All posts by Ian Alexander

I have been in love with nature as long as I can remember. Nature photography, birdwatching, lichens, fossils, orchids, mountains, insects, everything else. Conservation, gardening at home, community gardening. I've loved it all.
Natural History

Butterflies in Tuscany

Common Blue [L’icaro o argo azzurro] (Polyommatus icarus) on Lavender beside the swimming pool of the lovely agriturismo farm, Rocca di Cispiano, where we stayed in Chianti. Species names are shown in English [Italian] and (Latin).
Pool area: not an obvious place for butterflies, but the clever planting of a Lavender border made all the difference

Scarce Swallowtail [Il podalirio] (Iphiclides podalirius), a large butterfly with a distinctive sailing flight, taking nectar beside the pool
Silver-Washed Fritillary [La pafia o Tabacco di Spagna o Fritillaria] (Argynnis paphia), a handsome and distinctive species

Tuscan landscape (Chianti): hilltop farms, Vines (bright green rows), Olive trees (blue-gray trees in rows), low mixed maquis (macchia mediterranea) forest, Cypress trees on left skyline

Nine-Spotted Moth [La fegea] (Amata phegea) frequently visited the lavender border and other flowers. It was once also found in England; Chris Manley suggests that global warming might allow it to return (a possible silver lining to that cloud).
Brimstone [La cedronella] (Gonepteryx rhamni)
Hummingbird Hawkmoth [La sfinge del galio o sfinge colibrì] (Macroglossum stellatarum), darting from flower to flower each time just before I managed to focus the little camera …

Bee-fly (neither a bee nor a butterfly) half-hovering to take nectar, making a particularly loud buzz

Meadow Brown [La Giurtina o Maniola comune] (Maniola jurtina)
Red Admiral [L’atalanta] (Vanessa atalanta). It has  a chunk out of its right hindwing, showing it survived an attack.
The enormous, fearsome, but non-aggressive Mammoth Wasp, [La vespa mammuth] (Megascolia maculata), on Wild Artichoke. Presumably its sting would be serious but I can’t find any record of people being stung by this peaceful insect.

A Mammoth Wasp visiting a potted Hottentot Fig, with a wide view of the Tuscan landscape
Oak Yellow Underwing Moth (Catocala nymphagoga) on shower beside pool

The bushes by the pool attracted this Southern White Admiral [Il Silvano azzurro o Piccolo silvano] (Limenitis reducta)
Swallows  [La rondine] (Hirundo rustica) swooping over the pool at sunset. Many pairs nest in the farm buildings; there were two active nests inside our porch.

Perfect butterfly habitat a short walk from the agriturismo: meadow grass by Olive groves with Scabious (blue) and St John’s Wort (yellow). There’s a tiny Queen of Spain Fritillary in the picture!

Sloe Hairstreak [Satiro dell’acacia] (Satyrium acaciae)
Swallowtail [Il macaone] (Papilio machaon); this one at Brolio castle, but there were many near the agriturismo too
Queen of Spain Fritillary [La latonia]  (Issoria lathonia) on Scabious
Clouded Yellow [La crocea, La limoncella, Il postiglione] (Colias croceus) pair in nuptial flight
Marbled White [La galatea] (Melanargia galathea)
Probably Eastern Burnet Moth [La carniolica] (Zygaena cf carniolica) on Scabious.

Zygaena cf carniolica taking flight. The brilliant red underwings give a strong and honest warning signal of the insect’s inedibility.
Eastern Dappled White [L’ausonia] (Euchloe ausonia)
Olive Grove and Spanish Broom. Butterflies skittered about the flowery meadow below the trees.

Wall Brown [La megera] (Lasiommata megera)
A lizard, probably the Common Wall Lizard [Lucertola muraiola] (Podarcis muralis) given its dark chin, scurried along the wooden rail at the edge of the pool area.

A very battered Oak Yellow Underwing that has survived an attack by a bird

Great Banded Grayling [Circe, Satiro circe, Sileno] (Brintesia circe)
Dingy Skipper [Tagete] (Erynnis tages). There were Large Skippers about too, but their habit of perching on slender waving grasses made photography hopeless.
Painted Lady [La vanessa del cardo] (Vanessa cardui)
Spotted Fritillary [La didima] (Melitaea didyma)

Some rather fine wasps apparently attempting to mate

Although it was a bit late in the season for them, we saw half-a-dozen fireflies in the woods by the strada bianca (unmetalled road) and among the olive trees, half an hour or so after sunset.

