Winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024 – The Swarm of Life by Canadian photographer Shane Gross

Dear Readers, yesterday I gave my talk to Finchley Women’s Institute, on the subject of ‘ A Community is More Than Just People’. I was a bit worried about it – I hadn’t done a presentation for years, plus as you might remember I managed to throw myself to the floor again on Tuesday, so was back to hobbling about with a crutch. But what a lovely evening it was! I had forgotten how much fun it was to talk about something that other people also care about, and are interested in. I got some great questions, and at the end one of the ladies showed me the photo above, and asked me what I thought it was.

At first glance, it looks like a flight of birds heading through a bamboo forest, but it is actually a shoal of Western Toad tadpoles, taken in Canada by photographer Shane Gross. It’s just won the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, and I am so pleased that such a humble creature has been given its moment in the spotlight. So often photography prizes are won by photos of  big charismatic animals such as elephants or tigers, but this particular prize often highlights interesting images of creatures that are often overlooked.

I wondered how Gross took the photo, and the answer was ‘with some difficulty’. He snorkelled in a lake on Vancouver Island, using the paths made by beavers so that he didn’t stir up silt and make the water cloudy. But what are the tadpoles doing? Every night they hide away from predators in the depth of the lake, but in the morning they travel en masse to shallower water to feed. Only about 1 percent of the tadpoles will survive to adulthood, which is probably the same percentage of the froglets in my pond that will survive. No wonder frogs and toads often lay so many eggs, and have so many offspring, when the odds against them are stacked so high.

The image itself is stunning. We can see the sunlight in the top left of the photo, and little bubbles of air are clinging to the sides of some of the tadpoles, making them look silver. Am I the only one that looks at them and wills them on, hoping for the best for every single little scrap of life. It’s amazing how a single image can make you stop and think, not only about the little toads but about the whole underwater world, hidden from our eyes for most of the time but so vital to the health of the planet.

And I suppose that’s why it’s so important to share an image, a story, an idea about the natural world – it helps us to find ‘our people’, the great and expanding community of those who care about the plants and animals around us, and want to share their knowledge and their observations. There is something very special about knowing that you’re not alone, however eccentric you might sometimes feel. The world is full of Bug Women (and Men) and Tree People, and Plant Persons. You just need to find them.

You can see some of the other winning photos in Wildlife Photographer of the Year here.

Dear Readers, what a day yesterday was! You might remember that I was having the whitebeam and the hawthorn pruned (the last time it was done was about seven years ago, and they were both getting very overgrown for the size of the garden). Well, the tree surgeons arrived at about 8.30 and worked literally through thunderstorms and torrential rain. The chipper outside was going almost continually, and M, the guy that I’ve been working with for the past fifteen years, took on the hedge while someone younger went up the trees. Poor old M had a heart attack last year, so I suspect his days of shinning up trees like a squirrel are done, but he still wields a chain saw like an expert.

This morning all the collared doves and woodpigeons were sitting on the whitebeam as if nothing had happened. I had no idea of how many of them there were. The pollarding looks brutal, but past experience tells me that within a year the tree will have even more leaves than it had last time.

The squirrels are very fed up about the hawthorn, but fortunately there is still plenty of undergrowth and bushy stuff for them to rummage through.

And in the middle of all this, I managed to fall over on the landing. At least it was indoors! My fractured leg is a bit sore, and the ankle on the other side is complaining a bit, but it could have been much worse. I’m beginning to wonder if I have a condition called Chronic Ankle Instability – it happens when there have been a number of ‘sprained ankle’ incidents which stretch the ligaments and cause the ankle to just ‘give way’, which has certainly been my experience. Has anyone ever heard of it? I could really do with finding out what’s going on, it’s so traumatic, not least for my poor husband. I think his life flashes in front of his eyes every time he hears a thump.

Anyhow, this is the first time that I’ve been able to see the Virginia Creeper at the back of the garden from the kitchen. The whole space feels much lighter and more open, and when I talk to my prospective new garden help on Friday, I’ll see what we can do to really maximise the space for wildlife and for humans. I wince when I look at the trees (and at the squirrels and pigeons,) but it’s all for the best in the long run.

