I’ve mentioned Seedball a few times previously. The team has very generously sent me samples of their product, which offers a novel way to rewild your garden, or indeed, any outdoor space, without the need to handle thousands of tiny seeds. The balls themselves act as a growth medium within which the seeds for any of dozens wildflowers can be held. You simply scatter the seed balls on your patch and water in.
Hummingbird Hawk-moth nectaring on Red Valerian
In time, the seeds germinate and your patch is converted into a wonderland of wildflowers and almost immediately starts benefiting the local invertebrate community and thence the birds, and the whole garden ecosystem.
Seedball have now teamed up with the British Entomological Society to offer specific packs of Seedballs with wildflower species aimed at attracting particular species of invertebrates. Namely, Hummingbird Hawk-moth, Meadow Grasshopper, and Blue-tailed Damselfly. They’re running a nice competition on their Insta to win some!
I only occasionally photograph dragonflies and damselflies, the Odonata. My big zoom doesn’t give me the best results with these insects for some reason. However, I was at Brampton Wood yesterday to see the recently emerged Black Hairstreak butterflies. Took a shorter zoom, Canon 75-300mm for that job instead of my Sigma 150-600mm and tried my chances on snapping some dragonflies in between hairstreaks.
First in the frame was this lovely Black-tailed Skimmer, Orthetrum cancellatum. What a great scientific name.
Black-tailed Skimmer – Orthetrum cancellatum
And, here’s a male of the relatively common species Broad-bodied Chaser, Libellula depressa, coming into land on a stick protruding from Wayne’s Pond at Brampton Wood.
Broad-bodied Chaser coming in to land
A Four-spotted Chaser, Libellula quadrimaculata, favoured the perching sticks in the pond too.
Four-spotted chaser with its eight spots!
Another interesting dragon at Brampton Wood is the relatively rare Green-eyed Hawker, Aeshna isoceles. The isoceles is a reference to the yellow triangle on its second abdominal segment. It has an alternative vernacular name, Norfolk Hawker, this common name in the UK refers to its lasting presence in the county of Norfolk, although it was common in the Cambridgeshire Fens until the 1980s. It is now known to exist in Suffolk and Kent, but is localised and scarce.
Green-eyed, or Norfolk, Hawker
However, old Green Eyes is back…in Cambridgeshire. Although it remains fairly elusive; it always was a rarity. Perhaps the species is benefiting partly from the creation of numerous wetlands on the sites of old gravelworks in the county, such as RSPB Fen Drayton. It favours ponds, ditches, and marshes with dense vegetation and seems to rely on the aquatic plant Water-Soldier, Stratiotes aloides. There’s plenty of that in my garden pond, so fingers crossed and there is obviously something about Brampton Wood they like too.
In non-dragonfly news, also spotted a Bumblebee Plumehorn, a type of hoverfly, Volucella bombylans.
Bumblebee Plumehorn hoverfly
There were Brimstone and Garden Grass-veneer moths to be seen and Spindle Ermine and Pale Eggar moth nests, a few scattered Large Skipper butterflies on the site as well as several Speckled Wood butterfly. Also at play numerous Longhorn Beetle, a few European Hornet, and a lot of Green Oak Tortrix moths, Tortrix viridana. They’ve been coming to traps in large numbers during the last few days around Cambridgeshire, so it was no surprise to see them on the oaks in Brampton Wood.
Green Oak Tortrix moth on green oak leaf
However, my target species for the day was the Black Hairstreak butterfly, Satyrium pruni. I estimate I saw 40-50 over the course of the visit. Although the butterfly is nationally very rare, it is present on this site and other ancient woodlands with well-established Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) to the west and southwest in huge numbers. There were several within yards of the site entrance, one or two along the main ride, several on blackthorn near the aforementioned pond, and several on the two sites marked for visitors to observe them. I got photos of perching and puddling butterflies, some ovipositing females, and caught sight of a mating pair, but didn’t get the money shot of that coupling!
