Water Gardens and foliage of many shapes and colours at Wakehurst PlaceA grassy dell on the side of the main valley, with Oaks and RhododendronsAzure Damselflies in cop, well seen from the handsome boardwalk at the far end of the gardens. The blue male has a U-shaped mark at the front of his abdomen; the green female has a thistle-shaped mark in the same place. Unlike the Common Blue damselfly, she does not have a spine sticking down out of the second-from-last ‘tail’ segment.
Emperor Dragonfly habitat: the beautiful main pond by the Wakehurst Place lawns. Yellow and White Waterlilies are in full bloom.
Well, I was hoping to see some colourful dragonflies on this hot and sunny day in early June, and they exceeded expectations. On the main pond just behind the Wakehurst Place mansion, the bulky shape of an Emperor Dragonfly, with its big apple-green thorax and downcurved blue abdomen, patrolled up and down over the Yellow and White Waterlilies, both gloriously in bloom. A single Broad-Bodied Chaser unmistakably whizzed low over the water.
The Water Gardens glittered in the sunshine, the little waterfalls tinkled pleasingly, and a few damselflies busied themselves among the vegetation.
Traditional Sussex Craftsmanship: Boardwalk, with green-oak posts and rails (cloven not sawn, making them elegant, rugged, and strong as the grain runs unbroken the whole length of each rail) at the water gardens.
Down at the reedbed, the broad and elegantly-fenced boardwalk with its traditional green-oak posts and rails let us get as close as possible to the dragonflies down there. A Large Red Damselfly perched for a moment beside my hand on the rail. Azure Damselflies skittered about, some in cop, some ovipositing. A solitary Banded Demoiselle male, unmistakable with his big indigo wing-patches, fluttered back and forth.
The other side of the boardwalk, a male dragonfly hovered over open water in the dazzling sunlight. I did my best to focus on the shimmering target. An Emerald! The Downy Emerald has been recorded here at Wakehurst Place, but this is also within the very narrow territory of the Brilliant Emerald in England, basically a bit of inland Sussex and Surrey, with another haunt in northwest Scotland. There is no sign of a downy thorax here, I don’t think; nor is the abdomen bronze-green, but rather a rich deep, iridescent, green; and it has the smooth spatulate outline of a Brilliant Emerald. Exciting!
Well this looks to me like a Brilliant Emerald Dragonfly! Sorry about the blurry photo – such things are never easy, but this one is rather interesting.
The meadows, too, were glorious in their early summer best, full of red clover, buttercups, and plenty of stalks of Common Spotted Orchid among the slender grass stems.
Spotted leaf of Common Spotted Orchid, in case you aren’t familiar with it!
Cinnabar Moth, with hardly any Ragwort to eat, on Alfalfa
Reed Stem Borer on Buttercup. This family of Sawflies (no waist) is long and thin; the larvae tunnel in the stems of various plants, this species being one of the longest and living in, you guessed it, Reed stems.Male Common Blue Damselfly, with a little “wine-cup” atop each abdominal segment
As well as these elegant and colourful insects, there were Red Admirals and Meadow Browns flying today, but overall very few butterflies.
This hoverfly has a middle that lets light through as it flies, and orangey and black bands on its wings that line up with its pellucid middle and black bottom, giving it a strongly banded wasplike appearance despite (to us) being obviously a Dipteran fly. Probably enough to make it a successful Batesian mimic!
For a moment I glimpsed the brilliant indigo of a Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens), just near Gunnersbury Triangle’s picnic meadow. It was the very first sighting of that species in the reserve: a bit surprising, as it’s a species of slow-flowing rivers. It does occasionally frequent lakes, so perhaps there’s a population near the artificial waterfall over in Chiswick Business Park? I’d better go and have a look!
After a long cold spell, it again felt like spring today, and despite the cloud I went to Wraysbury, thinking that it could be a good time for warblers.
I was greeted by a pair of Cormorants on a bleached branch beside the lake. And a moment later by the first of many Blackcaps. Warbler the first.
A little way along the path, a rapid and rich warble went on .. and on .. and on – aha! A Garden Warbler. (How to tell Garden from Blackcap? “Blackcap’s Brief.” Well, good enough for a first approximation.) Warbler the second.
