Blog Archives: WildEssex

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: is summer finally here?

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

In response to the question posed in the title, the answer is ‘it blooming well should be!’ as my latest Wandering Naturalist walks in the gardens were on the summer solstice. And what a day to be there! Azure skies, almost windless, hot sunshine almost for the first time this year. The fourteen visitors who joined me were treated to a lush garden, reflecting the spring rains, but sadly few high summer insects: the lack of warm sun thus far has delayed the emergence of many. Hopefully another few days of this will sweep away fears of a Silent Summer.

Butterflies were notable by their near absence, though that is not atypical of the ‘June Gap’: just five species with no more than ten individual of all species put together. Holly Blues amounted to four of those. Day-flying moths were similarly sparse, with just one Gold-barred Longhorn and a couple of Mint Moths. And remarkably just a single dragonfly (a newly-emerged Common Darter), while shield bugs and their relatives were represented only by two Hairy Shield-bugs and a few Dock Bugs, mostly doing what comes naturally!

Honeybee and bumblebee numbers were moderately high, especially visiting Cistus, Knautia/Scabiosa and Veronicastrum, together with Opium Poppies which this year are providing such a spectacle in the Reservoir Garden:

Especially by the ponds, but spreading round the whole garden, damselflies were everywhere: four species, mainly Azure (with my first Common Blue of the summer), plus Large Red and Blue-tailed, including several examples of the very attractive rufescens form.

Although there has not yet been the summer influx of hoverflies from the Continent, numbers are growing, both of the Drone-flies, Batman Hoverflies and others we have been seeing all spring …

… plus a few others  including Chrysotoxum festivum, Xanthogramma pedissequum and Anasimyia contracta, the latter a fly of water margins and very scarce in north Essex.

Another remarkable hoverfly was the Narcissus Bulb-fly Merodon equestris, one that occurs in several colour forms, each of which are mimics of different bumblebee species.

Other flies included a mating pair of Gargoyle Flies, at least that’s what we call them, we think for very good reason!

A final selection of today’s insects includes Thick-thighed Beetle, a click-beetle with a couple of passenger mites, the hairy beetle Lagria hirta, and a few tiny nymphal Speckled Bush-crickets.

There are no doubt lots more to come, and the good news for them is that that there are absolutely masses of nectar and pollen resources awaiting their emergence or arrival.

Having given the gloom and doom messages, I should point out that compared with everywhere else in north Essex I have ventured recently, Beth Chatto Gardens are clearly richer in insect life, a bioabundance driven by the provision of nectar and pollen sources from all round the world and not compromised by the application of pesticides and herbicides.

By way of showing all visitors our ‘live and let live’ organic credentials, there were caterpillars munching unmolested. Our mulliens are covered in holes made by Mullein Moth caterpillars and irises sculpted by Iris Sawfly larvae, while the Martagon Lilies that have had their leaves stripped by Lily Beetles are still flowering happily.

Star turn though among the insects for both walks was a bronzed green, metallic Rose Chafer that remained munching the Corky-fruited Water-dropwort flowers all day. The Colchester area is one of the heartlands nationally for this magnificent beast, and we are so lucky to share our garden with it.

One final highlight was the living roof on the bike-shed, designed and installed by our friend John Little. Never has it looked better, and the solitary bees are making full use of the nesting holes created for them as part of the structure.

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) on July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre. For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

Blogs of the previous Meet the Wandering Naturalist event this summer can be found here:

April: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

May: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the height of Spring | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Marvellous moths morning at Beth Chatto Gardens – late June

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Our hopes for the moth event at the solstice were not high given the general dearth of insects hitherto this spring. However the first garden moth event of the year was blessed with perfect weather conditions, a hot but cloudy and humid night with little wind, preceded by a very hot and sunny day or two. The garden really lived up to what I always say about it: as rich in insect species as any nature reserve hereabouts.

52 species of macromoths and more than a dozen micros (just the ones we had time to identify) amounted to very respectable 200 or so individual moths to entertain and educate our select group of customers. Any night when you catch four types of hawk moth, everyone’s favourites because of their size and/or colour and as they are generally very docile, very amenable to handling, has got to be a good night. Especially when these include two of the larger Hawk-moths (Poplar and Pine) and the two most beautiful (Elephant and Small Elephant).

At least 20 Buff-tips, living ‘broken birch twigs’ was an impressive total, indicating a recent coordinated emergence, a good idea if you want to find a mate:

Large yellowish species included  Swallow-tailed Moth and Ghost Moth…

… while a little smaller but in the same suite of colours were Buff Ermine, Barred Yellow, Common Footman and Barred Straw (with its characteristic bottom-up posture).

