Welcome to the latest instalment of our Lockdown Diaries. As always a big thank you to everybody who has been kind enough to get in touch  – we really couldn’t do it without you, as they say!

I must begin, however, with an apology. Chris had an unfortunate malfunction last time and misidentified a plant ☹. In case you didn’t notice, the ‘Bur Chervil’ flower seen on a local ‘green’ area ( currently a sickly shade of brown) was in fact ‘Knotted Hedge Parsley’.  But the good news is that this is actually less common than the Chervil, so a reason to celebrate! (As long as he doesn’t make a habit of it).

We had an uplifting email from our correspondent in Hadleigh, Suffolk, telling us about the Heath Spotted and Southern Marsh Orchids growing in his local wood, ‘a glorious exotic marvel’ as he poetically put it. In his garden he had ‘ Bees going nuts …. bumbles fighting over access to our flame red poppies, while honeys browsing over thyme & oxalis’. Love it.

We mentioned Stag Beetles last time, and thank you for your reports and sightings. We have had this fabulous picture of a very handsome male taken in a Wivenhoe garden, and had an interesting report from Suffolk  of ‘not one but 2 staggies emerging from the garden (one still had a thin layer of mud on her ‘head & shoulders’, having just tunnelled out of the earth). The other was clattering around in the air beside me, and the real novelty was that they were both female!’ A female Lesser Stag Beetle has been seen locally too. Let us know if any turn up where you are…

Following on from the Red-and-black bug theme in the last ‘Diary’ we had a smashing picture sent to us of a different insect which employs this colour-way –  the Red and Black Froghopper, friendly and totally harmless to us, although perhaps not to something that may try to eat it …

Other insects that you have seen include a Hornet (much maligned, but generally non-aggressive and harmless if left alone. Poking sticks into their nests not recommended however!). This photo was taken before it escaped from a greenhouse.

A couple of friends borrowed our little portable moth trap one evening and included in the catch the following morning was this stunning Eyed Hawkmoth. This creature tries to bamboozle any would-be predator by flashing it’s ‘eyes’, pretending it is a big beastie.

Another rather attractive, but it turns out not particularly welcome due to its predilection for Box bushes, moth was seen sunning itself, rather artistically-posed, in a local garden last weekend.

Demoiselles were seen flying in a Suffolk garden – these are stunning creatures – large damselflies in effect,  and in Frating these beautifully crafted little ‘pots’ were discovered, part of a Potter Wasp’s nest.

One of my favourite plants is White Bryony, with its beautifully  understated colours, and it is also much loved by a couple of not-so-common insects – this picture-winged fly and bee were seen on a plant on the edge of KGV last week.

Spiders are not everyone’s thing, we appreciate (we love them as you would expect due to their clever design, ingenuity and general usefulness), so look away now if you aren’t a fan. But  I  wanted to include this picture of a real beauty – a Crab Spider sitting hopefully on a Hydrangea waiting for a careless fly to land so she can have her dinner in a wildlife-friendly garden in Wivenhoe. Her colours perfectly blend with the petal.

Flies, as we know, are important pollinators, and although we appreciate they are all an important part of the ecosystem, some are definitely  more attractive than others. A particularly handsome family of flies are the ‘Hovers’, with which we are all familiar. All harmless, they generally use the natural ‘warning’ colours of yellow and black, thus mimicking the more ‘dangerous’ wasps and bees – giving them a certain amount of protection from predators. This particular one (a Helophilus species) was photographed in an Elmstead garden,  where the sender of the picture spends lots of time watching the goings on in and around his pond. It is a hotspot for dragonflies and damselflies, and he tells us a very entertaining story of how he rescued a dragonfly nymph from the jaws of a Sparrow, only for it then to scuttle off and hide in the undergrowth before emerging as a beautiful Broad-bodied Chaser some five hours later.

Slow Worms are out and about – this one was photographed in Dovercourt, and we have had sighting of one in Brighton, together with Common Lizards, Grass snakes and Common Newts in various parts of Essex.

As usual we keep an eye on birds from our window, their sights and sounds are a great joy.  We are still hearing Cuckoos, and we know that some of you have been delighted with seeing Buzzards so near us, over town. A local nature lover told us of his sightings of Little Owls, Common Whitethroats, Blackcaps and a Willow Warbler.  He was chatting with someone who has Barn Owls on his land who reported that the female hunts during the evening and the male overnight and early morning. Interesting division of labour. Before signing off, I must attach this amazing photo of a male Sparrowhawk having a bath on the South Coast.  What a stunning creature!

Here is a link to the latest email from Buglife which you may find of interest.  This important charity is one we like to support through sales of our cards etc.

