Giant Wood Wasp (Urocerus gigas) (Photo One)

Dear Readers, with a name like ‘Bugwoman’ it isn’t surprising that people often ask me what the hell something that they’ve seen buzzing around their living room light or hanging about in the shed is. Sometimes, as with this extraordinary insect, they not only ask me but find a way to gently encourage it back to ‘the wild’ with the minimum of fuss. And so it was with a colleague and a giant wood wasp earlier this week – she sent me a picture so that I could identify it. Her calmness is all the more impressive because this is a large and scary-looking beast, which can grow to a massive (for the UK) 4 cms long. Don’t laugh, African and Australian folks! Our wildlife here is, shall we say, bijou, but that doesn’t stop some folk having hysterics about it. I dread to think what they’d do if the critters were actually dangerous. Here your highest chance of animal-related demise is being run over by an agitated cow.

Anyhow. I was very envious that my colleague spotted a giant wood wasp, because I would love to see one. The female has a large ovipositor at the back end so that she can inject her eggs into the soft wood of conifers, or cut pinewood – these creatures are most often seen in pine plantations, or occasionally hanging around timberyards wearing an innocent expression. Here is a female just about to start laying her eggs into a log. It’s during this period that the females are vulnerable to predation – you can sometimes find just the ovipositors sticking into the wood where a bird has flown off with the rest of the insect.

Female wood wasp ovipositing (Photo Two)

In order to attract a female, male giant wood wasps ‘lek’ – they gather in numbers at the tops of isolated or prominent fir trees, where they are likely to be seen by passing females. They also secrete a pheromone which will attract other wood wasps, so there can be impressive aggregations of the creatures. This also increases their exposure to predation, of course, but for the males the chance of passing on their genes seems to trump the danger of being eaten.

The larvae live for two to three years, getting nice and fat on the wood, before emerging. They get particularly fat because, along with the eggs, the female wasps inject a special fungus that will be ingested by the larvae, and will help them to digest the cellulose in the wood (a fascinating fact from ‘Wasps – the Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect’ by Eric A. Eaton, a great read!)

A huge fat baby, 4.3 cm long (Photo Three)

Wood wasps have never been common creatures and so they aren’t a big problem for foresters in the UK, especially as they seem to prefer stressed rather than healthy wood, and so help to ‘tidy up’  dead trees. However, the larvae do sometimes decide to emerge as adults from stacked wood or even from pine furniture, and I can imagine that coming home to find a four-centimetre-long stripey creature flying around the bedroom might be enough to give many people pause. The ovipositor is also often misinterpreted as a massive stinger. Not so! Wood wasps are completely harmless to people. The ovipositor is what gives the wood wasp its alternative name of ‘horntail wasp’, which seems to be used on both sides of the Atlantic.

I have a great fondness for wasps and hornets of all kinds – I suppose that their status as the underdogs of the insect world makes them instantly appealing to me. It gladdens my heart whenever anyone resists their instinctive urge to swat an insect and instead becomes curious about what it is. I truly believe that the more you learn about a creature that you’re afraid of, the more measured and reasonable you can be in your approach to it. There’s a wood wasp somewhere winging its way over the the North Circular in search of a branch of IKEA with some Billy pinewood bookcases stacked and ready for shipment, all thanks to my colleague and her compassionate approach.

Flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus)

Dear Readers, do you have a plant that’s your nemesis? A plant that, although on paper ideally suited to your garden, refuses to thrive? Such a plant is flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus). This seems perfect for my garden – it’s a marginal, so I should just be able to pop it alongside the pond, but the poor thing is always miserable. I have tried it in various locations, and have come to the conclusion that it must be the lack of direct sunlight, even though I have put it in the brightest part of my north-facing garden.