Such fascinating moths, with often entrancing names: how about Nut-tree Tussock and Pebble Hook-tip, both exceptionally well camouflaged against bark and similar backgrounds.

Equally well camouflaged but only against leafy backgrounds were the beautiful Green Silver-lines and Blotched Emerald, three of the latter for me the moths of the morning.

Others camouflage themselves by looking like inedible objects (see Buff-tip above) – one of the more frequent forms is to resemble bird-poo, as here with Garden Carpet and Lime-speck Pug.

And to round of a motley selection, a few grey and brown species, here Pale Oak Beauty, Grey Pug and Riband Wave. A full list of those moth species we recorded is appended here bc moths june 24. And before anyone queries whether ‘moth trapping’ is compatible with our desire to be the home of ecological and sustainable gardening, please rest assured all moths were released unharmed at the end of the two hour morning session, away from the attentions of predators such as Blackbirds.

Another attraction for our customers on these events is that they get access before anyone else is there. First thing, the gardens are truly sublime: the only sound is birdsong and the only feeling pure joy.

And it gives us chance to try and find ‘free-range’ moths and other insects. We found the caterpillars of Iris Sawflies munching the irises and proving to all other visitors we don’t poison the planet in our mission to create a beautiful garden.

Always something to see! Blue-tailed and Azure Damselflies were everywhere, scabious heads had Hairy Shield-bugs, and best of all (a rival to the biggest and brightest of the moths) a solitary bronze-highlighted, metallic green Rose Chafer, a real speciality of the Colchester area, munching contentedly on an umbellifer.

All too soon the event was over, but the clouds were gathering, reasserting the typical weather pattern of this summer!

If anyone would like to join us on the next one of these moth mornings on July 20th, 0900-1100am, please book through this link Marvellous Moths! – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens. We can never promise moths, and all are weather-dependent but whatever we will find something to start your weekend in style!

 

Plant hunting in south Essex

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex

As a prelude to my walks in Hockley Woods, I took the opportunity while in south Essex to reacquaint myself with some of the sites and botanical sights of my now quite distant past, going back to the 1980s.

Canvey Wick, a remarkable brownfield wildlife site on a former oil refinery has appeared in these blogs before, as one of the greatest success stories of my conservation career. I have described it an an ‘accidental nature reserve’ that has now transformed into a real nature reserve, owned by the Land Trust, and managed by Buglife (the charity of choice of #WildEssex) and RSPB.

A site of such resonance to me, one I have been associated with for more than 25 years since we discovered its remarkable biodiversity, I was thrilled to be asked to lead a wildflower walk around it for Buglife last week. It has always been seen as a reserve especially for invertebrates. When we discovered it it was believed to have almost the greatest concentration of rare and scarce invertebrates of any site in the country, second only to the much larger Dungeness. It helped to put brownfield nature on the conservation map.

The reasons for that diversity are manyfold, mostly relating to its use (and abuse) by humans over the last eighty years. But another factor is the diversity of wild plants it holds. As with all brownfield sites, the plants are a wonderful multicultural mix from across the world, native species including many Essex coastal specialities and non-natives derived from gardens and port activities etc.

So an ideal area to look at wild flowers and in doing so to introduce people to our newly published book, which makes no distinction between natives and aliens. If a plant is found in the wild, irrespective of its status, in more than  third of the 10km squares of the National Grid, it is in the book.

While conservationists may despair about the spread of non-natives, in many cases they are not aggressive, and often they perform useful ecological functions, as any gardener knows. So we looked at Narrow-leaved Ragwort, which has a nearly year-round flowering season, so providing nectar and pollen for insects even at seasons when natives are not up to the job.

Other non-natives included Goat’s-rue, Broad-leaved Everlasting Pea and Hybrid Bladder-senna, all loved by bumblebees, plus Rose Campion and many others.

Then there are the non-native natives! Sea-buckthorn, a natural plant of sand dunes elsewhere but not in Essex, is very useful in autumn for birds that feed on its orange berries. However it is also a very aggressive species that shades out other plants, native and non-native alike, reducing biodiversity. Other less contentious native coastal specialities included Narrow-leaved Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Sea Club-rush, Wild Carrot and Grass Vetchling (a real favourite of mine).

The beauty of brownfields is that they contain plants (and, by extension, insects) from a wide range of natural habitats, including here a mix of drought-tolerant succulents (eg Biting Stonecrop) and chalkland specialities, like Dogwood and Yellow-wort, alongside Tufted Vetch and Perforate St. John’s-wort, characteristic of clayland soils..