I walked on a few paces, and glimpsed something small and brown in the willows. Binoculars showed an unmistakable Garden Warbler – Sylvia borin[g] – pretty much uniformly coloured, or rather, so beautifully countershaded that it looks flat in sunlight, quite the clever camouflage trick.
It started to sing – and was almost drowned out by the deafening repetitive din of a Cetti’s Warbler (roughly, Chwit-i-Pit-i-Pit! Chwit-i-Pit-i-Pit!), as usual without a glimpse of the songster. Warbler the third.
I then saw my first Banded Demoiselle, indeed my first flying damselfly or dragonfly, of the year. It’s always a lovely moment. A few bright yellow (male) Brimstone butterflies skittered about or sunbathed: perhaps the butter-coloured insect is the original “butter fly”, or perhaps the name refers to the fluttering flight of the whole group – it must make them very hard for predators like birds and dragonflies to catch them, and given how common it is to see a butterfly with holes pecked in its wings, it is easy to believe that anti-predator adaptations are highly advantageous.
Other conspicuous insects were a lot of Sawflies, looking much like tiny red wasps with black-and-yellow striped tails, and numerous large Bumblebees enjoying the purple Comfrey which is abundant beside the river.
The droning chatter of a Reed Warbler came out of another Willow beside the lake: Warbler the fourth.
From across the river, just audible but quite definite, came the Chiff-Chaff-Chiff-Chaff-Chiff-Chaff song of .. you guessed it. Warbler the fifth.
Across the bridge and onto the flat scrub, and in almost the first bush was a Whitethroat singing its short simple scratchy ditty. (Presumably female Whitethroats find it enticing. Or other males find it repellent, one or the other. Maybe both, actually.) Warbler the sixth.
I reconnoitred the wood-and-scrubby area for possible Willow Warblers (they don’t inhabit willows any more than Willow Tits do), but they don’t seem to have arrived yet. Some Song Thrushes improvised their fine, repeated melodies of many different repeated phrases.
Well, I had two delightful surprises on my Wraysbury walk today. The first, as you can see, was a Cardinal Beetle, by no means a common sight any more, and unlike many claimed sightings, seems to be the actual species. I say seems to be, because the antennae were not especially toothy: the detail below shows that the end segments were certainly well toothed, the rest not. So either this was an individual with a slightly aberrant pattern, or it was a closely related species.
Cardinal Beetle – detail of antenna, well toothed at least at the end
The other thing was the warblers. There have been hardly any Chiffchaffs around in the reserve, but today I heard about six of them. They struggled to be heard above a background of Blackcaps with varied songs; and in some spots, a barrage of Garden Warblers as well (mixed with a bit of Blackbird, Robin, Chaffinch, Robin, and Wren). And, just once, the second delightful surprise: a Lesser Whitethroat, with its distinctive trill. So it was a Four Warbler Walk. I listened out carefully for Sedge Warbler, Cetti’s Warbler, and Willow Warbler but there weren’t any singing – the Cetti’s were surely lurking nearby.
Overhead, apart from the planes, were a Buzzard, gently mobbed by a Carrion Crow, later joined by a circling Sparrowhawk.
The brambles and herbs (from nettles to Comfrey) were being used as perches by a mass of Banded Demoiselles, both the blue males with their glorious dark blue wing-patches, and the more subdued green females. They were joined by a few Common Blue Damselflies, the first of the year for me, as the demoiselles were.
The Woodland Grayling might not sound exciting, and if your first glimpse of one is of a perched butterfly with folded wings, cryptically coloured in mottled browns and greys, it looks unremarkable, if rather large. But should a male fly boldly past you on a hot sunny afternoon, or come right up to you to take a look at what kind of beast you are, you will get quite another impression. The broad bold white band along the trailing edges of the wings contrasts strikingly with the rich, almost glittering, dark chocolate of the front of the wings. In flight, the Woodland Grayling is a strikingly large, beautiful butterfly, recalling the White Admiral or perhaps the Camberwell Beauty (though I know that species only from pictures in books). It flies deceptively fast, mostly at waist height, and is usually not easy to approach, though it perches often enough, selecting a twig that offers a wide view all around. The exception is when a pair are courting and mating, when they necessarily pay less attention to would-be photographers. The image above shows such a couple, half-perching, half-fluttering in a young Mediterranean Pine tree, with (as the saying goes) eyes only for each other. The feeling of a special moment seized me. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, on this particular hot, dry chalk hillside, with Juniper and Dogwood scrub invading the chalk grassland full of bush crickets and marvellously cryptic grasshoppers, I was witnessing the spectacular private courtship of this local and uncommon species. If entomology could be voyeuristic, this was just the moment for it: the passion, the dramatic synchronised display, the Flamenco fire, surrounded me and filled my camera and my memories.