Wishing you all a safe and measured emergence out of lockdown. And as always please keep in touch with any observations and pictures of nature in your world. Thank you.

ADDITIONAL IMAGES by Val Appleyard, Sue Minta, Jen Poyser, Martin Forth, Eric Strudwick, Andrea Williams, Sally Chandler, Roger Peak and John Goody.

Hello once again – hope you enjoy this, our fifth Lockdown Diary. Thanks to everyone who has been in touch with anecdotes, observations and photos.

Where to start?  Plants are all around, although of course many are suffering from the continued drought.  The Haymeadow on KGV is looking quite sparse in places.  Interestingly since it has been left to its own devices, bare patches are appearing where the grasses are not doing well due to the drought, but this is allowing space for annuals, e.g.  rare annual clovers,  and Sand Spurrey (see above) which normally would not have the opportunity to germinate.  All contributing to biodiversity –  the loss of which is a major concern of our time.

Some dear friends in Wivenhoe (who have an amazing garden), sent us a lovely olfactory picture: ‘Wisteria smells strongest with the sun on it, the honeysuckle only scented in the morning after the cold night air. An excuse to have our noses in flowers at all times of the day’. Delicious! A locally scarce plant, Knotted Hedge-parsley, was discovered on one of the grassy areas in Wivenhoe. Some interested folk are doing a survey of the (as it turns out quite a few) grassy areas in Wivenhoe. Until now all of them have just been mown regularly through the summer and left as short grassland, but it could be that with some thoughtful management at least some of these could have a new life – with some areas left unmown for certain periods of time new plants will emerge, creating a more interesting place for both human , and of course wildlife visitors. Watch this space for more information about this as the data are collected.

Birds are also very abundant.  We are rejoicing in so many House Martins this year, and Sparrows are more numerous around the Shipyard too. The drought must be making things hard for the House Martins to find mud for their nests (although there is abundant salty mud here on the estuary, they much prefer the salt-less variety). Anything we can do to provide water for birds right now is to be encouraged.

We were sent this amusing shot of a Sparrowhawk investigating a remote camera (you might need to look carefully!):

Great Spotted Woodpeckers have been seen in gardens, and a marauding bunch of Jackdaws were heard making a nuisance of themselves in lower Wivenhoe, before taking themselves off elsewhere. A fan of this newsletter sent in an entertaining story of birds in his garden, all of them interested in the mealworms he had put out….Robin followed by Blackbird followed by Magpie followed by Pigeon….

… and whilst not everyone’s favourite, pigeons have a certain charm, and friends in South Woodham Ferrers have sent in pictures of a mum and her (rather ugly) babies. She obviously loves them, however they look, as any good mother should!

Hedgehogs have been noisy in a local garden – our correspondent tells us that two large ones were in her feeding station ‘Lots of huffing as one had blocked the other in.  I had to take the lid off so that one of them could climb out.  Very noisy’

This tiny Grass snake was found in a local garden, and having been offered food (which it ignored) was released back to join the rest of its family.  This sized individual at this time of year is probably last year’s baby.

The section of the natural world that has been the most exciting (at least for us) this time is the insects. So many of you have sent in interesting information and pictures, thank you.   Very excitingly we have had our first reports of Stag Beetles in a Wivenhoe garden. Let us know if you find any – alive or dead! Wivenhoe is a nationally important area for these most odd creatures – their flight pattern is so awkward it is incredible that they ever actually get to where they want to go. And that after spending literally years underground chewing their way through dead wood before they emerge for only a few weeks at most this time of year. You couldn’t make it up really!

This smart 22-spot Ladybird was seen checking out a nature-watcher’s Kindle, whilst a mayfly was found on a garden wall, near a pond. These small creatures live as adults only for about a day. Their scientific Order name ‘Ephemeroptera’  has the same Greek root as  ‘ephemera’ meaning ‘short-lived or not to be preserved’. There are 51 species in UK and arequite difficult to identify to species level.

Say ‘Red and Black Bugs’ to Chris these days and he burst into a grin. The reason(s)?  Well a couple of weeks ago he came home with a photograph (below, left) of a very splendid bug indeed, seen near Ferry Marsh. We immediately recognised it from wildlife holidays abroad as an Ornate Shield Bug.  Our books said it was only a rare and recent arrival in the UK, and none of the online maps showed it had been found around here. We were pleased when it was confirmed by a national bug expert that this was the first sighting in Essex!

We sent photos to our nearest and dearest (not to boast you understand….) and daughter #2 responded by saying she too had seen unusual red-and-black bugs in her local churchyard in Dovercourt. Her photos (above, right) showed this to be a totally different insect,  but once more a first for Essex! This is the Fire-bug – again a common species in Europe, but only a rare visitor to UK. Chris discovered an interesting paper about it https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/55610-Pyrrhocoris-apterus.  I’m feeling a little left out as haven’t yet discovered a rarity!