And on top of all of these there are the orchids, good colonisers of bare and grassy habitats by virtue of their dust-like seeds. Common Spotted, Pyramidal and Bee Orchids were all in flower, although the latter were going over. Since I first knew Canvey Wick nearly 30 years ago (before we even coined its name) the Pyramidal Orchids have certainly increased, while Southern Marsh-orchids have declined hugely … once the commonest species, last week we saw none.

Of course things always change, especially on developing habitats such as here, so this is not surprising. But changes do need to be managed: while this site has rewilded itself over the past half-century, that wilding now needs to be tempered in the absence of agents of disturbance – Wild Boar, Beavers, Bison or boys on bikes. Thus, aggressive Sea-buckthorn needs removing and indeed the developing Birch woodland needs to be broken up to allow light in again. Fortunately the reserve managers are aware and undertaking these essential tasks.

Aside from the plants, there were Cuckoos calling and Cetti’s Warblers singing, while a Fox trotted along one of the relict roadways; too breezy for many invertebrates but they did include a Vapourer Moth caterpillar,  a bumblebee-mimicking Furry Drone-fly and my first Scarce Emerald damselfly of the year.

While visiting Canvey also took the opportunity to search out and photograph some of the scarce plants of southern Essex that are not in the  new book, for the forthcoming three-volume set covering all wild plants of Britain & Ireland. Some were easy as they are locally frequent: for example on Belton Hills, Leigh-on-Sea, it was Bithynian Vetch. This is a generally uncommon plant of cliff-slope grassland, as here, and although not fully in flower, there was plenty of scope to capture its key features such as the large stipules with jagged lobes.

Alongside there was growing more Grass Vetchling and Common Agrimony, together with a very interesting Tragopogon that I am still not sure of. With purplish flowers it should be Salsify, but the colour is a little too pink for comfort and there is that sunset-yellow suffusion in the centre of the flowerhead. A hybrid between Salsify and Goat’s-beard is therefore one option. But what about those yellow tips to the ‘petals’? That reminds me of the southern European plant I am so familiar with from Mediterranean travels Tragopogon crocifolius, except that has a more chocolate-brown hue overall…. So my mental jury is still out: any ideas anyone?

A little to the west along the London Clay former cliff-line is Hadleigh Castle Country Park, the South Benfleet section of which is also renowned for unusual plants, as well as regular fly-pasts of squawking Mediterranean Gulls. That site provided me with yet more Grass Vetchling (seems to be having a fantastic year – or have I just caught its magical three-weeks of cerise apparency in full flow?)…

… together with Nipplewort, Tree Mallow, Corky-fruited Water-dropwort (a very rare plant when I used to work these parts, now on every nature reserve, probably spread on shared mowing kit) and Hairy Buttercup, another speciality of coastal grassland…

… and a glorious array of flowering grasses, here Crested Dog’s-tail and Italian Rye-grass.

That just leaves the local star that is Hairy Vetchling. Generally considered not to be native in Britain, it does have some claim to that status at least at this site having been known here for at least three centuries. Again this seems much more frequent than when I worked in the area: the park managers are clearly doing something right!

But you cannot win them all. There is another plant with a similar tenuous claim to native status from these slopes, the umbellifer Hartwort. I knew it well in past times, but could find no trace on this occasion.

Then finally it was back onto Canvey Island to try and hunt down a plant that was first found in Essex as recently as June 2023. I had a precise location (above), and found several other unusual species such as Knotted Hedge-parsley and Water Bent, but it took a long while to find the weakly scrambling, mini-Cleavers that is Galium murale, or Yellow Bedstraw or Small Goose-grass….

It is a native of the Mediterranean, first found here a year ago, then subsequently in Rayleigh and probably Bardfield. Indeed it is almost certainly overlooked elsewhere, with its diminutive stature and, even when you have found it, the tiny, unassuming pale yellow flowers. But under a lens those flowers and the long, hairy sausage-shaped fruits are unmistakeable. Honestly!

 

 

 

The Wild Side of Essex: #WildEssex and Naturetrek at Hockley Woods

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex

Mid-June, and you are likely to find me migrating to south Essex, to Hockley Woods in particular. The largest contiguous ancient woodland block in East Anglia, Hockley Woods sit astride the ‘southern Essex Alps’, a ridge of London Clay capped with sands and gravels, and have become a traditional fixture for Naturetrek day walks at this time of year, searching especially for one of our rarest butterflies, the Heath Fritillary. But this year one of the two days failed to attract interest, so I offered a shorter two-hour session on the first day to our #WildEssex contingent.

