A hoverfly’s bum. You’re welcome!

Dear Readers, after missing last week’s walk in the cemetery because I was still feeling poorly, it was a great pleasure to have a stroll around today, enjoying the little things that have changed since I was here last. In truth, the end of July/beginning of August is a quiet time for nature, with the babies fledged, the caterpillars growing and all manner of creatures fattening up for the autumn, but there are still lots of interesting things going on if you look closely. The woodland graveyard site is full of blowsy thistles, wild carrot, ragwort and knapweed, and the hoverflies are taking full advantage.

Drone fly (Eristalis pertinax), a honeybee mimic

Hornet Mimic Hoverfly (Volucella zonaria)

Marmalade hoverfly (hopefully) (Episyrphus balteatus)

Hoverfly larvae are some of our most voracious aphid-eaters – we might be more familiar with ladybirds and their youngsters as they plough through a ‘herd’ of greenfly, but hoverfly maggots, though not the most appealing of creatures to look at, are basically aphid hoovers. The mimicry which means that these insects resemble bees or wasps is possibly also their downfall where humans are concerned – some people only have to see a flash of yellow and black stripes before they reach for a rolled-up newspaper. However, I’m sure that lots of predators leave them alone because of their colouration, so hopefully it all evens out. And look, here are some Common Red Soldier Beetles (Rhagonycha fulva), living up to their popular name of ‘bonking beetles’.

The conkers are continuing to fatten up.

Now, there’s a rose bush growing out of this conifer. So far, so unusual.

But here is something even more interesting…

This shaggy mass is the gall of a wasp, Diplolepsis rosae, which laid its eggs in the buds of the rose in the spring. Otherwise known as robin’s pincushions, each of these structures is woody inside and covered in long red or green hairs. The gall will contain many chambers, each of which contains a well-protected wasp larva. Male wasps are very rare, but the females can reproduce without needing sperm, so this is no problem. The new wasps appear in the spring, just in time to find new buds to parasitize. In Germany, these galls are known as ‘sleep apples’, and putting one under your pillow is supposed to be a cure for insomnia.

The inside of a robin’s pincushion, showing the chambers and larvae (Photo One)

I was having something of a gall-ing day though because I also found these galls on some crack willow. Someone has clearly been having a very good time! These are caused by a sawfly rather than a wasp: the female injects a chemical into the leaf that causes the plant to make the gall. She usually also lays an egg, which eats its way out of the gall over a few weeks, but occasionally a gall won’t have an egg, because for some reason the female didn’t lay one. This tree was positively peppered with galls but looked very healthy nonetheless. Healthy plants can put up with a great deal of nonsense from insect ‘pests’ without any detriment.

I spotted this lovely fresh female Gatekeeper butterfly (the males have a brown stripe across the forewings).

Rather less welcome is the positive plantation of Himalayan Balsam that I’m seeing next to the cemetery stream. This is such an attractive plant – it bears more than a passing resemblance to a huge moth orchid, and it comes in a whole range of pink, white and coral. However, it is going to be taking over this stream if folk don’t watch out, and as the cemetery already has a massive problem with Japanese Knotweed I hope that it will be kept under better control.

As we were walking through the trees, I heard the sound of young birds, probably raptors of some kind, hidden in the branches overhead. It was so frustrating not to be able to see them! But then I remembered a tip from Mike over at Alittlebitoutoffocus – he’d recently uploaded an app where you can ‘listen’ to birdsong with your phone, and it will then tell you, to a reasonable degree of accuracy, what you’re listening to. So, in the middle of the cemetery I downloaded the app, recorded the birds and lo and behold, it returned a result of ‘sparrowhawk’ with 95% certainty. Two minutes later, a sparrowhawk flew overhead. Result! I spent the rest of the walk recording various birds to see how good I was personally – I identified a song thrush, a green woodpecker and a blackcap, but would have missed a greenfinch (even though I know that they’re present in the cemetery because I’ve seen them). So, I can recommend this app if you want to improve your id skills, or even just want to find out what birds are about – there are definitely lots more than you ever see.

And finally, I had to stop to smell the lime blossom. I think it’s one of my favourite perfumes – not as heady as jasmine, not as floral as rose. What a delight it is to feel almost normal again.