Juniper and Dogwood scrub invading a hot, south-facing Dordogne chalk hillside. Hay bales dot the valley below; arable land gives way to old hilltop hamlets in the distance, backed by Oak-Chestnut forest.
Broad-Bordered Bee Hawk-Moth
Broad-Bordered Bee Hawk-Moth on Buddleia
The Broad-Bordered Bee Hawk-Moth is the kind of insect that everybody notices, if they happen to be by a flowering Buddleia or Lavender bush at the right time. Like the far commoner Hummingbird Hawk-Moth, about the same size but without the Bee Hawk’s bright coloration, this lepidopteran conclusively proves (if proof were needed) that not all moths are dull and nocturnal.
The Bee Hawk loves the bright sunshine of hot summer afternoons. The buzzing drone of bees, hoverflies, and hawk-moths about rich sources of nectar evokes sleepy siesta-time, hammocks and deck-chairs, cool drinks and a good read in the shade. But for the insects this is not a holiday but a crucially busy time, time to gather sugar and pollen for energy, time to mate and to lay eggs.
The Bee Hawk hovers and feeds much like a bumble-bee, and its colours and flight are sufficiently bee-like to make it clear that this is a Batesian mimic of bees, signalling (untruthfully) to insect-eating birds that they will get a mouthful of painful sting if they try anything. But few birds get the chance: the Bee Hawk flies away much faster than any bee, its broad wings providing both speed and agility.
The oddly symmetric rows of holes chewed in Canna Lily leaves by Bee Hawkmoth larvae
The eggs are laid on plants such as the impressively showy Canna Lily. The thumb-sized caterpillar munches a distinctive symmetrical row of holes across the broad, banana-like leaves of the Canna Lily, the holes growing with the larva’s appetite. After moulting several times to progressively larger versions of itself, it pupates and emerges as a beautiful adult. So if you see a Canna Lily leaf that looks as if a Bond villain has machine-gunned it, you know to watch out for a Bee Hawk, and to impress your friends with your knowledge when you casually remark on its presence.
Ichneumon Wasps
Long-tailed Ichneumon wasp
The long-tailed Ichneumon Wasps, of which there are quite a few species, are equipped with one of the most remarkable physical adaptations in the insect world. The female lays her eggs, not on the ground from a simple opening in her abdomen, but down an egg-laying tube, an ovipositor, that is about as long as the rest of her body put together — see the photograph. She is in other ways very much wasp-shaped, though with rather a long flexibly-jointed abdomen, which too is part of her adaptation to her extraordinary way of life. Like most wasps, she is a hunter-killer. But unlike many wasps, she does not bring the prey back to her nest. She sniffs out her prey, the grubs or caterpillar larvae of other insects, while they are deep inside a plant or in rotting wood. She locates them accurately enough by scent or vibration to guide her drill-like ovipositor down through the plant tissues to the unseen larva, flexing her abdomen sharply to push the ovipositor as necessary. When the tip of the ovipositor strikes the larva, she lays an egg in its body, and leaves. Her egg hatches, and her larva feasts on the still-living prey larva from the inside. Eventually her larva pupates, and an adult Ichneumon Wasp emerges from the prey’s emptied corpse. Charles Darwin found this to be an instance of such cruelty that he lost his Christian faith: he could not see how a loving Creator could deliberately form one species with a way of live that so brutally exploited the life of another. We may see, perhaps, something different: an example of the way that natural selection works with whatever materials are to hand, like a simple egg-laying tube and the standard jointed insect abdomen, reshaping them in small steps (there are plenty of shorter-tailed ichneumons), without any kind of foresight, until they are beautifully adapted to carry out radically modified functions.
A short-tailed Ichneumon Wasp
A far shorter-tailed Ichneumon Wasp illustrates how evolution may have proceeded in small steps to create the long-tailed varieties.