Our friends on the south coast sent us a picture of a rather fine beetle which goes under the catchy name of Drilus flavescens. It is not yet found in Essex, but keep looking!  The male has these wonderful comb-like antennae.

Not so many butterflies around at the moment (known as the ‘June gap – the hiatus between the disappearance of spring broods and the emergence of the summer generations’  **), but some lovely moths have been found and photos sent to us – Small Yellow Underwing in Brighton, and Mother Shipton in Wrabness. This is a particularly interestingly patterned moth – on close inspection you can see that it looks rather like a witch with a big nose  ie Mother Shipton.

Following on from last time’s comments about the (in our opinion) over-zealous mowing of grassy areas and spraying of herbicides, we have some news.  Colchester Borough Council have said that ‘we  are starting to look at mowing regimes across the Borough and we will take the opportunity to look at how we could manage them differently’ ( we hope that means there may be less mowing in future rather than more!), but as yet Essex County Council have/will not confirm whether they use Glyphosates to spray the pavements, although they were quick to joyously say that they sprayed at least three times a year.  We will let you know of any developments.

Just to leave you with some lovely musings from a local nature fan   ‘I’ve been enchanted by the songs of Nightingales.  Everything in nature is so beautiful’.  Exactly.  If only everyone could see …we are the lucky ones.

Until next time – please keep in touch with us and let us know what you discover.

Jude and Chris 07503240387

**  This passage was quoted from a brilliant book ‘Wonderland – A Year of Britain’s Wildlife Day by Day’ by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss. A lovely present from daughter #1, it has an entry for each day of the year – highlighting a specific plant/animal/bird that would typically be found on that day.  Thoroughly recommended.

ADDITIONAL IMAGES BY Val Appleyard, Clive Dykes, Margie Finn, Mark Halladay, Leonie Henderson, Bradley Marnes, Sue Minta and Jen Poyser.

Hope you are all coping with/enjoying Lockdown. Must confess it is the latter for us – the lack of having to be anywhere or do anything is refreshing.  Once again we have been delighted that so many of you have been in touch with your nature sightings, photos and stories, so thank you for your interest.  We have also been made aware of some of your concerns – more of which later.

One story we particularly liked was a Swallow rescue in France.  It wandered into our correspondent’s house, became entangled and distressed but, she said, after employing ‘tea towel and careful hands it was as good as new’. We love a happy ending 😊

Birds are very prevalent just now, and their song more audiologically ‘visible’ than I can ever remember, thanks to the welcome reduction in cars and aircraft.  We are very privileged to live high enough to have eye-to-eye encounters with Swifts which are circling all around and screaming in their frenzied manner.  It is incredible to think that these creatures set foot on land only during the breeding process – the rest of their lives they spend on the wing, eating, sleeping, migrating, feeding and mating, in no particular order!   House Martins are prospecting for suitable nest sites on the Shipyard, and many of you have told us of birds that you have encountered –  Nuthatch (Suffolk), Hoopoe (France), Great Spotted Woodpecker (Islington) and Wryneck (Wivenhoe), as well as Cuckoos and Nightingales.

Flowers too are all around – as one of our friends eloquently put it ‘Lovely to see & smell lilac & honeysuckle, while our garden is awash with columbine, cowslips, bluebells, forget-me-nots and early yellow & orange poppies.  Rosemary has been in flower for a while, and our first glorious salsify are out, as are our peonies.’ Great!  Chris has had an exciting week, discovering a nationally scarce plant locally in Wivenhoe, the Mousetail (below), and we have also had a report of this quite unassuming, but interesting-in-its-way flower in a village not too far away.  Its always of interest when something appears to be spreading – or has it always been there but we have never had the time to investigate before now?  Areas of St Mary’s churchyard are looking lovely with Wild Garlic, native Bluebells and Lesser Celandines. Thanks must go to Wild About Wivenhoe and the Woodcraft Folk for their efforts in getting the bulbs set.

We were heartened to hear of the No Mow May campaign https://www.gardensillustrated.com/feature/lawn-mowing-when-flowers-may/ (‘to transform your lawns into havens of biodiversity’) and would love it if Councils and gardeners generally could take inspiration from this.  Until a few days ago a playing area not far away from us had been left and was full of wild flowers, brilliant for bees and looking glorious (see picture at the top of the page), until a man with a large mower came along that is….

Our favourite flying jewels, butterflies, are  delighting us, and this year I have seen my first ever Green Hairstreaks. A Wivenhoe garden has had visits from ‘Holly Blue, Comma, Peacock, Brimstone and Orange-tip’.  Our nature-spotter also saw ‘Muslin and Mint-moths’.  We have been trying a spot of moth-trapping from our borrowed balcony – not a huge success, but it’s fun and we may well get more of a catch as the summer progresses. This Nut-tree Tussock was definitely having a bad ‘Lockdown hair’ moment when we released him unharmed from the trap on Saturday morning. We have been listening out for bats with our gizmo, but nothing detected as yet.

Other insects have been on your minds too – a really whacky nymph of the bug Issus coleoptratus was seen in Brighton, a collection of jostling Hairy Shield bugs, and Buff-tailed Bumble Bee in Wivenhoe, plus a Violet Carpenter Bee in France (which are occasional visitors to Britain).  We discovered a new-to-us ladybird last week – a Water Ladybird.  This isn’t particularly rare – we obviously hadn’t been looking in the right places before!  This one is a buff colour, but as the season progresses it will become redder.  Ladybirds aren’t bothered about disguising themselves in the way that many insects do, as they are poisonous and birds know not to eat anything coloured red and black.  Interestingly other, non-poisonous, insects adopt this colour-way too – they are in a way protected by the ‘reputation’ of the ladybird.

The Brown-tail moth lays its eggs in nests which are quite often seen on Hawthorn or Blackthorn, but recently an observant nature fan contacted us to say there was a nest on a local Oak sapling.  This is very unusual, to our knowledge, and we wonder why the moth chose to lay her eggs on the Oak as there was plenty of the supposed preferred plants nearby.  The caterpillars didn’t seem to be complaining though…

It is now dragonfly time and we have had some smashing photos sent to us, this one is a Scarce Chaser.

Other creatures have caught your eye – we have had a record of a Grass snake in Elmstead, and a local gang of Hedgehogs have been causing much interest to our friends who have a night-time camera set up in their garden.  Two males were seen pushing and shoving, the larger one edging the smaller nearer and nearer to their pond until it bull-dozed it in!  Luckily there were no little floating bodies in the morning, so the injured party must have managed to get out OK to live to fight another day (or night).  Another pond has a charming family of frogs.

Our newsletters are meant to be fun, happy and inspirational and a celebration of the natural world, but sometimes there are serious issues which we feel are worth airing.  A couple of concerns have been brought to light this month…:

First is the mowing of grasslands during May, as mentioned above.  Unless this is private land, it would generally be the local council responsible for mowing regimes. As per the link, not mowing at this flowerful time of year is of extreme benefit to pollinators, insects on which we all depend.

Secondly, the spraying of herbicides on our paths, which are under the jurisdiction of Essex County Council Highways.  I have been in touch with them to ask about their current policy  (and was told, rather proudly I felt, that they spray everywhere at least three times per year ) and to ask what substances they actually use for this (no answer on this point as yet).  As many of you know Wivenhoe Town and Colchester Borough Councils have banned the use of glyphosate (which a research arm of WHO states is ‘probably’ cancer-causing – the particles of which we certainly don’t want to inhale), and we are concerned in case we are all still being subjected to this toxic stuff, even though our councils have seen the sense to ban it.

If you feel moved to follow up either of these issues please contact the relevant body – WTC re Town council-managed grasslands (enquiries@wivenhoe.gov.uk), Colchester Borough Council re the grasslands they manage (www.colchester.gov.uk/contact/) or ECC re footpath spraying via their ‘Comments’ form on their website. www.essex.gov.uk or on twitter to  @essexhighways.  Copies of correspondence may be usefully sent to  Mark Cory (leader of CBC and instrumental in getting them to ban glyphosates cllr.mark.cory@colchester.gov.uk), Mark Goacher (Colchester Green Councillor,  cllr.mark.goacher@colchester.gov.uk), Julie Young (Wivenhoe County Councillor cllr.julie.young@essex.gov.uk), and our local councillor Glyn Evans cllrglyn.evans@wivenhoe.gov.uk.

That’s enough moaning!   Just to finish by saying Keep Well Everyone and hope we can meet up for a nature walk some sunny day!  We will let you know if and when this may be possible.  Please keep sending us your nature-sightings as well as your super photos and we will happily incorporate as many as we can into the next newsletter.

Happy Nature watching.

PS We are delighted to now have some fab ‘Bringing Nature To You’ bookmarks, a set of six, each of which highlights a specific aspect of nature.  If you would like some/a set let us know.  There is no charge, but any donations to Buglife gratefully received.

Photo credits: Andrea Williams (bugs),  Val Appleyard (Issus nymph), Helen Chambers (bumblebee), Anne Simcox (frogs), Glyn Evans (Scarce Chaser), Chris (the rest).