The Black Hairstreak was not known as a species until 1828 when a professional entomological dealer, Mr Seaman, charged with gathering up specimens of the rather similar White-letter Hairstreak delivered these to his patron only to discover a novel species among the White-letters. Edward Newman, a Victorian entomologist of note, declared the novel species to be the Black Hairstreak. Monk’s Wood, like Brampton, is an ancient woodland with a lot of old Blackthorn growing on heavy clay soil, just what the Black Hairstreak needs for its life cycle.
Black Hairstreak butterfly
Another Black Hairstreak with a wing problem allows us to see the dark-brown upperside of the forewings with their orange-spotted fringe. Usually, it is very difficult to see the upperside of the wings as the insects invariably close their wings together when they land. It is worth noting that non-native Muntjac deer can be a voracious nuisance in this kind of ancient woodland. If it is allowed to graze freely in such habitat, there is the potential for rare, native species that rely on the habitat to be lost. As I understand it, at least one of our nature conservation organisations is involved in culling Muntjac where it is roaming freely in such habitat for the sake of conservation of the sensitive native species.
Black Hairstreak revealing a little of the upperside of its wings
Not to be confused with a butterfly of the Americas, Ocaria ocrisia, with the same vernacular name, that also goes by the monicker Hewitson’s blackstreak.
One final thing – Common Spotted Orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii.
While most of my invertebrate photography focuses on Lepidoptera, it’s also fun to get shots of other insects, such as this large caddisfly, Stenophylax permistus, which turned up in the moth trap overnight. I’ve seen it several times before, but hadn’t previously felt inclined to take a photo until this morning.
Caddisfly, Stenophylax permistus
The scaly-winged Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies, same thing) and the hairy-winged Trichoptera (caddisflies, also known as sedge-flies or rail-flies) share a common evolutionary ancestor. The former group evolved to have scales on their wings while the latter has ostensibly smooth, albeit veined, wings, that have hairs. The two together sit within the superorder Amphiesmenoptera. There are about 14500 species of Trichoptera and 160,000 species of Lepidoptera.
This large species of caddisfly is, I believe, Stenophylax permistus. I don’t believe there’s an official vernacular, or common, name for this insect, but if we look at its scientific binomial literally, we could invent one. Steno means “narrow”, phylax means “guard” and permistus means “permitted”. So the common name for this caddisfly could be the “Permitted Narrow Guard”? Perhaps…
The caddisflies have aquatic larvae, which is handy as we have a garden pond, but the adults are terrestrial.
TL:DR – A new study has demonstrated the ability of red flour beetles (Tribolium castaneum) to recycle water in their rectums. This feat allows the beetles to survive in some of the driest environments on Earth.
The research team of Kenneth Halberg and colleagues built a transcriptomic atlas of the beetles’ life stages, which allowed them to systematically compare gene expression across tissues and stages. By searching the atlas for genes with enriched expression in the rectum, the researchers were able to identify a specific gene associated with this phenomenon, Nha1.
Electrophysiological experiments confirmed that Nha1 plays a crucial role in ion transport in rectal cells and water uptake by the rectum. In fact, silencing the expression of Nha1 led to water loss, emphasizing the importance of this gene in the beetle’s survival.
Red flour beetles have a large surface-to-volume ratio that makes them particularly vulnerable to environmental water loss. However, the beetles’ rectal complex enables them to recycle water from their faeces and even harvest water from moist air. This remarkable ability is key to the beetle’s survival in arid settings.
The findings of this study shed light on the evolution of water recycling and conservation mechanisms in insects. Furthermore, the transcriptomic atlas of red flour beetles, known as BeetleAtlas, can be used to address a range of unresolved questions on Tribolium biology. Overall, this research highlights an intriguing adaptation that allows insects to thrive in challenging environments.
“NHA1 is a cation/proton antiporter essential for the water-conserving functions of the rectal complex in Tribolium castaneum,” by Muhammad T. Naseem et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci
TL:DR – The waggle dance of the honeybee carries more information than scientists previously thought, allowing the bees to find known food sources even if they start their journey from a place other than the hive.