Plane Lace Bug (Corythucha ciliata) Photo from https://animalia.bio/corythucha-ciliata

Dear Readers, there have been a number of stories in the press this week about ‘Dangerous Biting Insects Spotted in UK for First Time in 18 Years’, and the culprit is pictured above – the Plane Lace Bug (or Sycamore Lace Bug if you live in North America). The big worry is actually not about the insects ‘biting’ (they are only 4 mm long, and there have been very occasional reports of them biting and causing a ‘mild rash’). The real problem is that London has many, many plane trees (the London Plane is probably ‘the’ London tree – there are estimated to be over 100,000 in the capital). The Plane Lace Bug comes originally from North America, but it is now widespread in mainland Europe, where it causes extensive damage to plane trees (you can read about what’s happening in Brussels here).

Like all true bugs, Plane Lace Bug has sharp, piercing mouth parts, and feeds on sap. Both adults and nymphs cluster on the underside of leaves and feed from there, nicely hidden from birds and other predators.

Plane Leaf Bug adults and nymphs feeding (Photo from https://www.monaconatureencyclopedia.com/corythucha-ciliata/?lang=en)

The leaves that are infested turn yellow, particularly along the veins, and may fall early. Repeated infestations may weaken the tree and eventually cause it to die. Infestations are also much more likely to occur on trees that are already stressed by heat, drought, shallow soil and the other problems that street trees face. Occasionally the infestation weakens the trees enough to allow damaging fungi to take hold, which then kill the tree. You can see why a Plane Lace Bug infestation could be a serious problem.

In 2006, Plane Lace Bugs were spotted at a nursery in Bedfordshire, imported with plane trees from France and Italy. Fortunately this particular infestation was treated, but it was found that there were already Plane Lace Bugs on the mature London Plane trees close to the nursery site, and the decision was made that the insect was in effect already here, but wasn’t causing serious damage. For this reason, it was decided that no statutory action was required.

The Forestry Commission has now confirmed (September 2024) that Plane Lace Bugs have been found on plane trees in central London. The Woodland Trust sent out volunteers from the  Observatree programme to look for signs of Plane Lace Bug damage – this is a specially-trained group which will look for specific pests and diseases if there is an alert. If you see someone looking up at a plane tree with a pair of binoculars, it’s probably someone from Observatree! If you see something suspicious you can report a suspected sighting on the Tree Alert site here.

An example of the leaf damage is below:

Plane tree leaf damage (Photo from https://endoterapiavegetal.com/en/pests-and-pathologies/sycamore-lace-bug/#iLightbox%5Bdc12855f0207f25cc68%5D/2)

But what to do if there is an infestation? The use of insecticide on mature plane trees would be costly, inefficient  and extremely damaging to the rest of the ecosystem. DEFRA (the Department for Environmental, Rural and Agricultural Affairs) suggest other remedies such as ‘hosing down’, ‘soapy water’ and the use of biocontrols such assassin bugs, spiders and mites where the infestation is spotted early. And that is probably the key. Maybe we should all be assigned a plane tree to keep an eye on. I will certainly be taking the time to check out the beautiful trees along East Finchley High Street.

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Dear Readers, Tuesday is a big day here in Bug Woman Towers – the tree surgeons that I’d booked for the spring, and who had to cancel because they were so far behind with their work, are now coming tomorrow, to do a fine pruning job on the whitebeam/hawthorn/mixed hedge. It has to be done, but I always find it really stressful – the trees will look as if they’ve been butchered, the squirrels will be thoroughly fed up, and the  birds will be confused. Plus there’s the perennial problem of finding two parking spaces outside the house for the van and the chipper – at the moment I have one, but I’ll be watching with great agitation to see if either of the cars on either side move. Thank heavens for the street Whatsapp group, that’s all I can say. Update – I now have two spaces, let’s hope some irate driver doesn’t move the bins.

There are several dreys in the Hawthorn, but they don’t look as if they’re used at present. And interestingly, most of the berries have been eaten already. At least we’re coming towards the end of the season.

So many leaves just waiting to drop!