I made no attempt to photograph birds, but a Hoopoe flew over the pool, and Turtle Doves cooed nearby. A Cuckoo called from far across the valley; a Song Thrush sang; a Green Woodpecker gave its laughing cry. White Wagtails flew up to the roof, and Italian Sparrows hopped about. Goldfinches twittered in the trees. A Sardinian Warbler raced for the cover of the trees, its black crown conspicuous; a Melodious  Warbler sang from the woods. In the night, an owl called, it could have been a Scops Owl. And of course, Cicadas buzzed and Bush Crickets chirped all day long.

Cicada exuviae, the shed skin of a wingless nymph

All photos © Ian Alexander 2018

Natural History

Hot Summer Fun at Gunnersbury Triangle Open Day

Jane Robertshaw on arts’n’crafts stall, with exemplary headband
Young Smooth Newt (eft)  with feathery gills and 4 legs already
Jo on the raffle stall
One of the children caught a Smooth Newt
John Wells explaining a reed’s sheathing leaf base
Attaching a garland to a headband on the Arts and Crafts stall
Mayor of Hounslow Samia Chaudhary cutting the GT 2018 cake, Committee Chair Jan Hewlett looking on
Netty showing the Mayor around the reserve
Natural History

Limestone in Lake District? Yes! – Helsington Barrows

View North from Helsington Barrows to Lake District. The dry limestone scarp contrasts with the lush meadows of the Lune valley and the volcanic landscape in the distance.
Common Blue and limestone-loving plants
Small Tortoiseshell on warm dry limestone
Anthill covered in grass, Tormentil, Thyme
Whitebeam on limestone scarp
The limestone scarp of Helsington Barrows
Rock-Rose and Wild Thyme
Wood Sage, elegant and rather special
Dropwort, another tall and striking herb of limestone grassland
Betony, once an important medicinal herb
Love of Nature, Natural History

Therfield Heath, Royston – surviving chalk grassland in East Anglia

On Therfield Heath SSSI (Royston Hill) with Yellow Rattle, with the plains of Cambridgeshire behind

Much of East Anglia is flat, and very low-lying, indeed parts of the Fens are basically at sea level. But there are some hills, and even a Chalk escarpment. It’s pretty low, but still affords a fine view northwards across the plains. The nearly complete “failure of a major escarpment” is the result of the Ice Ages – the ice sheet, maybe a mile thick, ground interminably over the hills and plains, reducing most of the chalk to rock flour with flints, creating the sticky Boulder Clay that carpets much of eastern England. But at Royston, a delightful range of low hills survives, and has somehow survived the plough and the developers.

Yellow Rattle

The grass of Therfield Heath (Royston Hill) is thinned by the parasitic Yellow Rattle (Orobanchaceae, the Broomrape family of parasitic plants): it helpfully weakens the grass, allowing in many other flowers, so it’s a bit of a Keystone Species, one on which the health of the ecosystem depends.

A colourful assemblage: Yellow Rattle – Red Clover – Birdsfoot Trefoil

The plants let in by the weakening of the grass include a colourful and increasingly rare assemblage, which includes Kidney Vetch, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Rockrose, Thyme, Wild Mignonette and many others.

Rockrose and Thyme, attractive plants of Chalk Grassland

The flowers in turn support butterflies including Marbled White, Meadow Brown, and Small Heath. Half-a-dozen Skylarks were singing all around; one got up pretty close to us for a brief song-flight, quickly followed by several of his neighbours. A Swift dashed overhead. All these once-familiar and widespread species are becoming rather special, a measure of the ecological disaster that has spread not just across England but across Europe and, really, the whole world.

Kidney Vetch
Meadow Brown on Thyme
Small Heath
Wild Mignonette
Therfield Heath landscape with Elder-Hawthorn bush
Greater Knapweed
Perforate St John’s Wort with interesting small pollinators

It’s interesting to see a pattern in the distribution of plants. I last saw Dropwort on Helsington Barrows, a limestone hill at the southern edge of the Lake District (not a place with much limestone, given the area’s ancient volcanic rocks and slates). Here it’s on a very different form of limestone, chalk, but if the soil is alkaline and supports open grassland, that’s fine with Dropwort.  It’s a plant with a beautiful foamy white cluster of flowers on a rather isolated stalk rising from the grassland. The attractive foaminess is reminiscent of Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria, and indeed Dropwort is in the same genus: it’s Filipendula vulgaris, though it could hardly be called common these days.

Dropwort, Filipendula vulgaris
Natural History, Nature Reserves

Moths at Gunnersbury Triangle

Angle Shades, named for the dark angled markings

Netty had a successful night with the moth trap.