Here’s the buzz…
Scientists and beekeepers have known for years that honeybees have a way of communicating the location of food sources that involves hitting the dancefloor in the hive. The dance that the bees use to communicate is called the waggle dance, and the moves tell other bees where to find food, specifically nectar and pollen-rich flowers. The dance conveys both the distance and direction of the food source, allowing other bees to follow the instructions and find the food.
Honeybee, Apis mellifera, on Green Alkanet flowers
Now, Charles Gallistel of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA and Randolf Menzel of the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and their colleagues have studied a hive of nearly 2,000 honeybees in Germany. They watched as foragers (always female bees) returned to the hive and recruited other bees to the food source using the waggle dance. But then, they did an interesting experiment. They captured the recruited bees and released them far away from the hive. They tracked the bees’ location using radar and watched to see what they would do.
Even though the bees were released a long way from their home hive, they still flew in the direction indicated by the waggle dance. Moreover, the bees didn’t fly in a straight line, instead, they flew in a direction that was biased towards the true location of the food source. This suggests that the bees were able to use the information in the waggle dance to create a “cognitive map” of the food source’s location. This means they could presumably find the food source from any starting point going from A to Zzzzzz.
This new work published in PNAS suggests that the information contained in the honeybee waggle dance is even richer than was previously thought. This could have important implications for our understanding of how bees navigate and find food, which could have implications for everything from agriculture to conservation.
There was a bit of a buzz in our local Dissenter’s Cemetery here in Cottenham. Cemetery trustee James Blunt got in touch to tell me a bit about it. Turns out hundreds if not thousands of apian non-conformists had turned up and were partying at the rear of the graveyard.
I met up with James mid-afternoon and he directed me to the patch where Ivy Miner Bees (Colletes hederae) were actively mating and laying eggs. The bee is pretty much harmless, a solitary, as opposed to social, species that regularly adopts quiet patches of ground to “mine” hundreds of holes. The holes being the repository for new life among the granite and graves. The bees are noisy and fast-moving, but not an aggressive insect, all buzz and no bite, you might say.
The species is a recent arrival to The British Isles, having been first noted by entomologists in 2001, it having arrived from the continental mainland. It has been spreading its wings ever since and mining a home for its eggs on these quiet patches usually where a steady supply of autumnal blossom on ivy plants is nearby.
The Dissenters’ Cemetery as many residents might remember featured in an early episode of TV crime drama Silent Witness, which was originally set in and around Cambridge. Today, the cemetery’s gates, flanked famously by a huge pair of monkey puzzle trees welcomes all for long-term rest and respite. The site was established when Anglican burials of non-conformist parishioners was no longer possible. Back in the middle of the Victorian era. At the time, the Anglican priest was not allowed through the gates.
The Cemetery now welcomes mourners and other visitors who might in the spring and early summer notice the standing yellow spikes of mullein plants, the rare yellow-berried holly, and earlier still various species of snowdrops. At any time of year, they can puzzle over the meaning of life in the shadow of the trees and they might imagine the tragic tales of those who served in two World Wars who are buried here. Come the autumn, it is a small part of the apian world that might hold a visitor’s attention briefly. Life, as they say, will out…even among the graves.
I have mentioned the biodiversity issues on one of our local fenland drains, known as the Cottenham Lode. Over the last couple of years several of us have seen Brassy Longhorn moths feeding on the Field Scabious that grows on the lode bank at the dogleg near the footbridge into the woodland at Rampton. There has been a problem with the time of the mowing of the Lode bank, which is done each year by the Environment Agency for flood risk reduction an important maintenance job, obviously.
Brassy Longhorn feeding on Field Scabious on the Cottenham Lode
The mowing is usually done in two stages a strip towards the top of the bank is mown fairly early in the summer and the lower strip and the upper strip are then mown completely towards the end of July. Unfortunately, that full cut takes with it all the field scabious flowers, which are still blooming and with it the insect life that had until that point been thriving on the flowers. It is a crying shame one might say, especially in an age when conservation and biodiversity are high on the agenda.
