This was first recorded in Britain in Dorset in 2001 and is spreading rapidly northwards.  It is one of the latest solitary bees on the wing, its emergence coinciding with the ivy flowers that it normally visits.

Another pleasant surprise was the discovery of a huge colony of autumn lady's tresses orchid, Spiranthes spiralis in a front garden in Sedlescombe village.  The small white spikes are the orchids.

An extraordinary sight was that of a spider-hunting wasp. an Anoplius (probably A. nigerrimus) hauling a paralysed wolf spider (Trochosa sp.) up the curtains in our living room.  These wasps normally nest at or near ground level and it is not clear precisely where this one was going with its victim.

Another surprise was the discover of a tiny barkfly halfway down our garden that turned out to be a fairly recent British arrival - Trichopsocus brincki.  This was discovered in Madeira in 1957 and, for a while, was thought to be an endemic species there.  However, one turned up in South Devon in 2003 and it now seems to be fairly widespread in Britain.  The pattern near the front edge of the forewings make it unmistakable.  It was named after Professor Per Brinck, a Scandinavian entomologist who did much work in Madeira.

Moths and crickets

A beautiful, freshly emerged light emerald moth (Campaea margaritata) was resting on the spiders webs on the north wall if our shed yesterday.

Later, coming indoors after dark, I spotted an oak bush cricket (Meconema thalassinum) on our back door and took a flash picture:

Campion moth caterpillar

The other day I found a caterpillar of a campion moth (Hadena rivularis) nestling comfortably in the opened seed pod of, guess what, a red campion (Silene dioica).

I kept if for a day or two so that I could get a photo of it stretched out.

After our studio session had finished I gathered some fresh campion leaves and pods and the caterpillar immediately 'got its head down' as they say (see below).  It is now, of course, too big to fit completely into the pods as it did when I first found it.

 

 

 

Just a few moths

Moths seem to be even scarcer this year than before.  In a wonderful, still, heatwave dusk I walked round the garden and saw no moths at all.  It is now rare to find them on our windows after dark whereas 30 or 40 years ago one could expect to see a great variety of species here.

As well as moths, many other insects seem to be down in number.  Our first hogweeds are out, but are hardly jostling with species as they used to be and honey bees are very few, though the recently arrived in Britain Bombus hypnorum, the tree bee, has had a good season and must have done much of the pollinating that is usually the province of the honey bee.

One of the few moths I have seen round the house is the small dusty wave (Idaea seriata), kindly identified by one of the experts on iSpot.

While yesterday a spotted a micro under a leaf (difficult to photograph) that turned out to be the Oecophorid Esperia oliviella.

Often caterpillars seem easier to find than adults.  On the corner by the lane there is a hogweed almost completely eaten to pieces by larvae of the parsnip moth (Depressaria pastinacella).  They seem almost to have created their own problems by being too many for the food supply.

Moths may be doing poorly, but butterflies seem to be managing quite well.  Meadow browns are abundant and I have seen virtually all the species I would have expected to see by this time of the year.

Wonderful English hedges

For the last week or two our local hedgerows have been at their best.  With, in places, masses of wild roses, honeysuckle and elder much now giving way to bramble flowers.

Summer flowers and grasses flourish along the hedge bottoms.  One of the most characteristic grasses is false oat-grass (Arrhenatherum elatius) with its elegantly arching silvery flowering spikes.

Another silver surprise was a blackthorn (below) with silver leaves rather than the normal green as on the right of the picture.  This is, I believe, a condition known as 'false silver-leaf'.  Leaves also turn silver if the shrub is attacked by a fungus Chondrostereum purpureum but this kills the plant or the affected branches and this particular blackthorn seems perfectly healthy (although the false silver-leaf is caused by one kind of stress of another).

Hedge woundwort also seems to be doing well this year.

Anne Pratt (1852) remarks on the wooly properties of the plant and adds "one species of wild bee, which dwells in the cavities of trees, is skilled in using it.  Kirby and Spence remark of this little creature, that it knew what materials would slowly conduct heat, long before Count Rumford's experiments had been made; and it attacks the leaves of Wooly Woundwort (Stachys lanata), the Rose Campion and similar plants, and scraping hence the down with its forelegs, rolls it into a little ball, and sticking it on the plaister which covers the cells, renders them impervious to every change of temperature; so that, say these writers, 'this bee may be said to exercise the trade of a clothier.' "

The bee in question is the wool carder-bee (Anthidium manicatum) and is particularly common in our garden where it shows a strong liking for flowers of houseleeks (Sempervivum spp.)