I am always worried by this trip. Given the butterflies have a short flying season of only three weeks or so, and that they can start as early as mid-May and as late as mid-June, there is no date that can guarantee sightings. Having said that I have never failed, but with this year’s anomalous spring weather I was almost expecting the worst…

No need to worry!. The #WildEssex afternoon stroll was in dull, breezy conditions (not ideal) but after a bit of searching we managed to locate about 40 pristine specimens. And because of the lack of sunlight they were remarkably docile!

So pressure off for the Naturetrek day, one with similarly variable weather, from cloud and wind, to heavy rain (fortunately every time we were in easy reach of a closed, sheltering tree canopy, thanks to the Met Office app!), and in the afternoon one or two decent spells of hot sunshine. The morning produced more than the previous day, all pristine and many having apparently very recently emerged from pupa, but in the sun later on it was clear we were in the middle of a major event…

A conservative estimate was of 600 or more of the wonderful wood-sprites, frantically flittering, feeding and flirting in little swirling clouds around the wide rides. Absolutely amazing! And remarkably, quite by chance we seem to have hit upon peak fritillary twice in the four years we have been offering the walk.

One reason why this site is so important for Heath Fritillary is the abundance of its larval food plant Common Cow-wheat in the coppices and rides. But apart from this, there are relatively few other plants in flower, the spring flush having now faded. Honeysuckle is just emerging…

… while there was a sparse showing of Enchanter’s-nightshade, Wood Avens, Hedge Woundwort, Brooklime and Wood Speedwell …

 

… along with a few plants of Common Figwort. And where there is figwort, a sharp-eyed member of the group spotted the Figwort Weevil, living up to its name.

Thank goodness for the Bramble! Lining every ride-side and filling every gap in the leaf canopy, Bramble flowers were bursting forth and feeding all manner of insects, with bumblebees and Honeybees, and especially numerous hoverfly mimics of these two groups:

Deeper in the shade of the trees, birds were singing, especially Stock Doves, Blackcaps, Wrens, Chiffchaffs and Robins, calling Treecreepers and Nuthatches, and bands of fledgling Great, Blue and Long-tailed Tits. A few fungi were evident, most noticeably nasally the Stinkhorn whose spore-mass had slipped down its shaft, but was still an enticing prospect for a range of scavenger/disperser flies…

… and the fungus-like (albeit not closely related) Dog-sick Slim-mould.

At the other end of the light/shade spectrum, a walk along the woodland edge produced arable plants like Scarlet Pimpernel, Brown-tail moth caterpillars, at least five singing Skylarks (even in the strong winds) and foraging Buzzards.

But these were walks filled mostly with the wonderful variety of invertebrate life. Starting with the lepidoptera, we found Vapourer caterpillar, bagworms Psyche casta, and adult Gold-barred Longhorn, Green Oak-roller and White Ermine. But apart from the fantastic fritillaries, only half-a-dozen Holly Blues and a couple of Speckled Woods.

Large Wood Ants’ nests are a real feature of the wood: it is unwise to stand too still for too long! The ants are everywhere, heaving, hauling and searching, as well as tending and milking the blackfly colonies on many a dock shoot.

And on both days we found a single example of one of the specialities of this wood, Four-spotted Leaf-beetle. This is a myrmicophilous species, inhabiting the ants’ nests, and known in Essex only from one other wood apart from the Hockley complex.

Cucumber Spider was a diversion from the insects, while a wild Honeybee nest in a hole high up a dead tree raised our sights temporarily away from the ride-sides in front of us!

Hoverflies were among the most readily encountered insects, some of the more recognizable being Batman and Large Pied Hoverfly …

It was especially good to find several Orange-belted Hoverflies Volucella inflata: nationally scarce and very scattered in Essex, this is associated with the best ancient woods, but seems not to have been recorded here before.

A Stripe-legged Robber-fly enjoyed its lunch as we watched…

Moving onto the true bugs, Box-bugs and Closterotomus trivialis have both colonised Essex on the past two decades …

… and in response to the leader’s challenge to the Naturetrek group, the sharpest of sharp eyes evetually came across something I have always wanted to see, Cow-wheat Shield-bug. Sorry for the awful photo (put it down to the deep gloom, stair-rod rain at the time, and my disbelief and excitement), but its white border and central wing-spot can clearly be seen. Again nationally scarce, this has been recorded in Essex only from this woodland complex, since 2009, and only rather sporadically. A great find!

And finally to beetles, including a typical motley selection …

 

… but what for me was possibly the sighting of the day, better than 600 wood-sprites or a long-awaited shield-bug first, a Hazel Leaf-roller Weevil. Not only is this rare in Essex (the Essex Field Club map shows only a couple of spots, both in the extreme south, neither at Hockley – although it seems to omit a record we made in Wivenhoe a few years ago, so that might be out of date) it was also doing what it says on the tin – she was perforating the Hazel leaf in order to roll it up as protection for her eggs. Sometimes I feel we spend too much time looking at the bigger picture, chasing after bigger and better, that we overlook the wonderful intricacies of the natural world right in front of a our very noses.