I’ve also bitten the bullet, and am talking to someone to help me with the gardening – between the back, the leg and the heart it’s all been feeling a bit much, so I’ve found someone who seems sympathetic to the idea of a wildlife garden, and who will give me a hand. It’s hard sometimes to admit that you need help, but if the past few months have taught me anything, it’s that ‘independence’ is something of an illusion, and that we all need help sometimes. Let’s see how we get on!

An Image from an exploration of ‘Death Alley’ along the Mississippi in Louisiana

Dear Readers, yesterday I made another foray into central London to see the current (free) exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, “Hard Graft“. It was a fascinating exploration of the ways in which work impacts the human body, and there was much to think about.

I didn’t have the stamina to spend as much time there as I would have liked, but I did sit for twenty minutes to watch the film in the photograph above. It explores an area along the Mississippi river in Louisiana which used to be known as ‘Cancer Alley’ (now ‘Death Alley’) and it describes how the land once used as sugar plantations is now a network of industrial sites, interspersed with small towns populated largely by black people, many of them the descendants of the slaves that used to live and die there. It shows how the plumes of toxic chemicals and particulates impact these small towns, and the images of the poisoned air that people are breathing in every day is horrifying. But people are fighting back on a number of fronts, and one of them is to identify the burial grounds of the slaves who died on the various plantations. When companies want to develop the land for industrial purposes, it’s surprising how often the archaeological companies that they employ ‘miss’ these graveyards, only for them to turn up when a less biased organisation is involved – even in Louisiana, it’s illegal to build over a graveyard. So a lot of work is going into identifying these burial sites, which were usually very close to the slave quarters, and where trees such as magnolias were often planted by those who were related to the deceased. If the sites can be found, at least any further industrial development can be halted, while efforts are being made to hold the existing facilities to account for their emissions.

The exhibition is split into three sections – ‘Plantation’, ‘Street’ (which features everything from sex workers to garbage disposal teams) and ‘Home’, about cleaners, piece work and other work done from the home. It has a strong emphasis on people coming together to fight injustice, and the importance of collective action. I highly recommend it, not least because it made me think about the impact of work on the body.

My mother was a ‘touch-typist’ who used to type up reports, manuscripts and other documents dictated by some boss-type chap (and it was always a chap) into a recording machine called a Dictaphone. Who remembers those? Back in the day, people didn’t do their own typing on their own laptop. No, they got someone else (usually a woman) to do it for them. One day Mum was musing about her life, and said something that’s stayed with me to this day.

“I just feel like part of a machine. I’ve got the ear phones in my ears (to listen to the recorded tape), my hands on the keyboard (Mum was once timed at 130 words per minute, and that was on a manual typewriter) and my feet on the pedals (that controlled how fast the tape went).

In fact, towards the end of her working life Mum developed carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), but interestingly this only happened after the electric typewriter was introduced. On a manual typewriter, you used to have to stop to return the carriage at the end of every line, and so there were a variety of hand and arm movements. With an electric machine you could just keep going, and once the PC came in you didn’t even have to change the paper, so you were performing a small number of micromovements, just the sort of thing to irritate the median nerve, that runs through the tight corridors of the wrist joint.

Other people who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome include people who work with machinery such as jack hammers or drills. It is extremely painful and debilitating, but when one of Mum’s colleagues asked for time off for her CTS she was accused of being neurotic, and was managed out of the organisation. This was back in the early 1990s. Would it still happen now? I’d like to think not, but I’m not so sure.

The exhibition also made me think  about the implications of increasing the retirement age. If even sitting in an office can cause something as damaging as CTS (not to mention back pain and all the other joint problems that all that sitting can generate), how about people who are builders, or garbage collectors, gardeners or scaffolders? What happens if  you work outside in all weathers or have to do a lot of heavy lifting or other physically demanding labour as you grow older? Some people will stay as fit as a fiddle, but how about if you have arthritis or one of the other ailments that happen as approach retirement age? Clearly we have a demographic problem in the UK, as in the rest of the Western World, but it does seem particularly harsh that those who are often paid the least, and have the least chance to retire early, are the ones who end up suffering the most.

Rant over! If you’re in London, the exhibition is well worth a look, and there’s a fine café and bookshop too.

Day Octopus (Octopus cyanea) Photo by By Ahmed Abdul Rahman – Template:Mwn, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34663228

Dear Readers, the more I find out about octopuses, the more amazed I am at their intelligence and adaptability. They can also be surprisingly truculent creatures – who can forget the Australian female octopuses who regularly throw silt at male octopuses who are overly amorous? In this week’s New Scientist, there’s an article about Day Octopuses in the Indo-Pacific, who hunt alongside shoals of fish.

The ‘packs’ normally  consist of a single Day Octopus and a small shoal of mixed fish. If a fish makes a direct, urgent movement towards a particular location the octopus will often get involved – its tentacles mean that it can flush small creatures from interstices within rocks or coral, so the fish and the octopus get something to eat. Furthermore, if a fish finds something that it can’t reach and thinks that the octopus hasn’t noticed, it swims backwards and forwards in front of the octopus to get its attention.

But the octopus has no time for freeloaders. The scientist studying the octopus/fish ‘packs’, Eduardo Sampaio, has noticed that the octopus will ‘punch’ fish who are just hanging around rather than helping to find food. Furthermore, of the six species of fish most involved in hunting with the octopus, the Blue Goatfish (Parupeneus cyclostomus) was the most helpful, actively looking for food and signalling when it was found, while the Blacktip Grouper (Epinephelus fasciatus) was something of a slacker, and would just take advantage of the hard work of the octopus and the other fish. Small wonder, then, that the octopuses were only seen to ‘punch’ a Blue Goatfish three times, as compared to walloping the Blacktip Groupers twenty-seven times.

There is a brilliant film of all this happening here – notice how the octopus goes black (usually a sign of annoyance) before punching the fish.

I can think of a few other interactions between different animal species when it comes to food – ravens will signal to wolves and wolverines if there is a carcass that they can’t break into, and the honeyguide (bird) will work with humans and honey badgers if it finds a bees’ nest that it can’t access on its own. I find these examples of cross-species cooperation fascinating, and I’m sure there are many, many more in the sea that no one has documented.

You can read the New Scientist article here, and the whole research paper is here.

Day Octopus (Octopus cyanea) Photo by By Pauline Walsh Jacobson – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/251606691, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131674208

Dear Readers, I don’t usually succumb to the blandishments of the Royal Mail, but honestly, who could resist these stamps? They’re by one of my very favourite natural history illustrators, Richard Lewington. You might know Lewington through his illustrations for ‘Guide to Garden Wildlife‘….

or the Pocket Guide to Bumblebees….

or the Field Guide to Moths…

How on earth is he so prolific? His illustrations in the Moths book show the smallest gradation of difference between the species. Such precision! And the illustrations manage to be both accurate and beautiful, a true reflection of each species. And in the case of the moths, the illustrations are also life-sized.

But back to the spider stamps. I’ve seen and written about several of these species: the Candy-striped Spider was spotted on the Hemp Agrimony a few years ago…

The Zebra Jumping Spider is a regular favourite….

I did a post about the Cucumber Spider back in 2018…

And I wrote about the Nursery Web spiders that I found in Barnwood a few years ago.

How I would love to see some of the others, though! In particular the Wasp Spider, who is advancing north as climate change makes the environment more suitable for it. And what a spectacular arachnid it is! Its web contains a zigzag band of silk, which I think makes it unique in the UK, and it lives mainly on grasshoppers.

And I wouldn’t mind seeing a Ladybird Spider either – it’s the sole member of the Velvet Spider family, and was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 2002. It’s extremely rare, and fully protected in law, so I would be very lucky to see one, though as it does mainly live in a single site in Dorset at least I am sometimes in the right part of the country.

So, what a delight these stamps are! If you’re a spider lover, you can treat yourself to a set here, And if you fancy buying a Richard Lewington print or even an original, there are some for sale here. Well, Christmas is coming, unbelievable as it seems…..

Dear Readers, over the past three months I have started to feel as if Whittington Hospital’s Orthopaedic Department was my second home. I’ve grown to recognise the staff, to feel comfortable with the routine (check in, up to the third floor for an X-ray, down to the first floor again to see a doctor, make another appointment for a few weeks’ time). Today, though, was my last visit (unless something goes wrong) and I found it surprisingly moving.

It’s true that healing (physical or spiritual or mental) isn’t a constant upward line, with improvements every single day – if I walk too much on Tuesday I can be sitting on the sofa with an ice-pack on Wednesday. But over time, the line is definitely on the right trajectory. I have been walking about without a crutch at home for weeks, but when I’m outside I’ve still been using one. Today, I decided that as I was getting a cab to the hospital, I would leave it at home. There’s something about being indoors on a smooth surface that makes everything feel more manageable.

As usual, the X-ray technician let me have a look at my X-ray. I don’t have a photo of it yet, but there was a clear ‘bump’ over the fracture where the bone is healing and forming a callus. Hopefully I can persuade the physiotherapist to take a photo so I can show you. It’s quite something to be able to actually have a time lapse sequence of your body healing. And the X-ray technicians are always surprised that someone is interested, and happy (usually) to share their expertise with you.

The doctor was very pleased with my mobility, not quite so pleased with the limp, but happy to discharge me. She said that if there were any problems going forward I could just come to the clinic, and if the physio was worried she would refer me herself.

I feel  a little strange now. I’m clearly not ‘back to normal’, whatever that is, but I do have a new spring in my step (not too much, though, one has to be sensible). And so I caught the bus home, rather than getting a cab, and found that people sprang up to give me their seat when they saw how I was walking. I can’t yet go upstairs on the bus, but at least I feel a little more independent. And how far I’ve come, from being completely dependent on my husband for everything to being able to get on a bus! I feel quite elated, and very humble. What a wonder the NHS is, and how grateful I am for all my friends, near and far, those I’ve known in person for years and those I’ve never met. Thank you so much to you all.

Dear Readers, it’s that time of year when strange creatures move into the house. If it’s not the spiders it’s the craneflies (daddy-long-legs here in the UK), flying around erratically and crashing into walls/light-fittings/slow-moving humans.  In my original piece below, I write about my childhood fear of these utterly harmless, short-lived insects, and I’m pleased to report that I’m much less bothered by them now – it’s amazing how a little knowledge can turn something from frightening to fascinating, or at least that’s what I find. And it’s only for a few weeks, after all. The first frosts will kill them all off, but before that they’re food to all manner of autumn migrant birds and other predators.

And incidentally, for my readers in other parts of the world, here are some other creatures that you might know as ‘daddy-long-legs’ but are called other things in the UK (though there might also be regional variations here, let me know!). Thank heavens for scientific binomial names, that’s all I can say. They may not trip off the tongue ( at first) but at least everyone knows what we’re on about.

First up, the harvestman. These are arachnids but not spiders, and used to be seen all over the walls of our outside toilet when I was a child in Stratford. Notice how their bodies don’t have the distinct segments that spiders have. Don’t ask me why the photo is green, I must have been having a camera-manipulation failure.

Harvestman (Phalangium opilia)

And here is a cellar spider, also a ‘daddy-long-legs’ candidate in some places. These little chaps vibrate up and down at tremendous speed if disturbed, and are voracious hunters of other spiders, to such an extent that if you have cellar spiders in your shed, as I do, you’re unlikely to have any other species.

Cellar spider (Pholcus phalangoides)

Anyhow, back to the ‘actual’ daddy-long-legs, and here’s what I had to say back in autumn 2021.

Dear Readers, I like to think of myself as pretty immune to fear when it comes to insects, though obviously I have a healthy respect for those that can bite and sting and will give them the space that they need. But as a child I had a completely irrational terror of the common-or-garden cranefly, or daddy-long-legs as they’re known in the UK. There’s something about the way that they fly so erratically that still gives me the shivers, though I’m much more under control than I used to be. After all, these creatures are harmless and, once hatched, have vanishingly short lives. For me they are the quintessential sign of autumn, as they bask in the sunshine or search for places to lay their eggs. Mum and Dad’s bungalow walls in Dorset were often covered in them, and it was a rare evening when a daddy-long-legs didn’t fly in and bash itself half to death against the ceiling light.

These are a very ancient type of fly: they were probably bumbling around 245 million years ago, and there are over 15,000 species of cranefly, in 500 genera. I was delighted to hear that scientists describe them as ‘deciduous’, not because they lose their leaves easily but because their legs detach very easily from their bodies, presumably as a way to thwart predators. In my more unenlightened days I would sometimes attempt to swat craneflies, and was always horrified at how easily their legs would come off. Furthermore, sometimes I would assume that the insect was dead only to hear it rustling some hours later, finally lifting off out of the wastepaper basket where its supposed corpse had been deposited and flying around the room like some zombie invertebrate. These days, I will carefully catch an errant cranefly in a glass and take it outside, which is much kinder. Mostly craneflies cannot feed as adults, and are really just waiting to mate, lay their eggs and die. I am pretty sure that the one in the photo is a gravid female.

While most baby animals have a kind of charm, it’s hard to find find anything cute about a larval cranefly, or leatherjacket. In many of those 15,000 species, the larva is a detritivore, helping to tidy up rotting vegetation. Alas, the commonest UK craneflies (Tipula sp.) include some species where the larvae feed on the roots of living plants – you will sometimes dig up a leatherjacket when trying to sort out a lawn, for example. Fortunately, the larvae are also a juicy snack for many birds, including crows, magpies, jackdaws and especially rooks. There was one famous incident in 1935 when there were so many leatherjackets under the wicket at Lords cricket ground that the groundstaff were tasked with digging them up and burning them (surely putting them on a bird table would have been a more ecological way to deal with the situation, but these were less enlightened times). Our old friend Wikipedia notes that ‘the pitch took unaccustomed spin for the rest of the season’.

This was clearly a problem across the country in the mid 1930s, and for your delectation, here is a 1936 article from The Guardian, which is a pure delight. As a sample, here is a description of a leatherjacket from the piece in question:

‘a horrible thing like a midget concertina, more or less the same at both ends, without any legs‘.

I have no idea what Paris Green is, but I do like the idea of turning over the soil to expose the grubs to their natural enemies.

Leatherjacket (Photo by Rasbak, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

I really do want to work on my attitude to craneflies, though. Their lives are short, and they can’t help having detachable legs and little aeronautical skill. Their heads look rather like those of miniature carousel horses, and I find that that helps a bit, though you could argue that it would be a roundabout from hell.

Head of a cranefly (Photo by By Thomas Shahan – Crane Fly – (Tipula), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8998257)

However, the largest cranefly in the world was recently discovered in China, and has the scientific name Holurusia mikado. It has a wingspan of about 8 centimetes, but goodness only knows how long the legs are. ‘Daddy-long-legs’ indeed!

Horusia mikado, the world’s largest cranefly (Photo from https://www.chinadailyhk.com/articles/38/140/76/1524561317187.html)

Sadly, many newspapers recorded the species as a mosquito, even though the insect barely feeds, and only eats nectar when it does. Poor cranefly! I can feel my empathy winning out over fear, as it so often does. It can’t be a lot of fun being a cranefly. To end, here’s a rather sad summing up of the life of the daddy-long-legs, written by Craig Brown at the height of an ‘explosion’ of craneflies in 2006, and included in ‘Bugs Britannica’ by Peter Marren and Richard Mabey.

“It is, I suppose, this sense of their utter uselessness that makes us pity them, and perhaps even, in our more downhearted moments, identify with them. Their life is all such an effort – and to what purpose?….Swarms of male daddy longlegs dance around like drunken morons on the lookout for lady friends. Copulation sounds like a grim affair for both parties. ‘The male genitalia include a pair of claspers which grip the female genital valves’, says one encyclopedia, ‘but in order to do so the male’s abdomen has to be twisted through 180 degrees’. Their only pleasure in life seems to be cleaning their legs, which they do obsessively after each meal, pulling them one at a time through their jaws. After all this, they bluster into a light-bulb, have a pot-shot taken at them, lose half their legs, crawl around for a bit, lose the other half, and then die. It’s not a life to be envied, I think, as I reach for the dustpan and brush”.