I have great news to report. I have been in discussions with the Environment Agency who have now agreed to defer the first cut of the lode bank until no earlier than the week commencing 16th August this year and a similar date for future years. This means that the second, full, which takes in all of the lower part where the field scabious grow will be later still.
This will hopefully give the insect life and the wildflowers a better chance before the blades fall on them each year. So thank you to Alex Malcolm and Neil Stuttle at the EA for listening to my argument and finding a solution.
If you’ve spent even just one of the recent spate of sultry summer nights outside, you may, if you closed your eyes briefly, be forgiven for imagining that the village had been lifted wholesale and transported to a balmy beach resort, a little farther than Bournemouth and certainly not northwards to Barnard Castle, say somewhere on The Mediterranean coast. But, it’s not so much about the heat and humidity that has led to perspiring gents and glowing local ladies, rather it’s the sound.
Have you heard it? The chirping, chirruping as the dusk settles and the night draws on? The sound seems to bounce from garden to garden as one perambulates the pavement. It’s as if someone is playing a trick on you, first it’s to your left at number 12, then it’ over the road at number 15 and back to 11 and, bizarrely, no, it’s definitely coming from number 18…probably the back garden.
The sound is quite evocative, it’s the sweet monotonically melodic note of the House Cricket, Acheta domesticus. Specifically, it’s the sound of the male of the species rubbing his wings together (termed stridulation) to make a sound to attract a female. It’s a mating call, in other words.
The House Cricket species is thought to be native to Southwest Asia and has been kept as a pet in China and Japan and probably elsewhere for centuries simply for the charming evocation of its chirping. After World War II, the species began its inextricable worldwide spread carried on the waves of human globalization that broke on international shores in the second half of the twentieth century. Today, it might be found almost anywhere and certainly when there is a run of days that top out somewhere above 30 Celsius and the nights don’t chill to below about 20 Celsius, we hear them in Cottenham.
Dry-roasted house cricket is a great source of high-quality protein and could be the future once we accept that the carbon footprints left by mammalian livestock are far too big for our boots. Indeed, as with all insects the animal provides a complete protein, in other words it contains all nine of the essential amino acids we need in our diets. Unfortunately, there has been a viral pandemic in the cricket world, cricket paralysis virus has devastated the cricket-breeding industries of North America and Europe. Thankfully, the industry discovered that the Jamaican field cricket is resistant to this virus and has usurped the house cricket as the invertebrate of choice in the industry.
Unfortunately, I am yet to get a photograph of one of the Cottenham house crickets, but I have made a recording of the sound for your delectation, in case you have not had the opportunity to sit a spell in the rocker on your porch on one of these summer nights. It’s worth noting that the faster the chirps, the warmer it is…or vice versa…when it gets warmer the crickets stridulate faster.
Yesterday, I had my birding lens (150-600mm zoom) on the camera when I snapped those invertebrates feeding on the ivy overgrowth in All Saints’ churchyard in Rampton. Today, I took a 90mm macro to get a different type of closeup of the butterflies, bees, flies, and hornets. No hornets in sight and no ivy bees either.
Red AdmiralHornet HoverflyHoneybeeMossy Rose GallDandelion clock
The enormous ivy (Hedera helix) overgrowth on an old tree behind All Saints Church, Rampton, was heaving with honeybees, bumblebees (various species), hoverflies (and other diptera), ivy bees, hornets, and red admiral butterflies during a sunny and warm lunchtime. I knew it would be, I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a week or two waiting for it to blossom. The acrid and yet pleasantly heady aroma hits you first as you walk into the churchyard. And, almost simultaneously you notice the buzzing. A lot of buzzing, the buzzing of thousands of pairs of tiny wings.
Ivy blossom is so important in the autumn for invertebrates once the usual flowers are beyond nectar making and their sugary food supply dries up. I have let the ivy on the fence at the rear of our garden grow quite wild again this year. After dark, I spotted lots of night feeders – several Large Yellow Underwing, some Vine’s Rustic, an Angle Shades, and various flies and other critters. The leaves had plenty of snails after the rains.