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: May goes out with a splash…

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Spring half-term in the Beth Chatto Gardens, and time for kids’ activities. A day of bug walks was planned, but the weather thought otherwise – persistent drizzle, sometimes heavy and a cool , blustery north wind lending a very unseasonable feel to the day.

So, no kids (indeed, few visitors of any age)…

Lots of dripping  flowers, growing with a lushness fuelled by the damp preceding months…

Foliage bejewelled with mercurial magic…

A few (some very soggy) insects, the bumblebees especially on Salvia, Veronicastrum and Knautia …

… while the Mullein Moth larvae keep munching on, safe in our hands from the bane of pesticide sprays!

And one happy intern on their final day at the garden who had a personalised tour, the gloom lifted by a singing Goldcrest competing for earspace with several Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps, foraging Robins and Song Thrushes, and a low, flyover Red Kite.

But best of all, a call from one of the gardeners to say that one of their rescued Elephant Hawk-moths had emerged! Let’s take this as a portent for a June filled with colour and life,. And some summery weather please…

Cockaynes Reserve in early summer

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Such has been the unpredictability of weather this spring that our walks around Cockaynes have been few and far between. But earlier this week a couple of hours one morning gave me chance for a catch up as to what is happening. And chance also to try out the photo capability of my new phone: about a third of the photos are with that rather than my camera.

Now is the time for flowering shrubs. Gorse is largely over but Broom has taken its place, while Dog Rose is now at its very best. Bramble (in its multiplicity of forms), Honeysuckle  and Elder are coming on well, and destined to be major pollen and nectar sources in June.

Of the lower, showy plants, there were two related semiparasites that take water from the roots of plants around them, Common Cow-wheat and Yellow Rattle…

… with Scarlet Pimpernel, Oxeye Daisy and Knotted Clover also looking good.

But in close up, ever the most undemonstrative of flowers can reveal an inner beauty: here, Ribwort Plantain and Sheep’s Sorrel.

Plenty of insects too even though it wasn’t sunny, from damselflies to awkwardly mating soldier-beetles!

Day-flying moths included Brown Silver-lines and some delightful displaying swarms of Gold-barred Longhorns.

One of the delights of the insect world, indeed all of nature, is that it is always changing, and several of the things I saw fitted that category. Cream-streaked Ladybird colonized this country in the mid-20th century, while Tree Bumblebee and Gypsy Moth followed towards the end of the century…

… while Alder Leaf-beetles have arrived in this country, after several decades of extinction, only in the past 20 years. They were first spotted in Essex here at Cockaynes a couple of years ago, and now seem well-established. Many a leaf has either the holes chomped by the larvae, or a shiny black adult sitting on it – or both. And also on Alder leaves the reddening pimple-galls cause by the microscopic mite Eriophyes laevis are now at their most prominent.

A final word to the true bugs. Forest bugs are growing fast, and several large nymphs were on display …

… while a female Parent Bug guarding her eggs showed why the species is so named, one of the few examples of maternal care in the insect world.

As to the performance of the phone camera, I suspect it will never completely replace my trusty Canon, but in the right circumstances on the right subjects it could prove useful. I just have to get out more and really put it through its paces …!

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the height of Spring

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

It is the start of that precious time of year when the natural delights come so thick and fast that there is barely time to catch up, so this blog of my latest Meet the Wandering Naturalist event is necessarily short, mostly photos and few words. It was a lovely sunny day and the two walks attracted an amazing 35 interested visitors, who I hope all went away with the sight and sound of our garden wildlife etched on their brains and buzzing in their ears.

There are always superstar plats, and this time for bumblebees and Honeybees it was the Cistus and Allium species that were playing that role…

… whereas for hoverflies, beetles and pretty much everything else it was the various umbellifers and the Euphorbias, especially in the Reservoir Garden.

There were damselflies everywhere, especially but certainly not exclusively, round the ponds.

But really there was wildlife in every corner of the garden, from the Buzzards overhead to the singing Goldcrests, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, and everywhere invertebrate life…

There were butterflies and moths, including for one of the groups Green Hairstreaks on the Thyme and several Silver Y moths, the latter newly arrived immigrants …

… spiders, including a lurid Stretch Spider and a feisty crab spider Xysticus lanio …

… Common Scorpion-flies

… a myriad of true flies ….

… beetles, including several types of soldier-beetle and a Red-headed Cardinal-beetle…

… and an array of true bugs, with Dock Bugs and Hairy Shield-bugs everywhere ….