Photo Credit

Photo One By Frank Vincentz – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2623501

Dear Readers, there has been all sorts of shenanigans at the Bathing Ponds on Hampstead Heath during the past few years. Charges were introduced for swimmers at the Women’s Pond for in 2004 (though I note that over sixties can still swim for free before 9.30 a.m.), and were increased recently. Works have taken place to dam some areas around the men’s pond due to flood risk – there are a lot of flood mitigation works in the pipeline in several of the green spaces in North London, and with the recent flooding following storms during the past month it looks as if something will need to be done. Balancing the future needs of the area against present amenities is always tricky, especially as, with climate change, things look so uncertain. One thing is certain – Hampstead Heath will always provoke strong, passionate feelings from those who use the area regularly, and who want to protect it. Long may this continue.

It was very quiet in the woods today: on a summer weekend during lockdown the crowds were everywhere, but today seemed like a welcome return to some kind of normal. The ivy roots dangling from this horse chestnut put me in mind of those great trees of the Southern USA with the Spanish Moss dangling from their branches.

There are little patches of Small Balsam (Impatiens parviflora) – I haven’t noticed this elsewhere in North London. At least it isn’t as bold and invasive as the Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) that’s popped up in other places, such as the Cemetery.

This very fine hoverfly was on the creeping thistle – I can’t pass a patch of thistle without stopping for a look, there’s always someone interesting popping in for a feed. This very handsome chap is the Great Pied Hoverfly (Volucella pellucens), a close relative of the Hornet Hoverfly(Volucella zonaria) that I mentioned in my post about Cherry Tree Wood earlier this week. The Great Pied Hoverfly has a most interesting lifecycle. The adult female walks into the nest of a common wasp, and somehow gets away without being stung to death. She lays her eggs, and when they develop into larvae they feed on detritus in the nest, and dead and dying wasps and their larvae. When they are ready to pupate, they leave the nest and burrow underground, reappearing the following spring in time for the whole cycle to begin again. Never underestimate a fly, that’s all I can say.

And here is some Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus),  a plant that I hadn’t noticed on the Heath before. I feel a Wednesday Weed coming on.

Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

And here is some Musk Mallow (Malva moschata), a much more delicate plant than the Common Mallow that I’m usually finding all over the cemetery. Another Wednesday Weed, maybe?

Musk Mallow (Malva moschata)

I always love my first glimpse of Kenwood House through the trees. That way lies coffee and a brownie!

Now, have a look at this absolutely magnificent sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa). I am clearly getting better at identifying things, because one factor in identification of mature sweet chestnuts (over 60 years old) is that the bark starts to spiral around the tree, usually in a clockwise direction, though I’m not convinced that this isn’t anti-clockwise (says she, scratching her head). I do love being able to put a name to things, it seems more respectful somehow. Also, I must remember to take a big sniff towards high summer, as the male catkins are said to smell of frying mushrooms.

When we finally get our coffee and brownie, we’re joined by this very fine pigeon. He is not at all deterred by the fact that my husband’s flapjack is vegan, and I swear he’d be sitting on our knees waiting for crumbs if he was allowed. He breaks off only briefly to huff and dance around a female he lands nearby before he’s back on flapjack watch.

A crow flies up onto the roof of the building opposite with what appears to be an entire scone – possibly someone wasn’t paying full attention in the tearoom gardens next door. The crow is soon joined by a fledgling. I can’t see for certain, but I suspect that the adult is dunking the cake into some water in the gutter to soften it up a bit for the youngster – I’ve seen them do this before. You are always being watched by some sort of avian beady eye when you sit here with a sandwich. Be warned.

The flowers outside the gift shop are all supersized, be they the white hydrangeas, the dahlias or the ten-foot-tall sunflowers.

And there was a brief moment on the path back to the ponds when there was no one around at all – not a jogger, not someone having a conversation on their mobile, not a gaggle of small children or a dog walker with various hounds. There was just us, and the sunshine, and the trees for about 90 seconds.

Long enough to notice how the Enchanter’s Nightshade, normally such a weedy little plant, can actually also be magical in the right light.

Back to the boating pond. Oh dear.

And just in case it isn’t clear….