Photo One

This is a plant that seems to have everything to recommend it to a wildlife gardener. The flowers attract a variety of pollinators, and the stems and leaves provide somewhere for dragon and damselfly larvae to cling to as they metamorphose. It is a native plant, although it is not technically a rush – it is the sole member of the flowering-rush family, Butomaceae. Richard Mabey notes that an alternative name for the plant, ‘Pride of the Thames’, is no longer so relevant – the dredging of rivers and the straightening of their banks has destroyed much of the habitat that the plant relied on. As a species we do seem to like things neat and tidy, and sadly that has ruined the biodiversity of many areas. These days, you are most likely to see flowering rush on the Norfolk Broads or the Somerset Levels, where in addition to its beauty and attraction to pollinators, it provides cover for fish such as pike.

In the USA, however, it has become an invasive species, probably because there is a lot of suitable habitat. The plant can make it difficult for animals to reach the water, and it provides cover for a number of voracious introduced fish species. However the Iroquois people use the plant as a de-wormer for cattle and horses, so it clearly isn’t all bad.

A fine stand of flowering rush (Photo Two)

As far as humans are concerned, flowering rush has provided a green or yellow dye. The Yakut people of Russia called the plant ‘bread-flower’, and made flour from its rhizomes until they came into contact with wheat – until then, the plant was their main source of carbohydrates, and the roots are a very rich source of starch.

And finally, a poem. I’m not sure if the rush in the poem is ‘our’ rush, but as this is Seamus Heaney, it will do.

Cairn-maker

For Barrie Cooke

He robbed the stones’ nests, uncradled
As he orphaned and betrothed rock
To rock: his unaccustomed hand

Went chambering upon hillock

And bogland. Clamping, balancing,
That whole day spent in the Burren,
He did not find and add to them

But piled up small cairn after cairn

And dressed some stones with his own mark.
Which he tells of with almost fear;

And of strange affiliation

To what was touched and handled there,

Unexpected hives and castlings
Pennanted now, claimed by no hand:

Rush and ladysmock , heather-bells
Blowing in each aftermath of wind.

But do let me know, readers. Which are the plants that you should be able to grow, but that just don’t work for you? And any ideas on my flowering rush would also be most gratefully received.

Photo Credits

Photo One by Zoran Gavrilović, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Two by Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Readers, in February 2014 I went on a course called ‘How to Write a Blog that People Will Want to Read’, run by the Gentle Author who created Spitalfields Life, probably the best London blog around. By the end of the weekend, Bug Woman was born. This weekend I will be attending the Gentle Author’s Advanced Blogging course, and I have no doubt that I will come back full of ideas for how to take the blog forward. But for now, I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite Gentle Author posts. A post has appeared every day since August 2009, and the Gentle Author hopes to keep going until their ten thousandth post, which will be in 2037. That seemed like a long time ago once, but now it seems just around the corner! The Gentle Author has produced a daily post despite breaking an arm, having Covid and having all manner of personal tribulations.They are an inspiration.

It might be a bit early for Christmas, but I love this post so much.

As a closet cat lady, I love this post and I love the Gentle Author’s celebration of their cats Mr Pussy and Schrodinger.

But perhaps what I like most about the Spitalfields Life blog are the pen portraits of the remarkable people who live in the area. It’s hard to choose favourites, but to give you a taster, here is George Perrin, the Ice Cream Seller, Paul Gardner, the Paper Bag Seller, and this one, which I found very moving – Sammy McCarthy, Flyweight Champion.

The Gentle Author has been very involved in campaigns to save Spitalfields from the developers who are destroying it: the campaign to save the Bethnal Green mulberry was successful (twice), the campaign to save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry continues, and there is the ongoing fight to save the Truman Brewery from becoming yet another generic shopping mall. I am not sure if the Gentle Author came up with the word ‘facadism’ for what’s happening to so many of London’s historic buildings, but it’s the perfect way to describe the cynicism of saving the facade and replacing everything else with mundane, shoddy buildings. If you want to see what this looks like, have a read here.

And finally, if you need some cheer as the long nights approach and the temperature drops, have a look at the Gentle Author’s post on winter flowers here. What a great idea!