… plus the best insect of the day, a single Bronze Shield-bug, a rather scarce bug in Essex and the first time it has been found here. Always surprises to be found!

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) on June 21, July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre.  For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

Blogs of the previous Meet the Wandering Naturalist event this summer can be found here:

April: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: bountiful, and beautiful, insects…

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

May sweeps in, and the focus for wildlife turns to the ponds and water margins. The first damselflies are out, darting everywhere, mating and making more for next year. Large Red and Azure Damselflies, along with Blue-tailed Damselflies (not photographed) are on the wing now, and the first dragonflies will be very soon.

Sharing the aquatic early stages of damselflies but in a completely different order of insects, Alder-flies have emerged in large numbers in the past week.

Lots of beetles are now out and about, from Lily Beetles to soldier beetles, click beetles and weevils…

… and the variety of butterflies is changing: Orange-tips are fading out while Peacocks are still going strong, and the first Speckled Woods and Holly Blues are now flying.

Flies, including parasite-flies, dance-flies and snail-killers are all over the garden, but especially attracted to Euphorbia …

… while bees are often more specialist, seeking the closed tubular flowers that other insects cannot penetrate. Apart from the Honeybees that go for anything that has either nectar or pollen or both…

Plant bugs have also come out in force with the warm weather – here are Dock Bugs, a Cinnamon Bug and orgies of Hairy Shield-bugs, with the results of their endeavours.

The first, tiny Dark Bush-crickets have appeared: amazing to think that after five skin-sheds they will be serenading warm summer evenings in the hedgerows.

And everywhere there is insect abundance, there are always things ready to exploit nature’s largesse: here, a Xysticus crab-spider and a Nursery-web Spider.

Everything shown above is more-or-less widespread and relatively common. But there are the rarities as well: this week has produced the garden’s second record of the White-clouded Longhorn beetle (the first, two years ago, was only the fourth Essex location in that last hundred years) and the Purple-loosestrife was covered in a leaf- beetle Galerucella calmariensis. When we looked up the Essex distribution map for this creature, we find it at only five previous locations, all of which are along the southern or western boundaries of the county.

And while not as scarce as the above two, it was great to find the Bishop’s-mitre (a plant bug that we see rather infrequently) and I was inordinately excited (as the gardeners will testify!) to spot a couple of Green Hairstreaks nectaring on the Thyme, my first of the summer and also my absolute favourite butterfly.

All this, and there are a few flowers to see as well!!

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) on May 17, June 21, July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre.  For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

Tales from the Riverbank

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

 

All it takes is half an hour in the sun in early May, just a hundred metres from home, and our early morning stroll delivers a feast of wildlife delights!

 

 

Ceanothus was looking amazing, forming billowing blue clouds studded with pale gold stars, like a thousand EU flags. It may not be a native species, but it is certainly providing for our bees…

Moving to native plants, ‘Pocket plums’ – Taphrina fungal galls on Blackthorn’s developing fruit – were more numerous than we have ever seen before…. No sloe gin for us this year!

A micromoth Elachista argentella ‘unhiding’ in the grass, perhaps looking more like poo than food to a passing bird?

Sea Beet was feeding everything, from snails to dozens of Dock Bugs to 24-spot Ladybirds (one of the few herbivorous ones – are those it’s nibbling to its right? )…

And finally, best of all, quite reliable on one or two select Beet plants in early May, the incredible Neon-striped Tortoise-beetle. Two plants regularly feature them but not it seems the many others, perhaps showing just how constrained an insect’s life can be.

All these and our first Common Terns of the year clamouring upriver, and finally screaming Swifts, the wild spirits returning to the Shipyard skies.

 

#WildEssexWalks: The Bluebells of Wivenhoe Wood

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Always a staple in our catalogue of walks, this year we embraced our Bluebells on three separate walks over a week and a half, and this blog is an amalgam of them all. Given the unstable weather this spring, not surprisingly we had a mixed bag, from lovely warm sunshine to cool, cloudy and wet…

In fact the season started early (a symptom of our largely frost-free winter) with the first sign of blue coming in mid-March: we were concerned that the main event would be over before our walks even started.

But then the gloom of April and cool northerlies slowed things up, and even by our final walk on May 4th, there was still plenty of blue, albeit looking distinctly worse for wear.

Peak Bluebell was around the date of our recce, April 26th, when lovely sunshine lit up the blue swathes and helped contribute to a scentscape like no other.

As always we noticed a few naughty Spanish Bluebells and their hybrids: hopefully Colchester City Council will take action in line with their biodiversity duty.

But one of the lasting impressions this year was of mud. Springs springing out in places where springs have never sprung before, at least in my almost 40 years of knowing this wood: the sign of an unprecedentedly wet start to the year.