No one told the ducks and the black-headed gulls though, and the swifts were skimming the surface for insects. I haven’t seen a single swallow or house martin yet this year though, I hope things are better where you are.

Tufted duck and black-headed gull having a rest

And how about this female/juvenile Mandarin duck (Aix galericulata)? I’ve never seen a male here, but I know that many of them have escaped from wildfowl collections. There are a lot more protected, reedy areas around the boating pond now, and the duck nests in tree holes, so it would be nice to think that they might have made a home here.

We head back, stepping carefully around a painted lady butterfly that’s picking up salts from the path.

I’m delighted to see the ragwort doing so well – this must be one of the UK’s most maligned plants, but it’s the foodplant of the cinnabar moth, and is much beloved by all sorts of pollinators.

We stop for a few minutes to watch the dogs swimming in the doggy part of the pond. Some dogs are clearly into it, and others can’t understand what all the fuss is about. Guess which heading this hound falls under.

And then it’s back to the 214 bus stop, with a brief pause to admire this sign on the side of what is now an Italian restaurant. How I’d love to stop for a Bean Feast!

Bhutan Pine (Pinus wallichiana)

Dear Readers, today I pulled out all the stops and headed to East Finchley Cemetery for a quick look at what was going on. I feel a bit as if I’m in Wonderland at the moment – all the colours seem brighter and the sounds of the birds are enchanting.

There are some spectacular specimen trees in the cemetery, such as this Bhutan pine (Pinus wallichiana). Its original home is the foothills of the Himalayas, Karakorum and Hindu Kush, but it seems strangely at home here in North London, amidst the monkey puzzle trees and the cedars of Lebanon.

On a smaller scale, I love the community of tiny plants living on this wooden roof. What look like bird droppings are, in fact, lichens.

And then a streak of greenish-yellow catches my eye, and a young green woodpecker poses very nicely for a few minutes.

We hear a young bird of prey calling from one of the big cedars, but no amount of patience will persuade it to emerge from the foliage, and its parents are clearly not in the mood to indulge it, so I might never know what it was. Very frustrating, but then that seems to be how nature works – some days everything falls into your lap, and some days you have to sigh and walk on.

There are some lovely unused buildings in the grounds of the Cemetery, which seems to mostly use the Italianate crematorium or the big Anglican chapel at the main entrance. The Glenesk Mausoleum is a lovely building, now completely fenced off and in danger of being engulfed by the nearby trees.

The Glenesk Mausoleum

There is a hopeful kneeling saint on the right hand pediment, but the one on the left has disappeared under a tangle of ivy.

The non-conformist chapel is in better shape, though the two small heads on the doorway have seen better days.

I’m not sure how much this chapel is used, but according to the cemetery’s management plan to 2012 it was thought to be a feeding roost for brown long-eared bats, so maybe a little seclusion is not a bad thing. There are lots of bat boxes mounted in the trees around the cemetery, but as it closes at 4 p.m. I guess I will never take a twilight walk to see what’s going on. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the summer air is criss-crossed with bat flight.

And, as I am midway through my Leith’s Online Cookery Course (it’s pasta week!) my eye was drawn to this grave. Jean Baptiste Virlogeux was chef at the Savoy during the 1930s, and was then Head Chef at the Dorchester for ten years, where he catered for the Queen and Prince Phillip. Whilst at the Savoy he invented the ‘Omelette Arnold Bennett’, a mixture of smoked haddock, eggs and gruyere in honour of the famous author. At the Dorchester, Virlogeux came up with the idea of the ‘Chef’s Table’, a private table for very special guests who could watch the chef work and no doubt ply him with confusing and impertinent questions while he wrestled with their dinner.

On our way back to the entrance we encounter this cheeky squirrel, who is clearly of the view that if he stays still enough we won’t notice him.

But then, how about this? Most of the beds in the cemetery are rather formal, but this is so bright that it seers the eyeballs, and none the worse for that. There is a sweet smell, I think from the salvia. How it cheers me up, especially on a dull day like today.

And just when you think the colours couldn’t get any brighter, look who drops in.

Peacock butterfly (Aglais io)

And now it’s time to head home for a cuppa and a few hours with my feet up (once I’ve done my blog of course). As usual the cemetery has provided all sorts of delights. What fine spots they are for reflection and for nature!