With us it mainly uses Stachys lanata to make its wool balls (see below).

The Count Rumford mentioned by Anne Pratt was the 18th/19th C  Anglo-American polymath born Benjamin Thompson.  Among innumerable other things he investigated the insulating properties of various materials including fur, wool and feathers.  Kirby and Spence were authors of the Introduction to Entomology published in 4 volumes between 1815 and 1826.

Another insect that is a welcome visitor to our hedges this year is the small tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae).  It used to be one of the commonest species when I was young, but now seems to be rather rarely seen, though it may have been picking up a little recently.  I hope it isn't its relative scarcity that causes me to appreciate what a beautiful species it is.

A light in the dark

Yesterday night I spotted a glowworm doing its stuff on the lawn in our garden.

I told my wife and she said "Oh do go and take a photo of it".  So I did, and here it is:

In Killingan Wood

On my way home I noticed, in the woodland edge, a beautiful red filigree of herb robert (Geranium robertianum) leaves.  The plant had, I supposed, finished its flowering and was turning colour as a final flourish as the seeds set. 

Back home I scrutinised the picture and discovered; not counting the grass and the dead oak leaf; field maple, ivy, hornbeam, bramble, yew, field rose, cherry laurel (an invasive alien) and hazel plus a couple of plants of whose identity I am uncertain, all sharing the moment.  A good example of how nature is both dynamic and intricate.

Along the same path the wood melick grass (Melica uniflora) has already gone to seed.

It is regarded as an ancient woodland indicator plant, though I always find it on the banks on the edges of the woods and, although it looks as though (like floating sweet grass) it might have harvestable seeds, I can find no evidence of any such use.  In the 1799 Letters and Papers on Agriculture, Planting &c, it is called 'wood honey-grass' and the anonymous author says of it This grass has beauty, and that only, to recommend it, unless to linnets, which are fond of the seed, which ripens in good time for them, being a very early grass.  It was said to occur at Prior Park, presumably the one near Bath designed by Alexander Pope and Capability Brown and probably still does since it is a common enough grass.

The linnet is one of the many birds that have declined alarmingly in recent times and they do need a good supply of seed year round so, as an early seeder, one can see how wood melick would have been sought by them.

Although we have not had much of a summer, the pond in Killingan Wood is already reduced to mud and remains a good, fish-free habitat for some of the wildlife that prefers temporary water bodies.

On bees and things

There has been much in the media recently on the decline of honey bees and the lack of insects generally in Britain.

This does seem borne out by my own experiences.  I have yet to see a honey bee in 2013, despite looking for them but two species of bumble bee have been doing well in our East Sussex garden

We have a nest of the tree bee, Bombus hypnorum, in the wall at the back of our house.  The plant that seems to exert a powerful attraction for them is the alder buck thorn, Frangula alnus, although it has tiny greenish, scentless flowers.

The whole of our bush trembles with them, but they do not seem very interested in larger, more colourful flowers. 

The tree bee is a relatively new species in Britain.  Having first been recorded in Wiltshire in 2001, it has now spread far and wide and seems quite untroubled by whatever it is that is bothering the honey been and many other insects.

A self-sown and small flowered cotoneaster is another plant they like and on this they are joined in smaller numbers by the early bumble bee, Bombus pratorum.

In the wider countryside there are some lovely flowering meadows like Jackson Pollock paintings.

They do have insects in them, but not nearly so many as one would expect given the quantity of flowering plants.  In this afternoon's warmth I was looking at a patch of white clover, Trifolium repens, a flower normally very attractive to bees and other insects, but there was no sign of any visitors.

Butterflies generally are scarce, but I have seen most of the species I would expect to see during the year so far, albeit in much lower numbers than usual.  Meadow browns, Maniola jurtina, have just appeared and are usually common by now, but I only saw two this afternoon while walking through what appeared to be an ideal meadowland habitat.