Potter Wasps
While we’re on the subject of beautifully adapted wasp structures, let us mention the Potter Wasp’s fabulous arts and crafts skill.
Dark Potter Wasp pots
The elegant nest pot of the Potter Wasp Eumenes pedunculatus
A different Potter Wasp (a large and handsome species) building her mud nest on a wall. Each species builds a nest of a characteristic shape.
Like the Ichneumon Wasps, the Potter Wasp stings prey and lays her eggs on or in them. But unlike them, she carries them off, not to a burrow like many wasps, but to an elegant pot made of mud. She doesn’t seem to mind which colour of mud it is: here, a female Potter Wasp (it’s always a female, as the sting is part of the egg-laying apparatus) has used red, white, buff, and grey mud indifferently, once in two colours for the same pot. She puts one or if need be two or three larvae in each pot, lays an egg on one of them, and seals the pot with a lid. The young Potter Wasp lives on the paralysed prey, pupates, breaks its way out of the pot, and flies off. The mother provides no further parental care once the pot is sealed: she gets straight on with building and provisioning the next pot.
Spider-Hunting Wasps
Pompilid spider-hunting wasp carrying spider under her body up a wall
One family of solitary wasps has specialised in far more dangerous prey than caterpillars. The Pompilidae, the Spider-hunting Wasps, provision their nests exclusively with predators: insect-hunting spiders. This is a duel between two swift, agile warriors, each armed with deadly weapons, each intent on killing the other. But the Spider-hunting Wasp always wins.
Her method is to search vegetation for spiders. When she finds one, she leaps and flies towards it. The spider rears up to bite, but the wasp, with her long legs for rapid running and wings for flight, is quicker and more manoeuvrable, and in a Samurai-like movement that is too quick for the human eye, she stings the spider, paralysing it. She then grabs the limp spider in her jaws and runs swiftly backwards to her burrow. Once there, she lays an egg on it and you know the rest of the story.
Grasshoppers
Cryptic Grasshopper
Away from the worst excesses of modern agriculture, with its marvellously clean fields devoid of ‘weeds’, mammals, birds, and insects (through a combination of good husbandry, thorough screening of seeds to remove weed seeds, and pesticides), the Dordogne remains home to many kinds of insect that were once common all over Europe, but are now scarce in large parts of the continent. On the chalk hillsides, roadsides and many areas of meadow and set-aside, Grasshoppers chirp and jump in the longer grass, seemingly as happy as the blithe take-no-thought-for-the-morrow protagonist in Aesop’s fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper. Seen close up, as in the photograph, a grasshopper is visibly wonderfully well-adapted for its lifestyle. Leaving aside its powerful hind legs for hopping hundreds of times its body length, let us look at its head and thorax. The head carries strong jaws capable of slicing through tough grasses, sensitive antennae warning of approaching predators, and large compound eyes made of many hundreds of tiny single-pixel eyelets called ommatidia. You can see how these are arranged as little hexagons in a detail of the same photograph.
Array of ommatidia visible in grasshopper’s compound eye
But the grasshopper isn’t just good at detecting predators. It is also splendidly adapted for avoiding them. Its first line of defence is its disruptively patterned body, in other words its camouflage. The various browns, buffs, ochres and blacks are not softly smudged to “blend in” with the background. They are the opposite: brightly coloured, sharply patterned, to attract the eye to suppose the bold stripes are anything except grasshopper: bits of leaf, dry twig, stones, shadows, tiny shafts of sunlight. The result is to delay recognition: the grasshopper hides in plain sight, its surface fully visible to predators, but its presence unsuspected.
Should camouflage fail and a predator approach too close, the grasshopper has two more tricks up its sleeve. You know the first one: it suddenly springs into the air, flinging its body high and far. If it has wings, it goes further and faster. As it lands, it often quickly scuttles to one side or under some kind of cover, and freezes. It becomes almost as hard to locate as before, even if the predator was able to see where it landed and to follow close behind. This still-dangerous eventuality is made less likely by trick number two: the grasshopper flashes a brilliant patch of colour – red, yellow, or blue, for instance. This ‘deimatic behaviour’ may often startle the predator – perhaps it has disturbed something dangerous? – for long enough to enable the grasshopper to fly off and disappear in safety. Just a plain greeny-brown insect that chirrups in the grass? Not a bit of it.