The other thing we noticed was that the overall showing was a tad less impressive than we have become accustomed to in recent years. Of course this could be weather- or climate-related, but probably more likely is that the coppice plots are growing up, and starting to cast shade sufficient to suppress the Bluebell show. If we want our Bluebells en masse, we need active coppicing to continue, something that sadly is not always assured given local authority funding constraints. Failing that, we need another ‘destructive’ storm of the order of that of October 1987, a natural dynamic event that breathed light and life into our previously neglected woodlands.

While Bluebells of course were the main course, there were substantial side portions of other woodland plants from Greater Stitchwort to Yellow Archangel, Wild Strawberry, Wood Speedwell and Bugle …

… along with the sub-shrub Butchers’-broom and swathes of Garlic Mustard in clearings and along tracksides, while on the higher drier ground Bracken was unfurling its aquiline fronds.

Our first walk, the recce, was in sunshine, although we found the ground conditions very difficult in parts of the wood, hence our decision with the groups to return along the Wivenhoe Trail and its views of the tidal River Colne, although the winter birds have now largely departed.

Insects on this occasion included the Beaky Hoverfly Rhingia campestris, the bug Harpocera thoracica, our first Scorpion-fly of the summer, and good numbers of Small and Green-veined White butterflies.

The second walk was pretty much a washout, although a Blackcap serenaded us at the start and in the interior of the wood we did find the uncommon Tree Slug, seemingly not recorded previously from the area.

Of course the Bluebells were immune to the rain, even if their scent was suppressed, and galls in the oaks likewise: there were redcurrant galls of the spring generation Spangle Gall-wasp in the flowers and large, spongy oak-apples formed by another tiny wasp Biorhiza pallida.

The final walk was again in glorious, warm sunshine. So uplifting! For us and for the wildlife too. Bird song was swelling, with a Garden Warbler being noteworthy, while butterflies included Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and Orange-tips. Other insects included Crucifer Shield-bug, our first Dark Bush-cricket nymph of the summer and a mating pair of caddis-flies a surprising distance from water.

In the Lower Lodge grassland, Common Stork’s-bill was in good flower and on the King George Field, the pros and cons of ‘No Mow Grassland’ were amply demonstrated, with lots of Bulbous Buttercups and other species in the longer grass, but masses of Daisies, each flowerhead a lifeline for insects, on the mown bits. Everything in moderation is the best approach.

And as always, some surprises. A fungus looked familiar as the Jelly Ear, but we are used to seeing it on its main host tree Elder; this was on Sycamore, but reference to the books indicated that this and other broad-leaved trees can be used by the fungus.

Even more interesting, and potentially worrying, was the gall that Jude spotted on Sweet Chestnut leaves and buds. We had never seen it before although it was then found on quite a number of trees. It turned out to be galls of the Asian Chestnut Gall-wasp Dryocosmus kuriphilus. Seems this gall was first found in Britain in Kent in 2015, and has spread especially around London since then, although the latest map shows only one Essex locality, close to the M25. It is of concern to those who grow Sweet Chestnut for timber or chestnuts as it can be rather destructive, although help is at hand – a specific parasite of the gall wasp has been discovered, evaluated and risk-assessed, and is already being released in some places to control the new incipient ‘pest’.

Always something special and interesting to find!

 

 

 

 

#WildEssexWalks: Cockaynes Reserve at the height of Spring

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

As is now traditional we headed off to Cockaynes Reserve for one of our main springtime walks, although the cool weather initially made it feel almost wintry. Fortunately as the morning progressed, and contrary to forecasts, the sun did come out, and sheltered from the breeze it even felt quite warm, a rather unusual occurrence in the unsettled early part of this year.

But whatever the temperature  there is no mistaking the fact that the hands of the seasonal clock are turning. Walking up Ballast Quay Lane, the hedges and verges were filled with flower and fragrance, with Cow Parsley and Hawthorn scent combining in Chris’ personal Maytime Proustian madeleine, taking him back to the days of innocence, cycling the byways of the Yorkshire Wolds as a lad…

Add to that the blue of Evergreen Alkanet, the white flowers and garlic aroma arising from both Garlic Mustard and Three-cornered Leek, yellow Greater Celandine, and the purple (occasionally white) flowers of Honesty, the latter attracting the attentions of a lovely male Brimstone for the back-markers at least.