Pyrausta purpuralis, a small but beautiful “micro” moth. And yes, it’s name means the purple one in Latin
Heart and Dart, one of 3 trapped (and released after ID). The name refers to the black markings
Rustic. We scratched our heads at its similarity to Uncertain (hah!) but it does seem to be the paler and less distinct species all the same.

 

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Gunnersbury Triangle Damselflies Egg-Laying Like There’s No Tomorrow!

Shimmer and sparkle: many pairs of ovipositing Azure Damselflies – seven seen here, there were at least fifteen pairs, not to mention …#
Large Red Damselfly (there were several pairs)
Male Bluetail Damselfly on a reed leaf: there were two males tussling, but no female as yet
Yellow and Orange ‘escaped’ Goldfish in GT pond. Perhaps people think ‘setting them free’ when moving house will be a good thing, but they devastate native pond life
Netty with jigsaw cutting out pond minibeasts
(24 May 2018) White-Lipped Land Snail
(27 May 2018) Flooded GT paths after thunderstorm – I never saw the water table THIS high
GT seasonal pond flooded over path, yes, that’s the main path on the right there
GT looking not its best after floods – car parts, bits of fence, railway sleepers, erosion scour, rubbish-filled silt …
Natural History

Wildlife at Nunney Castle, Somerset

Nunney Castle, Somerset. It was besieged and intentionally ruined by Cromwell’s parliamentary forces in the English Civil War.
Hornet drinking in moat of Nunney Castle. The moat had plenty of tadpoles and smooth newts.
Nunney Castle from the south-west
Large Red Damselfly on lichened stone beside the moat
Wall Rue Spleenwort, a plant of old undisturbed walls, at Nunney Castle
Gardening, Love of Nature

Stourhead, Sparkling with Dragonflies

Stourhead’s cross, bridge, lake, and temple
Cardinal Beetle
Hornet-like Female Broad-Bodied Chaser in oviposition flight (is she a Batesian mimic? – Looks like it, specially when she dashes about, wasplike)
Jenny drawing rhododendron flower, with buttercups and mallards
Male Broad-Bodied Chaser perched among Speedwells (this was the only moment they weren’t dashing across the lake, fighting, or trying to grab the females)
Coot parents and Cootlings
Redwood with Red and Yellow Rhododendrons
At Stourhead

 

Politics

Destruction Dressed Up as Nature Conservation

What’s the best way to tell a lie? Mix it with a bit of truth.

In my previous post, I mentioned the creeping threat of development to nationally important places for nature like Lodge Hill.

On one side, is some target for new homes; on the other,  irreplaceable resources for education, scientific study, recreation, and last but not least, some very special species and some increasingly rare habitat.

Michael Gove wants to put into law the idea that every bit of nature has a price (“natural capital”). That means that anything can be destroyed, just by putting together some swift and specious spreadsheet that indicates some “mitigation”, as if you could mitigate the loss of Britain’s nightingales by digging a pond and planting a couple of trees in a housing estate somewhere: if the pond is worth £1000 and the trees £100 each, then they mitigate the loss of 12 nightingales at £100 each.

The hell they do, it’s utter nonsense, and dangerous too.

For the spreadsheet-minded, consider this: each thing is an independent variable – how many swallowtail butterflies are there? How many lizard orchids? How many primroses? How many wildcats? Oh, but you’d like to add them all together to get one number? Well, you can’t, they don’t fit on one axis of a graph: each species, each landscape, each ecosystem is a separate thing, and its loss is a disaster, pure and simple. You can’t add apples and oranges, or chalk and cheese. Giving each one a “value” and then discounting it and fiddling about with a spreadsheet is just dishonesty masquerading as caring.

And another thing: saying look, here’s a bit of heritage, a nice National Trust country house with a gracious park: that’s another form of the same disaster. Because, now you’ve got a bit of Heritage, yeah. So you can trash the towns and countryside and villages for miles around the Heritage, because you’ve Done Your Bit, you’ve Conserved your Heritage, it’s All Right to trash everything else because your spreadsheet shows that you’ve mitigated the loss with your bit of conservation. The hell you have, it’s smoke and mirrors. Trashing a thousand-year-old landscape and townscape is wickedness and folly: once you’ve done that, it’s gone for ever, and what will your spreadsheet get in return? A tick in a box, instantly to be forgotten.

And what do we, the public get? Cheated. Lied to. We and all future generations deprived of contact with nature, beauty, wildness, life.

And you say that’s ok because you mitigated it by landscaping the new housing estate. You’re a liar, and you know it.