Asiatic Hornet
My next insect has a distinctly bad reputation, and not a wholly undeserved one, but it actually spends very little of its life troubling humans. The Asiatic Hornet indeed has a formidable sting: I can vouch for the strongly deterrent effect of being charged by one of these hornets, and stung: my legs were unaccountably in rapid motion before I had consciously registered what was happening when I unfortunately walked up to a small hornets’ nest in a hazel trunk that had fallen across a path, so my instincts were working well that day, too.
Asiatic Hornet stalking prey
The photograph, taken at no great risk to the photographer for the reasons I’ll now explain, shows what Asiatic Hornet workers get up to on a normal working day. The hornet is hovering in a patch of garden mint, whose nectar-rich flowers have attracted a cloud of butterflies, hoverflies, bees and other insects. It is rather uninterested in nectar: it’s after meat, in other words other insects. It is such a powerful predator that it can take on pretty much any flying insect – I can’t vouch for its ability to kill large armoured beetles like the Tanner Beetle which is found in the Dordogne woods, but I wouldn’t be surprised. But first catch your hare, as they say (misquoting Hannah Glasse’s ‘First case your hare’, i.e. skin it before cooking, but I digress). The hornet is a fast flier, but somewhat heavy, like a big truck able to get up a frightening speed on the motorway, but not to steer too well around sharp corners at the same time. Among the mint, the hornet lurks until it spots a possible prey insect to its front. Then it puts on a rapid dash, often ending by bumping into something, whether the other insect or a plant stem. All the dashes I witnessed ended with a butterfly zipping smartly out of the way and escaping with a jinking, zigzagging flight. The hornet invariably reversed, and carried on hovering. When it bumps into a slower insect, it grabs it, and with a quick sting, powerful enough to subdue a small mammal let alone an insect, the game is over. The hornet then carries the prey back to the nest, where she, or her sisters, feed it to their queen’s larvae. In short, Asiatic Hornets are hardworking, co-operative, and generally perfectly peaceful citizens. Unless you happen to be another insect, of course, in which case hornets are ruthless predators, dacoits, thugs, assassins, muggers, footpads, highwaymen, professional killers, people who hang about where likely victims congregate and pick their targets at will: call them whatever you like, it’s all in a day’s work to a hornet.
Cow-Fly
Tabanus bovinus: a giant horsefly, actually associated with cows. Its beak can slice through cowhide (or a deckchair)
The other large Dordogne insect with a fearsome reputation is distinctly less glamorous than the exotic Asiatic Hornet. People often think it’s a loudly buzzing bee or hornet, but it is something very different. It’s a true fly, a dipteran, in the horse-fly family, Tabanidae. But it would be better to call it a Cow-fly, as its Latin name reveals: Tabanus bovinus, the bovine gadfly. Both Shakespeare and the Ancient Greeks record that it can drive cows mad as they try desperately to escape these efficient little predators.
Like all true flies, it has only a single pair of wings, its hind wings having been converted by evolution into small drumstick-shaped organs that whir like little gyroscopes (you can see one if you click on the photograph to enlarge it). These give the fly a continuous stream of data on its accelerations, whether roll, pitch, or yaw, and enable it to manoeuvre rapidly and accurately. The dragonflies do something similar with their large, heavy, but rather loosely attached heads, whose accelerations they sense as they fly, and for the same reason, to enable precise flight control.
The Cow-fly uses its senses and quick flight to zoom up to where cows or other large prey – such as humans – are standing. But it does not rush straight in to dangerous situations. It is cautious, if not (in human terms) downright cowardly.
Its method of attack is to land on a branch or wall near the chosen prey, and to wait, observing the prey’s behaviour. If the prey swishes its tail – or its fly-swat, hat, or badminton racquet – vigorously and near the Cow-fly, the insect often flies off. In particular, if the fly-whisk actually makes contact with the fly (an audible clonk with a hat works well), it promptly adopts the motto ‘He who fights and runs away / lives to fight another day’ and buzzes off as fast as it can. But if the prey stands languidly munching grass, or sits quietly reading its summer novel in its deck chair, the Cow-fly moves in for business. In a short, nearly silent leap, it lands on the prey, stabs its beak through the animal’s hide, and feeds on blood. On the far softer skin of a human, it forms a large swollen red wheal, which itches for days afterwards.