Dabchick or Little Grebe (Title Photo)

Dear Readers, common birds often have a multitude of vernacular names. But can you match the name to the bird? Below is a list of local names for bird species. All you need to do is to match the name to the actual bird.

So, if you think a Cushy-Doo is a Pied Wagtail, your answer is 1) a)

Answers in the comments by 17.00 UK time on Friday 29th October please, and the results will be published on Saturday 30th October (just in time for Halloween and the UK clocks going back). I will disappear your answers when I see them, but write them down on a piece of paper if you think you might be influenced by those who went before.

Onwards, and good luck!

Vernacular Names

1. Cushy-doo
2. Jenny
3. Polly Dishwasher
4. Bonxie
5. Windhover
6. Willy Wix
7. Mavis
8. Starnel
9. Corbie
10. Seven-Coloured Linnet
11. Spug
12. Laverock
13. Gowk
14. Tom Tit
15. Julie-the-bogs

Species Names 

a) Pied Wagtail
b) Starling
c) Goldfinch
d) House Sparrow
e) Blue Tit
f) Cuckoo
g) Wren
h) Raven
i) Wood Pigeon
j) Skylark
k) Great Skua
l) Kestrel
m) Song Thrush
n) Barn Owl
o) Grey Heron

Dear Readers, the garden was brightened up by the arrival of a  charm of goldfinches today, after heavy rain and blustery winds last night. I have noticed a few of these pretty birds on the feeders during the past few weeks, but the flocks seem to be getting bigger. However, a quick visit to the British Trust for Ornithology website shows that goldfinches are generally migrating in the opposite direction in the autumn: ringed birds have been found in Morocco, Malta and Ceuta. A number have been recovered migrating over the narrow straits between Spain and Morocco over the Bay of Biscay, I’ve always wanted to watch the migrations here – in addition to the small birds, thousands of birds of prey ‘queue up’ waiting for favourable winds to carry them southwards. Most land birds will resist migrating over water as much as they possibly can. Those that do often end up huddled on the decks of cruise ships or perching on the railings of lighthouses to try to regain their strength. These frail little creatures sometimes fly the most extraordinary distances in very inclement weather, not to mention the hunting of songbirds that still goes on in some places. I’m glad that these goldfinches are relatively safe in the garden.

I always thought that goldfinches sometimes arrived in the UK from Scandinavia but it seems that I was wrong, though some birds actually migrate north: goldfinches have been found in the UK that originated in the Netherlands, Germany and France.

However, increasingly goldfinches are staying put: the populations of the bird have been increasingly steadily in all parts of the UK, partly as a result of all those lovely people spending their children’s inheritance on birdfood and partly due to the unfortunate catastrophic drop in greenfinch numbers. There is a school of thought that suggests that, although everyone rushed out and bought nyjer seed for their goldfinches, the birds much prefer sunflower seeds. Greenfinches are much more dominant at the bird feeders, however, and would bully the goldfinches because they prefer sunflower seeds, too. However, once the number of greenfinches had plummeted due to a disease called trichomonosis, the goldfinches were able to feed on what they preferred in peace. However, I did spot this little guy in the cemetery in April, so maybe the greenfinches are on their way back.

Greenfinch

Flowers of Common Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) (Photo One – credit below)

Dear Readers, what a quiet and inoffensive plant Figwort is! I have it growing in my pond, but I first spotted it at East Finchley Station, growing alongside a drainage ditch where there was also lots of horsetail. It certainly attracts the bees, even when not in full bloom – the flowers seem perfectly bumblebee adapted.

Herbalists thought that the plants  resembled a human throat, and so they were used medicinally for tonsillitis and all kinds of ailments related to this part of the body. In particular the plant was used to treat scrofula, a form of tuberculosis that led to enlargement of the neck (hence the plant’s genus name). Long term readers might remember the Doctrine of Signatures, a belief that a plant would indicate what it was useful for by its shape, colour or scent, as if a ‘clue’ had been planted by God when the Garden of Eden was created.