And in a nod to the coming summer, White Bryony just coming into flower while stitching together the hedge with its telephone-cord tendrils:

At the top of the hill, splendid views over the Colne Estuary, Skylarks singing, and a meadow full of Bulbous Buttercups, interspersed with drier patches dominated by rusty-flowering Sheep’s Sorrel …

And then into Villa Wood along the newly refurbished path, to be enveloped by bird song – Chiffchaffs, Wrens, Blackbirds, Robins,  Blackcaps and a tantalisingly distant Nightingale – and the sound of a tinkling Sixpenny Brook, with a little Town-hall-clock and Opposite-leaved Golden-saxifrage still flowering.

The Redcurrants were in unripe fruit, Wood Anemones all-but-finished, Bluebells of course just reaching their peak on the drier slopes and  sprouting ferns in the damper spots.

Moving out into the open ground left behind after gravel extraction, a backward glance showed the beauty of the infinite spectrum of greens shown by newly emerged leaves, a sight equalled by the sound of a much nearer Nightingale in full rhapsody, and displaying Buzzards overhead:

The bare sandy areas hosted a basking Peacock, with flowering Blinks, Changing Forget-me-not and Thyme-leaved Speedwell, and just a few Bunny Bees moving around their active colony (it had been a very cold, almost frosty night preceding, so the lack of action was not surprising).

In the heathy areas, both Gorse and Broom in flower were attracting bumblebees, along with Small Gorse Mining-bees, and held numerous singing male Whitethroats, while the Crab Apple on the corner of Cockaynes Wood was already well past its best, a sign of the largely frost-free winter.

And finally a few invertebrates, expertly spotted by Jude: a bagworm moth Psyche casta,  redcurrant galls in Oak flowers (the spring generation galls of the same tiny wasp that produces the more familiar spangle galls in autumn), Brown-tail Moth caterpillars sunning themselves on their web with impunity (protected from most bird predation by their irritant hairs), a few hoverflies and tiger-craneflies, and a grass bug Stenodema calcarata.

As usual, all kinds of everything to suit all tastes, and wrapped up very well with a pint in the Greyhound garden, sitting in the sun, with a Red Kite low overhead. What could be better? Thanks to all who came along and helped make it such a good morning, particularly Peter Hill who was able to explain some of the management work of the Cockaynes Wood Trust (and perhaps encourage some more volunteers to the much needed management tasks).

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers…

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

The weather wasn’t looking good for my first ‘Meet the Wandering Naturalist‘ event of the year at the Beth Chatto Gardens today: frequent heavy rain and gusty winds made it touch-and-go (they are always advertised as ‘weather permitting’!). But in the event we were lucky: the torrential rain stopped half an hour before the walks commenced, and largely stayed away for the full two hours (despite some ominous thundercracks), with the sun even coming out for a few precious minutes.

Following the rain, the gardens were relatively quiet, so the 18 wanderers I took out on one or other of the walks were treated to some lovely bird sightings, all enfolded in the spring songs of Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Robins, Wrens and Chaffinches. There was a Mistle Thrush feeding on the lawns with the Blackbirds and the baby Moorhens, and for easy comparison, at least two Song Thrushes, apparently taking food repeatedly into a nest with hungry youngsters. And there was one or two further Song Thrushes singing, a very welcome return to form for this species that has suffered across the country from the overuse and misuse of slug pellets.

The gardens were looking wonderfully green after all the rain of the past three months …

… but with a sky-blue filigree snaking its way through the beds as we enter the peak time for Forget-me-not flowering. Often dismissed as a ‘weed’, this is genuinely beautiful, helping the weave together the floral themes in the different beds, and good for wildlife too, today being visited by Orange-tip and Green-veined White butterflies.

One other butterfly, and my very welcome first one of the summer, was a Speckled Wood, and also new for the year were the first few Large Red Damselflies, perhaps a week in advance of their usual appearance here.

There were Green Shield-bugs in several places, always hard to see because of their colour against a leaf, but never more so than on this Ligularia in which the reddened leaf-margins match the red highlights on the insect’s feet, antennae and abdomen.

While the spring greens are still the dominant hue, flowers are coming through and attracting insects, some of the most wonderful, extravagant blooms being the yellow Paeonia ‘Molly the Witch’ and electric blue pyramids of Scilla peruviana.

And that just leaves the centrepiece of the day, Judas-tree in the Reservoir Garden. Not only were its flowers at their absolute pink peak, especially dramatic when seen against the looming thundercloud, but also surrounded by insects. There were bumblebees and hoverflies, and swarms  of fearsome-looking but friendly, hairy, black, dangly-legged St Mark’s Flies. Traditionally emerging on St Mark’s Day (April 25th) they are almost a week early this spring. But they will be a very welcome feast for Swallows and martins when they arrive in force after their stressful trans-equatorial migrations over the next couple of weeks.

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing this all again (weather permitting!) on May 17, June 21, July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre.  For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!