The Cow-fly’s splendid (from its point of view) adaptation to getting blood from its prey make it vulnerable to a simple human defence: sit inside. The fly is attracted into a room where people are moving, but then it is easily caught. Either it perches on a wall or ceiling, where it is readily swatted: or, if the lights are out and a window is bright, it flies to the light and bounces off the glass. It then buzzes about a few times, gives up, and lands on the glass, where it cannot escape the fly-swat – even if you miss the first time, you will get another shot, as it will soon land on the glass again, its instincts driving it towards the light. Such is the science of fly-swatting.
Longhorn Beetles
Male Monochamus sartor, a Cerambycid longhorn beetle
Cerambycid Longhorn Beetle Strangalia maculata on Spiked Star-of-Bethlehem
Saperda punctata, a rare green longhorn beetle with black spots
The Longhorn Beetles of the Cerambycidae family include many large and handsome species, including several of the largest insects found in Europe. They are found in forests, for a good reason. They lay their eggs in dead wood – fallen timber including tree trunks, different beetles preferring different tree species. The soft grublike larvae grow plump, safe (more or less, given what we know of Ichneumon Wasps, not to mention Badgers with strong sharp claws, sensitive noses, and a liking for fat insect larvae) deep inside the rotting wood, often for several years. Eventually, one summer, they reach full size and pupate, and the magnificent adults with their heavy armour, distinctive patterns and the improbably long antennae that give the family its name emerge, to mate, lay eggs and die.
Banded Demoiselle
Male Banded Demoiselle, Calopteryx splendens
Of all the interesting and handsome insects the Dordogne has to offer, one of the most attractive, and most characteristic of its little rivers, is the Banded Demoiselle, Calopteryx splendens. Its Latin name means ‘The Shining Beautiful-Winged’, and that is no exaggeration. This large damselfly is sexually dimorphic – the male is blue, the female a clear green. It is the wings of the male that give the insect the name Banded, and make it so conspicuous to the people who go down to the river to picnic, fish, swim, or canoe.
If you do that, your eye will be caught by the dancing, flickering wings of the male Banded Demoiselles as they patrol their stretch of water, on the lookout for females and for rival males. The dark blue patch on each of their four similar-sized clear wings creates a shimmering effect as the wings beat. When the sunlight strikes a group of such males, their bodies glint metallic, iridescent blue with hints of peacock, and their wings sparkle and flicker together over the cool, shifting water, creating an effect that seems to dazzle and enchant the eye, making their movements hard to follow, the number of wings difficult to count. If you are lucky, you will see a pair of Banded Demoiselles ‘in cop’, a blue and a green insect flying around together with eight wings in harmony, mating and then laying eggs, still clasped together. As a couple, they dart down to one little piece of floating or emergent pondweed after another that may provide a suitable place for their offspring to develop into the next generation of Banded Demoiselles, leaving an egg in each chosen spot.
Thursley Common on a sunny July day can shimmer with the wings of dragonflies. Today, hundreds of Keeled Skimmers, joined by plenty of other species large and small – from the mighty Emperor to the dainty Small Red Damsel, made the air seem to sparkle as brightly as the water beside the boardwalk. There were Keeled Skimmers perched alertly on stalks, ready to spring into the air at an instant’s notice; Keeled Skimmers in tussling pairs, their wings rustling and scuffling as they clashed in brief, brutal territorial disputes; Keeled Skimmers in groups of four or five, dashing and swerving over the water; Keeled Skimmers over every pond, bog pool, and lakeside.
Emperor Dragonfly patrolling its pond at waist height
Over one quieter pool, an Emperor Dragonfly patrolled in more stately fashion, almost hovering, drifting forward slowly as if a helicopter pilot was holding the machine’s collective drive stick just a little forward of the hover position, its striped blue tail gleaming in the sun.
Small Red Damselflies in cop over a bog pool at Thursley
A Four-Spotted Chaser, pausing momentarily over a sparkling pool
Many of the Odonata were busy laying eggs, from the Skimmers to the damselflies. One or two Black Darters were about: they can be here in large numbers later in the season.
Azure Damselfly pair egg-laying
On the sandy heath, the Sand-Wasp Ammophila sought her insect prey, her distinctive shape almost dragonfly-like with an extremely elongated red waist leading to a plump ‘tail’ to her abdomen.
Sand-Wasp Ammophila
Lizard on the boardwalk
Overhead, a Hobby dashed and stooped, handsome through binoculars, moustachioed, spotted below, its long scything wings like a giant Swift easily outpacing the fastest dragonfly. Below, a lizard rested unobtrusively at the edge of the boardwalk, ready to scuttle into the heather at any threat; another a yard further on. A Reed Bunting rasped out its short scratchy song, skreek, skreek, skrizzick. A Curlew called once; a Skylark soared invisibly high into the blue, singing as if John Keats were at hand to report on the beauty of its song.
Large Skipper on the rather special Cross-Leaved Heath
Four Wings Good, Eight Wings Better – Keeled Skimmers in cop
I had a beautiful, peaceful, sunny summer walk down at Wraysbury Lakes. Away from the roar of the traffic and the enormous queues brought on by roadworks and summer weekend commuting, I was surrounded by fluttering, glittering, shimmering Banded Demoiselle males, and on the vegetation also the gloriously iridescent green females, their clear green wings like fine lace dress trimmings to accompany their dazzling emerald-jewelled and enamelled bodies.
Common Blue damselfly pair in cop
As well, Common Blue damselflies basked in the sun; a few pairs in cop carried out their incredibly complicated sex act, all claspers (male tail to female neck, female tail to male belly with its spermatophore and secondary sexual organs, forming the startling ‘heart’ or ‘wheel’, in which the pair can, at a pinch, fly like synchronised swimmers.
At first I thought there were no warblers about, but gradually little bursts of song punctuated the afternoon, and by the end I had heard six warbler species, and good binocular views of three of them (Garden Warbler, Whitethroat and Willow Warbler).
There were some handsome Ichneumons about, but perhaps the insect I was most surprised to see was a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly. When I was a boy these were so common as to be unremarkable – as were House Sparrows, Starlings and Yellowhammers. It is almost a shock to discover that seeing just one is now a rare treat: more nostalgic than pleasurable, perhaps. Much work needs to be done on landscape-scale and farmland conservation to bring back our common butterflies.
May is the fastest time of Nature’s year. What a difference a few days make! Last time at Wraysbury, a few sluggish mayflies sitting around as if waiting for something to happen in a one horse town.
Well, today it’s happening. In places, the sky is filled with rising mayflies: a few mating, most alone. Here and there, some repeatedly dance up, and a few seconds later, down; but most just climb, and fly about, seeming frail on their large wings, their triple tail streamers hanging below them: it’s worth zooming in on the picture. Even better, here’s a short video clip. The soundtrack combines an airliner taking off and a Blackcap singing.
Male Banded Demoiselle on Bramble
One of the glories of summer by water is the brilliant turquoise and green iridescence of the male Banded Demoiselle – the so-called band is actually the appearance of flickering of the wings, the dark spot on each of the four wings giving a hard-to-describe semblance of a sparkling blue jewel in flight, with bands of colour too fast and changeable for the eye to understand. But he’s pretty fine at rest, too.
Male Common Blue Damselfly
Common Blue, Bluetail, and Red-eyed Damselflies have all now emerged, the Red-eyed being the scarcest of the three, seemingly.
Soldier Beetle, Cantharis rustica on Cow Parsley
On the Cow Parsley were, as well as the damsels, two cantharid Soldier Beetles, Cantharis rustica or a close relative. Another enormous cloud of rising mayflies, and suddenly behind them a pair of Hobbies, hawking for insects – whether damselflies or even mayflies is impossible to tell. One comes close, wheels away on scything wings as it sees me.
Silver-Ground Carpet Moth Xanthorhoe montanata
A Silver-Ground Carpet Moth, Xanthorhoe montanata, flutters weakly past me among the Hawthorn bushes and flops onto the grass. Garden Warblers sing, a Whitethroat rasps in its songflight. A Treecreeper sings its little ditty sweetly from near the river.
On the hill, three Greylag and two Egyptian Geese form a peaceful flock. Stock Doves and a mixed flock of Crows and Jackdaws rise from the grass. A Song Thrush gives a marvellous solo recital near the road.
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