Figwort is in the same family as the Buddleia and Great Mullein (the Scrophulariaceae), though you’d be hard put to notice any obvious similarities. If we’re looking at just the figworts there are over 200 species spread across the Northern Hemisphere, and telling them apart can be somewhat challenging. Are the plants in my pond Common Figwort or Water Figwort (Scrofularia auriculata) for example? I hope the latter, because otherwise I’ve been drenching my plants rather more than they’d like.

Rose chafer on young common/water figwort

Figworts are eaten by the caterpillars of the Mullein moth, and I would be very delighted to see one.

Caterpillar of the Mullein Moth (Curcullia verbasci) (Photo Two)

The caterpillars of the Six-striped Rustic moth (Xestia sexstrigata) also feed on figworts. The adult is subtly beautiful.

Six-striped Rustic (Photo Three)

The jury is out concerning the plant’s edibility by humans, however. It’s said to have a foetid smell (I haven’t noticed any such problems with my plants), but in addition to the medicinal uses mentioned above, the plant has been used as an antihelmentic, which means that it’s poisonous to intestinal worms at the very least. In Mrs Grieves ‘A Modern Herbal’, she mentions that the root was used to feed the populace during  the 13 month Siege of Rochelle, but that the taste is so appalling that it would only ever be considered a famine food.

Mrs Grieve also mentions that Common Figwort was considered a lucky herb in both Ireland and Wales (where it was known as Deilen Ddu (‘good leaf’). The Medieval herbalist Gerard says that people used to wear the plant around their necks to keep themselves in good health. Furthermore, the plant was a treatment for rabies (hydrophobia), the patient being required to take:

‘every morning while fasting a slice of bread and butter on which the powdered knots of the roots had been spread and eating it up with two tumblers of fresh spring water. Then let the patient be well clad in woollen garments and made to take a long, fast walk until in a profuse perspiration, the treatment being continued for seven days.’

And finally, a poem. This is by John Lindley, who was the poet laureate for Cheshire in 2004, and it’s inspired by the Sandstone Ridge in that county. It is about a very specific place, but it is so full of hope that I thought I’d share today. We could all do with some inspiration, I’m sure.

Stone by Stepping Stone (John Lindley)

From ‘landfill’ to ‘lapwing’
requires more than a dip in the alphabet,
more than just a leap of faith
yet it begins
and it begins not letter by letter
but hedge by fattening hedge.

It begins as small as a bird table
and grows as wide as a field, as long as a ridge.
It begins amongst foxgloves and figwort,
in a morning of meadowsweet
and though no wild boar witness it
it is noted by hairstreak and peregrine,
by badger and owl.

It begins stone by stepping stone
and who would have thought such stones
could be engineered and sown?
Who would have thought
they could be dreamt, mapped and moulded
into more than fancy, more than symbol?

Still, it begins. From Frodsham to Bulkeley Hill.
From corridor to green corridor
a land found and refashioned
reclaims itself and swells until each corridor
is no longer measured by the wing span of a hawk
but by the circumference of its flight.

Born of a glacial shift –
a sandstone ridge,
red raw with promise,
skirts hill fort and castle.
A raven hunches like age
against the gathering mist.

Put an ear to the earth,
hear a seed splitting with new life.
Cast an eye to the hills,
see elms able again to stretch and touch fingers.
Woodland and heathland –
all are a heartland
and it is a heart that beats from Beacon Hill
to Bickerton and beyond.

It is a heart thought still,
jumpstarted by other hearts:
by landlord and farmer,
by owner and tenant,
by craftsman and labourer,
by the you and me we call a community.

It is a heart that drums
in the small frame of newt,
the slick casing of otter,
the sensual hide of deer
and grows louder,
like the echo of those lost skylarks
who went with the grassland
but now sing of recovery, sing of return.

Photo Credits

Photo One © Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Photo Two by By Bobr267 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61678532

Photo Three by Ben Sale from UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons