Dear Readers, my friend A gave me some ‘manky apples’ from the tree in her garden, but she hoped that I wasn’t squeamish, as the fruit had been ‘got at’ by at least one insect. And, dear readers, I hope that you aren’t squeamish either, because I have spent the last half an hour cutting the edible bits off of the fruit for a crumble, and taking photos of the inhabitants of the other bits. If you don’t like photos of caterpillars, look away now :-).

The major pest of apples in the UK, as you probably know, is the codling moth( (Cydia pomonella). Another stipulation for my receipt of the apples was that I was not to wax lyrical about the creature, but here is a picture of the adult, and I think it’s not unattractive in a mothy kind of way.

Codling moth (Cydia pomonella) (Photo One)

However, the caterpillars are obligate frugivores – in other words they cannot digest leaves, like other larvae, and are wholly adapted to eating fruit. Apples are their favourite, but they can also eat pears, walnuts and even apricots. The adult moth lays her eggs on either the twigs or the fruit of a tree, depending on the time of year (there are two generations, one in the spring and one later in the summer). It’s thought that the caterpillars navigate towards the light once hatched, and at some speed too, because nearly everything else in the garden, from blue tits to ants, eats codling moth larvae. As most trees produce fruit on the end of their branches, this behaviour means that the caterpillars are quick to find a suitable apple. It takes the larva about 45 minutes to burrow into the fruit, and then a further 15 minutes to spin a cap for the tunnel out of silk. Once in the apple, it heads into the centre where the seeds are. Amazingly, it then bites the seeds, which stops the natural development of the fruit and causes it to start to ripen – ripe fruit provides the caterpillar with more nutrients. Often, one apple will be enough, but some especially hungry critters will then start the process all over again with another apple. No wonder farmers love them so much.

Infested apple

Once the caterpillar is snug inside its fruity home, it makes a chamber, which rapidly goes black and fills with frass (droppings).

And then, when the caterpillar is ready to pupate, it either launches itself into the air on a silky thread, or crawls down the trunk, looking for a suitable chink in the bark or other secure spot. Some moths will hatch just ten days after pupation, while others will ‘hibernate’ over the winter. One old method of deterring codling moth was to put a sticky band around the tree – I always thought this was to stop the caterpillars climbing up (silly me) but in fact it catches the caterpillars climbing down to pupate. Once there is a suitable ‘haul’ the band can be removed and destroyed. However, my money is on the codling moths in my friend’s garden, as this very morning we saw some caterpillars abseiling down from the branches like tiny green SAS men about to remedy a hostage situation.

Some fruits, as is the nature of things, have fought back. Some varieties have thickened skins, and hairy skins, such as those of peaches and apricots, are also shown to deter codling moth. Others have responded by producing ‘stony cells’ in the layer of flesh that surrounds the seeds, making it much more difficult for the caterpillar to munch through. In short, the battle between codling moth and stone fruit has probably been going on for as long as both have existed.

Various methods to reduce the predations of codling moth on human food have been tried, including the usual ‘spraying with insecticides’ method, which has resulted in insecticide-resistant codling moths, as we might have expected. Less harmful techniques for the garden apple tree include clearing away fallen fruit so that any caterpillars still in situ don’t have a chance to pupate, pruning to get more sun into the heart of the tree (the caterpillars require humidity to survive), and even scraping the bark to make less sites for pupation. Plus, encouraging birds such as tits into the garden and being tolerant of ants (who are excellent predators of caterpillars before they set up home in the apple) helps. Woodpeckers are skilled at finding codling moth pupae under the bark of trees. However, once the caterpillar is ensconced it is very well protected from practically everything, because to destroy the insect you’d have to contaminate the fruit.

However, the adults are strongly attracted to the smell of ripening apples, and this can be used as a way of catching large numbers and disposing of them – the scent can be distilled into moth traps, and both males and females are likely to turn up. Like most pheromone traps, they are lined with a sticky substance like flypaper, which feels to me like a most unpleasant way to die. Still, at least it is very specific, and hopefully other species are not also enticed. It’s surely an improvement on insecticide.

Codling moth trap, Denmark (Photo Two)

So, I now have some perfect chunks of apple, and some that are full of caterpillars and holes. I imagine that for most of human history this was how it was. There would be good years and bad years, and on the bad years the apples wouldn’t keep as well, and more would have to be discarded. Still, it’s interesting that the bits of apple that haven’t already been nibbled are absolutely delicious, in a way that only garden apples seem to be these days. I’m happy to share my fruit with the little guys, but then my life and my livelihood don’t depend on it. I might feel differently if they did.

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Olei – Self-published work by Olei, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=810865

Photo Two by By Slaunger – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20440883

Dear Readers, the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing is the UK’s most prestigious prize for all kinds of writing about the natural world, and this year I am determined to work my way through the shortlist. I was very happy to start with this book, ‘Dancing with Bees‘ by Brigit Strawbridge Howard – she is sixty-something, like myself, and has found much joy in reconnecting with the nature that she enjoyed so much as a child. When she says that:

‘I always warn friends who suggest going for a walk that they might like to think twice about having me as their companion, for I find it quite impossible to walk past anything small that moves or catches my attention without stopping to examine and admire it’. 

I (and probably my friends) can definitely relate.

Strawbridge Howard finds herself becoming interested in the natural world again through the medium of bees. At first, stories of colony collapse disorder cause her to look into the way that honeybees are treated, particularly in the USA where they are moved, in their millions, from place to place. But gradually, the empty space in her heart where nature used to be is filled by the buzzing of our many native bee species, and it is her exploration of these that takes up the majority of the book.

On the subject of honeybees, though, Strawbridge Howard introduces me to the organisation ‘Friends of the Bees’, who recognise that introducing honeybee hives into an area can outcompete other species. Her lovely husband, Rob, thinks carefully about introducing hives into the garden that he manages:

‘Had there already been large numbers of hives in the vicinity, Rob might thought twice about introducing a hive to his garden, as he would not have wanted to knowingly add more competition to an area already saturated with honeybees’. 

Certainly there were many horror stories when ‘urban beekeeping’ became a ‘thing’ in London a few years ago – there was so little forage that even the honeybees themselves were starving, so goodness knows what the impact was on other bee species.

And, as Strawbridge Howard points out

‘‘Keeping bees might well help increase crop pollination, but the fact is that you are no more likely to save bees by becoming a beekeeper than you are going to save ‘birds’ by keeping chickens’.

The author manages to weave her personal story through her developing passion for bees; the chapter ‘The Upside-Down Bird’, about the death of her mother, moved me greatly.  I love the tales about her misadventures too; as I’ve found, nature has a way of punishing hubris – just when you think you know something, you find out that it was much more complex than you thought.

But what I love most are the nuggets of information about bees, and the obvious joy with which Strawbridge Howard imparts them. I don’t think I’ve ever made so many notes in a book. Here are just a few:

‘When wild honeybees set up home in tree cavities, they tend to site their nests four to six metres above the ground to give the colony protection from natural predators….which is where log hives come in. They are basically hollowed-out logs, fashioned from trees that have been blown down in storms….They closely mimic the bees’ natural nesting sites and can be strapped on a tree, at exactly the kind of height where honeybees would be likely to establish a new colony. They have a very high success rate in attracting honeybee swarms’. 

‘Pollen, in its raw state, is indigestible. To make it digestible, the workers add nectar, together with saliva, gut enzymes, and wild yeasts. Over a few weeks, these cause the pollen to ferment. The resulting ‘bee bread’ (also known as ambrosia) is eaten by nurse bees -worker bees whose specific job it is to care for the brood- to produce royal jelly which, in turn, is fed to the queen and larvae, exclusively in the case of queen larvae and for about three days for others’.

‘Inside the nest, she (the queen bumblebee) secretes slithers of grey-white wax from glands in her abdomen and uses these to fashiion a little pot, about the size of a child’s fingernail and shaped like Winnie-the-Pooh’s honey jar. This she fills with her foraged nectar’.

‘For the bumblebee eggs to hatch successfully, the queen needs to sit on them and keep the temperature at around 30 degrees Celsius. She does this by disconnecting her flight muscles inside her thorax and shivering her muscles until her body reaches the required temperature’.

Within a bumblebee nest –  ‘Larger workers, being capable of carrying more pollen and nectar back to the nest than their smaller sisters, usually take on the role of foragers, whilst smaller workers stay at home, cleaning the nest, tending to the queen and feeding the larvae’. 

‘…a single Red Mason bee (Osmia bicornis), who collects pollen underneath her abdomen (rather than in a specialised pollen ‘basket‘) can be around one hundred times more efficient at pollinating than a single honeybee. 

‘..ground-nesting bees solve any potential water problems by smearing the sides of their nest chambers, which are seldom made at the lowest point of the tunnel, with antifungal secretions’

(Notes in bold are mine)

Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum)

The writer is interested in a whole variety of aspects of ‘natural history’ – at one point she is investigating the history of her village in order to find out whether a particular species of bee is likely to live there, and I am reminded of my sudden interest in the history of Muswell Hill Playing Fields with their patch of ‘peculiar’ flora;

‘I have become a nature detective, investigating, digging deeper, leaving not a stone unturned in my search for evidence that the village of Sedgehill might be home to more than just one, lone Yellow Loosestrife bee’.

And, towards the end of the book, she realises that she has moved beyond just an urge to identify the bee species that she sees, and to learn everything about them, to a more holistic, open-minded search for connection. In this way, yet again, her journey mirrors mine. This could well be my mission statement:

‘Henceforth, I resolve to embrace lateral, creative and inventive thinking, as well as an inquisitiveness about, and wonder and awe of, whatever subject takes my fancy on a given day‘.

I loved this book, for its interweaving of the personal, the scientific and the historical, for the enthusiasm with which the writer’s discoveries are shared, and with the passion that burns through every page. I thought I knew a fair bit about bees, but there was lots here that was new to me, and plenty to provoke thought. Plus, it’s filled me with a desire to take a camper van to the Outer Hebrides and search for the Great Yellow bumblebee, or to a tiny nature reserve next to an industrial estate to find the Potter wasp. This book feels like an act of generosity, from someone who is filled to bursting with a love for the natural world, and with an irrepressible urge to share it with all of us. It’s certainly made me want to pay even more attention to the bees in my back garden, and to want to take even more care of them, which is a tribute to Strawbridge Howard’s powers of expression and persuasion. A worthy contender for the Wainwright Prize.

Common carder bee on spear thistle

Dear Readers, I am a recent convert to litter-picking in our local area of ancient woodland,  Coldfall Wood. You might not think that picking up the rubbish left by other people and popping it into a mauve dustbin bag would be anything other than an unpleasant, unsanitary way to spend an hour, but I am here to tell you that you would be mistaken. And here’s why.

Firstly, there is the thrill of the chase. Once you get your eye in for the gaudy colours of a family-sized crisp packet, or the shine of the cellophane on a cigarette box, you start to be mildly disappointed when a stretch of woodland is pristine. By the end of yesterday’s litter-pick we were competing to see who could get their litter-pickers around the tiniest scraps of garbage.

The way the rubbish stands out also makes me think about how hyper-stimulated we are by the advertising and packaging around us. These colours look so unnatural against the cool greens and browns of the wood. There might be the odd splash of red as the berries on the cuckoo-pint appear, but compare that to the lavender and gold and the shiny silver interior of a bag of crisps and you can see how frantically companies want us to buy.

Plus, let us not underestimate the satisfaction of using a litter-picker. It’s like being in partnership with a very compliant stork as you close the ‘beak’ of the instrument around a bottle of discarded hand-sanitiser and pop it into a bag. There is something about the precision of the movement that is very pleasing, at least to me.

