Blog Archives: WildWivenhoe

Lockdown diary: Botany & Bugs (and more!) on your Doorstep – late April

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

Here we still are, and hope you are all keeping well and coping with the restrictions on our day to day lives.  We are actually finding it quite liberating though we do miss physical contact with family and friends. Thanks to everyone who has sent in their observations and pictures of what nature is up to on their patch.  So much has captured your interest – one of our group was fascinated with the slugs he had in his compost bin (where they are welcome and doing what nature intended). He says  they were ‘little black things to four-inch monsters, and green mottled ones’. He also had six varieties of worm, plus bees, birds and shield bugs. That’s the wonder of nature, once you start looking there is so much to see.

Our friend in Brighton was intrigued to see ants dragging a large centipede into their lair, and a Wivenhoe correspondent found this rather odd-looking critter in her pond: a damselfly nymph. When you look at illustrations of these, they have three ‘tails’, but the surface tension would cause them to all appear to stick together when out of water (like wet hair sticks to your head). It is now safely back in the pond and they await an emergence of a lovely adult version.

Craneflies were snapped doing what comes naturally in France, where there were also lizards, frogs, butterflies and an owl. C’est la vie!

Lots of bees are going about their daily lives, doing their pollination job, and bringing us pleasure as they do so. A beautiful one with full ‘panniers’ was snapped in a sunny London garden, and this female Tawny Mining bee was seen in the Wivenhoe area. There are so many species of bee it isn’t easy to recognise them, but this one is quite distinctive with her red fluffy hair. A lovely description was sent in from a friend in Suffolk ‘…young bumblebees following their noisy passageways through the fields’. Brilliant!

Butterflies are a pure joy and we were lucky enough to spot several Green Hairstreaks in Cockaynes last week, and others of you have seen Orange-tips, Small Tortoiseshells and Green-veined Whites.

Birds are playing an important part in our lives at the moment (Chris is stacking up a list, not sure how many we are at….70 something I think), and we have been lucky enough to hear both Cuckoos and Nightingales from our flat, and to see (and hear) Swifts.  A sure sign that summer is on its way 😊. It seems there are a number of Nightingales in various places around Wivenhoe. I am sure the general quietness is making it much easier to pick the songs out at the moment – we have had reports of woodpeckers in Colchester and Skylarks in north Wivenhoe. A very observant friend in Brightlingsea saw two Ring Ouzels, and we have had reports of an interesting encounter between a Sparrowhawk and Starling in Elmstead. (The Sparrowhawk came off best that time, but they have hungry mouths to feed of course).

Flowers are a source of wonderment and enjoyment too, and thank you to a friend in Colchester who sent a picture of her Snake’s-head Fritillary. What a fabulous flower.  And our ‘identification service’ turned to garden trees when we were sent a photo from Sussex which turned out to be Box Elder (which is neither a ‘Box’, nor an ‘Elder’ but a Maple – that’s English names for you!).

Even mammals are putting in an appearance: we have seen one each of both Grey and Harbour Seals swimming along the river, and bats are out and about in the evenings. We hope to get out there with the detector at some time to see what we can pick up, and will let you know next time.

Just to leave you with an inspirational quote from a local nature-fan: ‘If nothing else in the world can keep you going, at least nature can’ ….

Photo credits: Sue Minta (damselfly nymph),  Val Appleyard (centipede), Ro Inzani (bumblebee), Caty Robey (craneflies), Glyn Evans (Tawny Mining-bee), Sandra Davies (Snake’s-head Fritillary), Chris (Green Hairstreak).

Lockdown diary: The Beth Chatto Gardens – rewind five years…

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

Any time of year, the Beth Chatto Garden is worth a visit, but never more so than in Spring when the damburst of the year floods the garden with blooms, colour, scents and wildlife. We miss that so much this year under Covid lockdown…

…but we can relive what it was like with OneDrive’s ‘On this day’, where we are transported back five years to 2015. Happy memories, and a hopeful reminder of the botanical, entomological and artistic joys to come when the nightmare is over.

Lockdown diary: Return to Cockaynes

Britain's Wildlife, Cockaynes Reserve, WildWivenhoe

The speed of change in Spring never ceases to amaze, and a privilege of ‘lockdown’ is that is gives us the excuse, with little else crowding in on our existence, to see those changes in close up and on a  regular basis. So, a week since we last exercised our right to exercise there, back to Cockaynes, and a series of remarkable changes. Budburst is almost complete, Sweet Chestnut in particular providing a sculptural and subtly colourful backdrop in the again crystal clear light.

Likewise, spears of Bracken thrusting skyward and starting to unfurl eagle-winged fronds demonstrate the reasoning behind the second part of its scientific name Pteridium aquilinum.

 

In some respects, the pace of change may have been pushed hard this year by the ongoing lack of rain, and grass-shrivelling, lichen-crisping drought. Last week’s botanical highlights had gone in the ‘Blinks of an eye’, and the most sandy patches are now almost flowerless, apart from newly emerging, red-stemmed Early Hair-grass. The wildlife shouts mid-May rather than mid-April, as if lockdown has given Nature the time to start cranking the seasonal wheel a touch faster.

Gorse of course is pretty much immune to drought, and still flowering profusely. And attracting numerous newly emerged Green Hairstreaks, beautiful when seen at rest, but in flittery flight almost impossible to follow, despite the intense metallic green iridescence of their underwings.

And in similar places, Speckled Yellow moths, a rather sparsely distributed species in Essex, skipped numerously around the patches of Wood Sage, its larval food plant.

Lots of other new emergences apparent this week included dancing fairies, flocks of then around the birches – courtship swarms of Green Longhorn moths…

… and herds of St Mark’s flies everywhere, after their first tentative appearances yesterday. Great food for the Swallows overhead, they are two days early, coming out on St George’s Day rather than St Mark’s…though one cannot imagine St G would be too upset. Spreading his patronage over a diverse portfolio, from England to Ethiopia, Catalonia to Estonia and syphilitics to plague victims, he is clearly not too precious to allow St M’s flies to muscle into his action. And later in the day, above the flat, the wheeling, snapping groups of Black-headed Gulls were presumably cashing in on this bounty, they way they do when nests of flying ants emerge later in the season.

All this and much more as always. Until next week…

Lockdown diary: Cockaynes Reserve, our #NaturalHealthService

Britain's Wildlife, Cockaynes Reserve, WildWivenhoe

The Cockaynes Reserve was a vision in green, in fact in a myriad of greens, Spring springing, almost audibly, from every bud.

Of course we (and the pollinators) are attracted to the showy blooms, but there were also flowers contributing to the palette of greens, from bronzed catkins of Oak, to jade dangles of Redcurrant and acid carpets of Golden-saxifrage.

Another green, and truly insignificant, plant we found in the open sandy plains was a bit of a surprise: Blinks, in abundance. We have never noticed it here before, and it isn’t common in Essex. As its usual habitat is winter-wet depressions on sand, its abundance may reflect the wet weather we had for much of the winter (seems a world away!), until COVID-19 lockdown, after which virtually nothing.

On the pure sand, all the signs are of stress, plants curling up with drought, looking more as if it were mid-summer. Just a few were in flower, with scattered Stork’s-bill instead of carpets. and Lesser Dandelions, but very little else…

…apart from the find of the day, a couple of flowering rosettes (and a few non-flowering) of Smooth Cat’s-ear. With only four or so previous records this century from Essex, this a truly scarce plant, although its ‘tiny dandelion’ flowers are open only in full sunlight, so it may be overlooked. It is a plant we have searched Cockaynes for several times as there is a previous single record from the site a few years ago, albeit about 300m from our locality, but hitherto without success.

But in and around the shade of trees, the vernal rainbow (thus far lacking the red end of the spectrum – Red Campion is yet to come) was much more developed:

And especially deep in Villa Wood, down by the Brook, the visual drama was complemented by the rearing cobra-heads of unfurling Male-fern fronds.

Particular mention must go to the prominent Crab-apple on the ancient bank of Cockaynes Wood, in full, perfect flower, a dazzle of pink-shot ivory, and a magnet for foraging bumlebees:

Other insects out and about included Dark-edged Bee-flies everywhere, and each Gorse bush shone with the beacons of Gorse Shield-bugs, sunlight reflecting of the membranous part of their wings:

Quite apart from the bugs though, Gorse is a keystone species on sites like this, harbouring a vast array of other invertebrate life – herbivores, predators and pollinators alike:

On the spider front, we also discovered an egg-sac, like the inflated seed pod of Love-in-Mist, of a Wasp Spider, presumably (hopefully) with the eggs from last summer still inside it. One to look for later in the year!

With time to stand and stare, time being the one freedom we now have, it was wonderful to chance upon some of the more lowly denizens of the reserve, including caterpillars of Fox Moth and Dark Arches, and an incredibly camouflaged, tiny grasshopper, the Common Groundhopper, which while not rare in the county is so inconspicuous it is rarely noticed. Groundhoppers are the only members of the Orthoptera which can be found as adults at this time of year; unlike others in the group, grasshoppers and bush-crickets, which spend the winter months as eggs, groundhoppers overwinter in the adult or larger nymphal stages.

An hour of delights: a place to sooth, a place to wonder, a place to wander – at its best, under the watchful guardian eye of the ‘Angel of Cockaynes Wood’…

 

Lockdown diary: In praise of Alexanders…

Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

‘Alexander’s what?’ you may well ask. Granted, it is a strange name for a plant, but it could be said to be ‘Alexander’s Parsley’, in the sense it used to be called the ‘Parsley of Alexandria’, the city in Egypt founded by and named after Alexander the Great. And it is there, around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, where Alexanders has its ancestral, native home. The Romans knew and valued it as a pot-herb, with taste and consistency similar to the related celery, and took it with them in their colonisation of western Europe two thousand years ago.

When I became a botanist forty years ago, Alexanders was found in two main habitats. Firstly, it was well known in grassy areas and hedge banks in and around centres of Roman civilisation and subsequent monastic activity, a persistent relic of former times. Secondly, reflecting its southern origins and susceptibility to frost, it was known from a thin belt around the coasts of southern England, Wales and Ireland, thriving under the winter warming mantle of the sea.

At the time I was in Norfolk, and one could always tell when approaching within a kilometre or two of the coast in May, as the road verges switched from the white of Cow Parsley to the yellow-green of Alexanders flowers. The photo above shows just that transition, near Ringstead in north Norfolk, in 1983 (sorry for the poor quality). Of course all that has now changed with global warming/climate breakdown: Alexanders has spread out from these adopted homes and now occupies a near-continuous range across East Anglia, the Home Counties and the South-west Peninsula.

Perhaps surprisingly, here in Wivenhoe it is not all that frequent. The main population we have is on the verges of Anglesea Road, an unmade ‘back road’ out of town, and concentrated around the bridge across the railway line. Close to home, and thus within easy reach of a lockdown exercise walk, this year has seen us paying lots of attention to our Alexanders…

The flowers started to open early, before the end of March, a budburst which has advanced along with its geographic spread. The flowers are lovely in close up, a distinctive yellow-green, a colour that complements the pink streaking on the enlarged, ensheathing leaf-bases. And almost straight away the aromatic, musky aroma started to draw in insects. As with all umbellifers, the flowers are open to all manner of pollinators, especially flies and wasps, tiny flowers in large flowerheads providing an excellent early season nectar and pollen resource.

Hoverflies have been especially noticeable thus far, in particular one rather special one, the Spotty-eyed Hoverfly Eristalinus aeneus (just look at those eyes!): one of only two hoverflies with that eye-pattern in Britain, it is a specialist of the coastal fringes, especially in the south-east.

 

Later on, other hoverflies will include Rhingia campestris (just starting to appear as I write), with their distinctive elongated ‘snout’, and very soon the St Mark’s Flies Bibio marci  (and relatives) will be out and draping their flowers in long-legged embrace. The later-opening flowers in May will also likely be home to the picture-winged fly Euleia heraclei, lovely creatures to watch, flashing their bar-codes at each other in courtship dance. These spend their larval life mining the leaf-tissues, between the upper and lower surface, creating an obvious blotch-mine. And the crowns of flowers will become vantage points for Yellow Dung-flies Scathophaga stercoraria, a hunter of other flies attracted to the flowers to feed.

This last week, the most noticeable insects have been ladybirds, basking on leaves as well as flowers, where they may be supplementing their usual aphid diet with nectar and/or pollen. Not that all were feeding: making the next generation was the activity of the week! We found at least eight species on the 10 metre long Alexanders patch, some of them in a bewildering array of colour forms; it was particularly pleasing to see Two-spotted Ladybirds, as these seem to have become rather scarce in these parts since the arrival of the Harlequin Ladybird some 15 years ago.

And all that is just a small snapshhot of what our Alexanders, any Alexanders, is going to offer, entomologically – here are a few more:

One other noticeable feature of this plant is that it is very often infected with Alexanders Rust, a microfungus. Rusts are so-called because they cause lesions on the host plant, often liberally sprinkled with orange spore-producing bodies. Furthermore, this species also causes the host plant to twist and contort, forming a gall.

Notwithstanding its value to passing insects, given the potentially invasive nature of Alexanders and its non-native status, it is perhaps a pity that more folk don’t eat it. The whole plant is edible, from roots and stems to leaves and flower buds, and even the dried, black seeds which can be ground up into a mild, aromatic ‘pepper’.

That may well be because it is not actually very pleasant….the celery/angelica notes, with rather oily spiciness (hence it is believed the origin of its scientific name Smyrnium, alluding to its myrrh-like qualities) is largely lost with cooking and my recollection is of pretty tasteless mush. But, if a suitable recipe could be developed, perhaps using also the mild garlic of that other invasive verge plant Three-cornered Leek, ‘eating the landscape’ could actually do a lot of good for conservation by keeping the invaders at bay.

 

Lockdown diary: #ReasonsToBeCheerful in #wildWivenhoe – the first three weeks

WildWivenhoe

From the point in the COVID-19 pandemic that it became clear than lockdown was going to be necessary, we started a thread on the Wivenhoe Forum on an almost daily basis detailing the progress of Spring, hopefully a ray of sunshine in dark times. Mostly this was a series of tweets, each with a few Natural Health Service highlights which are reproduced below.

March 13

In dark times like we are entering, when we may well find our living space severely curtailed, one thing is likely to be true – there is nowhere safer than being outside and on your own with nature. Please post and share images and thoughts here which can help to brighten up grim times. And maybe we will all get to know and love our local patch even more, and after this horror is over, we might just start to look after that which has sustained us a little better,

A few spring flowers from the past couple of days to start:

March 14

Also yesterday, quite by chance Jude and I were heading out on a litterpick along the riverbank, when we bumped into the litterpicker extraordinaire Wayne Dixon and his lovely dog Koda. They had just reached Wivenhoe after four years walking the coast of Britain, picking litter, raising awareness of Keep Britain Tidy and money for MIND. We had heard of his adventures but had no idea he was here. A privilege and pleasure to meet him.

So, how about another virus bonus: if confined to barracks (and there’s a lot worse barracks to be confined in than Wivenhoe), how’s about picking up litter as you go, and by the end of the nightmare our environment might be able to breathe once again, freed up from the plastic mantle we are choking it with as a result of the laziness and ignorance of our species.

March 16

March 20

March 21

March 22 – the day the formal lockdown started

Several of us took part in a Wivenhoe Birders’ Tweetathon this morning, live tweeting about the birds seen from our windows. From our lofty perch in the Shipyard, we recorded 27 species in two hours. Mny were water birds, with the expected Canada and Grey Lag Geese, Redshank, Mallard, Little Egret and Oystercatcher, plus Wigeon and Black-tailed Godwit flying over. Several Buzzards were in the air, including two displaying over Wivenhoe Wood, and they were joined in the thermals by a soaring Cormorant. With no Church bell activity, the tower was frequented all morning by a noisy gaggle of Jackdaws. And there were a surprising number of unexpected small birds moving past at above rooftop height, including Dunnock, Robin, a few Blue Tits and several flocks of Goldfinch.

March 23

March 25

March 26

March 27

March 28

March 29

March 30

March 31

April 1

April 2

April 3

No photos from me today, but just an observation: have you noticed the huge increase in Buzzards over town since lockdown. Now, looking out of our Shipyard flat windows, it is the exception to see a sky without buzzards, and not just single birds but groups of five or six not uncommonly. Case in point, just ten minutes ago, three circling directly over the church (with a Heron). To some extent these are likely to be migrant birds, but it really does seem that our praeternaturally silent streets with barely a whiff of hydrocarbons may be encouraging them in.

April 4

April 5

April 6

The best bird watchers are the bird listeners: hear that something potentially interesting is around and that gives you a few seconds head start in the race to see it before it flies away. You don’t even need to know what the sound is, maybe just a non-specific tic or seep, it serves your purpose in raising your alert levels. And now, with so little traffic noise and plane noise and human chatter, is the ideal time to be on the listen – there’s relatively little else to filter out in your brain.

So it was ten minutes ago on Anglesea Road. A flurry of mewling calls, which so often mean ‘birds of prey overhead’ especially when displaying. And there was a pair of buzzards in rising and falling, butterfly-flapping display flight, followed by a similarly noisy pair of sparrowhawks, soaring wingtip to wingtip in tight circles, followed again by ponderous deep wing flaps. Hopefully both pairs will establish breeding territories around that edge of town.

April 7

Early in the morning, Glyn Evans wrote: Another Red Kite seen just now drifting NE over the Cross.

And how right he was…Buzzards moving through all morning, in one case maybe 12 or more birds in a flock. And then at lunchtime, we heard the news that a White-tailed Eagle has been seen heading south over Ipswich. Then over Cattawade and Lawford. Then Ardleigh. On a direct track for Wivenhoe – Richard Allen picked it up over his house (his third record of the species in 5 years), and a couple of others in mid-Wivenhoe likewise, and Rowhedge, then finally I saw it heading away over Fingringhoe Mill. But something didn’t quite add up – in the morning there had been reports from the Walton area, and some of the sightings over town were out of kilter time wise. Could it have been that two birds actually came over us within a few minutes of each other? Not as far fetched as it seems – this/these are likely to be young birds from the recent release (prior to hopeful re-establishment) on the Isle of Wight. Some of those birds have been tracked over wide swathes of the south this winter.

And then today there were Swallows coming through, and also 3 Cranes, although so far as I know none of us Wivenhoe skywatchers got on to those (Rowhedge only…)

Quite a day in the clear blue Wivenhoe skies, and who knows what the next few days will bring ….Nightingale and Cuckoo should soon be with us, and both have been heard in the past couple of days around Maldon and Colchester respectively!

April 8

To be continued…

Lockdown diary: Botany & Bugs (and more!) on your Doorstep – early April

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

We are now well into April (Easter Monday in fact) and, having an afternoon indoors  (ha ha, what’s new… ), thought it was an ideal opportunity  to pen a nature update, compiled from our sightings and those sent in from you good folks. As a friend commented ‘Nature is my solace and salvation at the moment’ – couldn’t have put it better myself! Hope that the wonderful natural world is helping to bring you joy and calm at this most uncertain and unprecedented of times.

Lots seems to be happening – not only on the botany, bug and bird front, but also in the form of some amazing ‘natural phenomena’. Chris noticed a medium-sized bat fluttering past our window a few evenings ago (couldn’t be sure of species, but too big for the Common Pipistrelle) and the same night we were privileged to get a glimpse of an amazing ‘Pink’ moon – hope some of you saw it. The previous week we saw something totally new – and given we are avid sunset-watchers this was quite exciting! – a ‘sun pillar’ caused by the rays on ice-crystals in the atmosphere according to our Weather book.

So what has been happening in your patch? A beautiful Brimstone was photographed from a most unusual angle as it was being rescued in a pot from a greenhouse – these are stunning butterflies and the inspiration for part of a quote from another of our wildlife lovers  ‘ … so many butterflies, bright lime green, blue and other colours, and such a cover of wild flowers’. Paints a lovely picture, doesn’t it?

Other butterflies seen include Orange-tips (seen in Hadleigh, Suffolk and Wivenhoe) and Peacocks, and several of you have been noticing and reporting Bee-flies. One thing to look out for is the Dotted Bee-fly, so named because of its spotty wings. And whilst not usually known from around here, this has recently been seen in Colchester. We would be particularly interested if you see one (and can get a photo) to send us.

Spring flowers are delighting us at every turn, and thanks for reports of Colt’s-foot (from our correspondent in Yorkshire), as well as Stitchwort, Sallow catkins, and Violet.

Bird watching is always on the menu in our household and this year is no exception. In fact due to all this time we now have, Chris has been spending an inordinate amount of time looking out of the window and at the last count had spotted 57 species since Lockdown.  We are indebted to one of our group who let us know that she had had the pleasure of a Nightingale’s song to accompany her on her early morning exercise. So they are about, folks, we know of some in Suffolk, and do let us know if you have heard any, wherever you are. Other avian interest comes in the form of Swallows seen in Bradfield, plus House Martins in Wivenhoe. Chris was thrilled to spot a White-tailed Eagle from our flat the other afternoon. (It looked like a little speck to me ☹). Chiffchaffs have been heard in lots of places and Buzzards noted almost everywhere, seemingly more easily seen when the streets are not filled with the noise of cars and people.

As usual, when we are out we look out for insects that are enjoying a sunny spot, and Alexanders is a plant which seems a favourable fuelling station/place of refuge for many interesting beasties. Three that we observed last week were Ten-spot Ladybird (among at least eight types of ladybird), Umbellifer Longhorn beetle, and the hoverfly Eristalinus aeneus, very distinctive with its spotted eyes.

Our friend in Brighton saw and snapped this wonderful Mourning Bee in her garden, and we know that a local bee-fan has had White- or Buff-tailed Bumblebees taking a lot of interest in his disused compost bin.

Please keep sending us your reports by email or WhatsApp. Next on the list to look/ listen out for include Cuckoo and Swifts – but we are interested in anything you may have encountered.Keep safe and well and we look forward to resuming our nature walks when it is deemed safe to do so.  As a friend commented ‘Isn’t nature wonderful’ – yes, it is and we are the lucky ones in that we appreciate it.

Photo credits: Sue Minta (Dog-violet), Andrea Williams (Brimstone), Val Appleyard (Mourning Bee), Cathy Burns (Greater Stitchwort), Biological Records Centre (Dotted Bee-fly), Chris (the rest).

Lockdown diary: The Bolt-holes of Wivenhoe Shipyard Jetty

Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

One of our last blogs covered the plants of a microhabitat, dry grassland, found as discrete islands amid a sea of marshland on the top of ant-hills. Each one is unique, reflecting the uncertainties of colonisation of any of the species: chance plays a huge role in shaping the world around us.

Exactly the same, possibly even more so, can be said of today’s microhabitats, even closer to home for us, the array of 2cm-diameter bolt-holes on the timbers of the Shipyard jetty.

Lockdown changes perceptions, giving us the luxury of being able  to look closely at that which we have walked over uncomprehendingly for years. Colonised by a range of different mosses and lichens, each and every faerie garden is absolutely unique, a miniature of natural art.

And moreover, a natural experiment, just waiting to be investigated. A whole series of transects, in two dimensions (distance from the shore, and running at a right angle, distance from the edge, the latter probably significant in terms of trampling, salinity and nutrient status given the propensity of Black-headed Gulls to sit on the rails)…

… and if the lockdown continues long into the summer, that might just be one of our sanity projects. Something which could produce valuable scientific evidence related to the the theories of island biogeography and colonisation, of such importance to understanding how we might encourage recolonisation of our nature-depleted landscape.

Lockdown diary: Botany & Bugs (and more!) on your Doorstep

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

‘Nature can be such a balm for troubled souls’ – wise words indeed from one of our Wildlife Lovers.  There has been much to trouble us in recent days and weeks, and it is now more important than ever to find solace and comfort where we can.  Where better than on our doorsteps,  in the form of a free, alternative ‘NHS’  – Natural Health Service.   We have been delighted with the response to our email, suggesting we all keep in touch in these dark days by sharing sightings of nature from our windows/gardens/ or where we happen to be on our ‘daily exercise sessions’ and thank you everyone who has been in touch.

Now March has come to an end it seemed an appropriate time to do a little blog, sharing some of your highlights and observations.  Some of the recipients of our emails are either temporarily, or permanently not in Wivenhoe, so we are especially pleased to be able to compare sightings from Yorkshire, London, Brighton, France, Suffolk as well as villages nearer to home.

We are glad to report that one of favourite critters, the bee fly, seems to be doing well.  Our respondents from Wivenhoe reported a number of visitations to their gardens, and  Bombylius major has also been seen in London, St Osyth and Brighton.   We have today heard about ‘Bee fly Watch 2020), a national recording scheme for these little wonders.  If you would like to take part, please check out this link.

Another of our group commented that ‘Watching butterflies and listening to Radio 3’ was calming, and these colourful insects are indeed a joy to behold.  Wivenhoe has seen Brimstones, Small Tortoiseshells, Peacocks and a remarkably early Painted Lady.   A Red Admiral inspired admiration in France, and our Brighton contributor saw Commas and Small Tortoiseshells.

Other insects that you have told us about include Buff-tailed Bumblebees in Yorkshire, queen bees in Suffolk, and a Hummingbird Hawk-moth and Juniper Shield-bug  in Brighton.  We are unlikely to see that particular bug here in our part of Essex (although it does seem to be spreading our way – check out your Lawson’s Cypresses),  but the moth (a day-flyer) can be seen if you are lucky.  It is a fast-mover and imitates the action of a hummingbird, sipping nectar from flowers with its long ‘tongue’.

Spring flora is springing into action – Bluebells are beginning to bloom in our Old Cemetery: one of our many Reasons to Be Cheerful (see the thread on Wivenhoe Forum here for more of these!).

We, and several of you it seems, have noticed how wonderfully clear the skies are at the moment – the lack of vapour trails caused by aircraft enhances our outlook and sense of wellbeing.  ( As one of our group said, it is ‘strangely comforting’ without them). OUR planet has a chance to breathe again, albeit temporarily.

We know some of you have swift boxes/bug hotels and other special features in your gardens – let us know if you get any visitors. We are especially interested in your first sightings of Swallows and Swifts this year.  As yet we have no UK Swallow spots, but our couple in France have them there. And then there’s the first Nightingale and Cuckoo to arrive over the next month: the Cuckoo needs no introduction, but if you don’t know the beautiful  song of the Nightingale, here’s an example. Regularly heard around Grange Wood and near Boundary Road, Nightingales are also often heard closer to town when they first arrive, and maybe this year with fewer folk around and about, they will stay closer to us.

Please keep in touch and let us know what is going on, on your doorstep, by email or WhatsApp. And keep safe and well.

Photo credits: Sue Minta (Peacock, Bluebell), Val Appleyard (Juniper Shield-bug), Chris – the rest

Lockdown diary: The Ant-hills of Barrier Marsh

Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

Just downstream of Wivenhoe lies Barrier Marsh, an area of typical Essex grazing marsh. Formerly tidal saltings, the influence of the tide was removed several centuries ago by the creation of the sea-wall, a coastal defence aimed at facilitating agricultural grazing of the land behind. Now it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, notified especially for the nationally scarce plants it supports and for the diversity of ditch plant communities found there. But one of its most significant features is overlooked by the designation: stand on the sea wall and look across the marsh, and the overwhelming impression is of an undulating sea of grassy mounds – the nests (ant-hills) of the Yellow Meadow Ant Lasius flavus.

The marsh is bisected by The Chase, a track running on a bund from higher ground. This is actually in a sliver of the otherwise landlocked historic parish of Elmstead, giving access to tidal waters between its neighbours, Wivenhoe and Alresford. Most of the larger ant-hills (up to 50cm high) are east of the The Chase, suggesting this is ‘virgin’ grazing marsh, while to the west, the surface is more level, the hills are fewer and smaller, possibly indicating that this side was ploughed in the past, perhaps during World War 2. Taken together, a back of an envelope calculation suggests that there are between ten and twenty thousand large hills on this marsh, and as each nest may support up to 5,000 ants, that’s an awful lot of ants…

So why were we out looking at ant-hills as our permitted lockdown exercise? Simply, they are endlessly fascinating – each hill is different, an island of aerated, sandier soil in a sea of waterlogged marshland. Each microcosm has a different range of plants that have colonised it, probably related the to the size (age) of the ant-hill and the distance of the hill from the ‘mainland’ (The Chase), but also influenced by random colonisation events.

So, as the photos here indicate, each ant-hill is unique, and together they support a range of species one would not expect to find in a marshland context: Sticky Mouse-ear, Sheep’s Sorrel, Small Forget-me-not, Wall Speedwell, Groundsel, Early Whitlow-grass and Hairy Bittercress, and the cup lichen Cladonia fimbriata. In other words, an archipelago of mini-heathlands.

Two plants deserve special mention. One is the nationally scarce Divided Sedge, one of the features for which this site is designated SSSI. This is widespread right across the site, but on the anthills, it was already in flower, incredibly early in the season for that which I normally associate with May. Conversely, something flowering when it should but not where I would expect it was the Early Meadow-grass on just a couple of ant-hills, a plant I have never seen before around Wivenhoe, nor indeed in Essex away from Thames-side.

The hills in general looked very healthy, with only a few crumbling away after a colony has died. When the sea wall overtopped in the tidal surge of December 2013, much of the marsh was under a metre of water for a couple of weeks, and I was worried for the future of the ants. Presumably they are able to tolerate some degree of inundation: in winter they retreat into the heart of the hill, when there may well be air-filled chambers, enough for some of the colony to remain alive.

Even now, at the end of March, it is likely the ants are deep down, albeit not down as far as the waterlogged marsh soils. We certainly saw none. Although, unless you deliberately dig into a Yellow Meadow Ant-hill, there are not often seen. They have little need to come to the surface and run the gauntlet of insectivorous birds, as for the most part they feed on honeydew excreted by aphids which live on the roots of the plants of the ant-hill!

As long as we are in lockdown, I suspect we shall continue to visit our ant-hills regularly. As the nests awaken from their winter torpor, perhaps we will even manage to find  something I have looked for for years but without success: the tiny, while, blind woodlouse Platyarthrus hoffmannseggii, which lives its life in these ant-hills. But to damage a hill in this quest would be a travesty of natural justice: I guess we will simply have to wait until we see a Green Woodpecker digging into a nest in search for food…

And to cap it all, a month later we came upon one, just one among thousands so far as we could ascertain, ant-hill with a couple of plants of the nationally scarce and fascinating Mousetail.

 

Lockdown diary: In praise of flowery lawns…

Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe
As our country is (thankfully, but belatedly) locked down in an attempt to tackle COVID-19, we must start taking simple pleasures from the brief spells we are permitted to stretch our legs. Gardens and parks are the main bits of ‘the wild’ most of us are likely to encounter for a few weeks, at least. But they can provide much to lift the spirits, even those seemingly sterile grassy patches in the middle, the lawns.

In almost every lawn today, Nature’s service stations – Dandelions and Daisies – are at their best. You might want to be out in your garden, and time may well be hanging heavy on your shoulders, but please don’t spend that time mowing the flowers off. Instead, perhaps spend time sitting and enjoying the insects which use them?

And on any warm(ish) day, those insects will be both manifold and manifest. Butterflies, perhaps best thought of as mobile garden flowers, are likely to include Peacocks and Brimstones nectaring at the Dandelions, while the earlier-emerging flowers that have precociously gone to seed are already being investigated by seed-eating birds, especially Goldfinches.

Then the Daisies, the humblest of flowers, but a great nectar and pollen source for smaller insects – flies and solitary bees and wasps in particular. Too many see the sight of a green lawn bestrewn with the sparkling faces of flowers, feeding an array of beneficial insects, as a challenge to their mastery of their patch – but surely the one thing this viral escapade can teach us is that we are but a part of Nature, not its master, and we should value and protect it accordingly.

Beth Chatto Gardens – on this day in history…..

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

Today sadly, but very sensibly, the Beth Chatto Gardens announced they are to be closed for the foreseeable future, part of the collective effort to halt the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

But the blogs can go on. OneDrive has just introduced an ‘On this day’ function, whereby it shows you all the digital photos taken on this day, in our case going back some 16 years. And so it was today, when I was informed we visited the Beth Chatto Garden on 22 March 2012, 8 years ago. And it was seemingly a lovely sunny day, just like today…

Here is a selection of photos from that occasion, the usual mix of plants and other wildlife, and all photos which would otherwise have remained unlooked-at on our computer. This provides a great chance to dust some of them off. And it is wonderful to see, comparing these with my last blog, how the seasons keep on turning, life is renewed, irrespective of the evident problems we cause to the planet.

No words, just photos of one of my favourite places:  we’ll be back as soon as we can!