Secondly, if you are litter-picking, you are walking in the woods with a purpose. You are looking for what’s different, and somehow your senses are reset because you have to pay attention, to look for the tiniest scraps of difference. I can stomp through the woods and barely notice them if I have a big work problem to deal with, but now I am forced to slow down. It’s a kind of meditation, looking at the ground, looking under trees, watching for the things that are out of place. And then you look up, and the light is pouring through the hornbeams, and you let out a deep, heartfelt sigh. What a beautiful place this is.

Coldfall Wood 7.30 p.m. August 4th

Thirdly, by litter-picking you may be preventing further littering. There is something called ‘broken window theory’ – if a neighbourhood looks neglected, people won’t worry so much about adding to the squalor. When we are litter-picking, every person who walks in the woods will see that other people are concerned enough about the area to give up their time to clear up the mess. Often, people stop and chat, and it’s a chance to talk to them about what they’ve seen and what’s going on. For some, especially the children, it might be enough to make them think twice about dropping that plastic bottle on the path when they’ve finished with it.

Fourthly, it makes me curious about the stories of the rubbish. Behind a dense tangle of holly and yew there were the remains of a gathering – the aforementioned crisp packets, a wine bottle, the lid from a plastic box. That all says young people to me, although it looks as if someone was organised enough to make their own sandwiches. They must, like all young people, have really wanted a spot out of sight, somewhere private to have their picnic, but it seems a remarkably un-Dionysian affair. I wish they’d taken their litter home, but all things considered I’ve seen worse. And thinking about these things, and actually doing something about it, somehow softens me towards these ghost picnickers. It’s easy to get angry about the littering (and I do) but who knows what all the reasons are? Sometimes people simply don’t think about the consequences of their actions. Sometimes, they are disturbed and have to leave in a hurry. I’m sure a novelist could create a whole plot line just around this spot.

And then, there is the fellowship. At a time when so many of us have been confined to our houses, just to walk around the woods with another human being, even at two metres distance, is a fine, morale-building thing to do. There were eight of us litter-picking last night, and it was good to meet old friends, and to chat to new ones. It is wonderful to share a purpose with other human beings and to be united in a task, however small. This is how community is built.

Being in the wood as the sun goes down is another unexpected pleasure – the way the sun lights up the squirrel on the fence beside the allotments, the way the colours change. And maybe the final reason that I love litter-picking is because it feels as if we make a difference. We have filled half a dozen bin-bags with rubbish, and what was mess has been made clean. There is the satisfaction of undoing some of the harm that has been done  to the wood during this period of intense use, and it is a small way of saying thank you for the calm and beauty that Coldfall brings to all of us. I have learned that it is easy to stew in a big pot of judgement, fulminating  about what people should and should not do, and of course there is much reason for anger. But we are not powerless, and activism can be as simple as saying ‘I love this place, and I am not going to just stand by and complain about other people’s bad habits. Instead, I’m going to do something about it’. I’m sure that, tomorrow, there will be more litter in the woods, but tonight, as we walk home, we know that it’s better than it was when we arrived. And that is a feeling worth having.

Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola)

Dear Readers, during my recent visit to Barnwood I recounted finding this plant, cheerfully announcing that it was caper spurge, and being so astonished when I looked at the yellow, daisy-like flowers that I had to check that they belonged to the same plant. Hah! There’s nothing like nature for putting you in your place when you get too confident. This rather handsome plant (at least when it’s standing up) is in fact prickly lettuce, the closest living relative of our cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa). You wouldn’t think it to look at the plant, with its waxy leaves with their spiny teeth along the edge and their prickles on the midrib – it looks much less edible than dandelion or even sowthistle. However, apparently the young leaves can be eaten as a salad ingredient.

Prickly lettuce leaves (Photo One)

The leaves clasp around the stem, and the plant exudes white latex if cut – this substance is known as ‘lactucarium’ or ‘lettuce opium’, and can be dried and used as a soporific. It is said to induce a feeling of mild euphoria, and was used in the UK and the USA as a cure for insomnia and as a mild analgesic from the 1900’s onwards. It was also included in lozenges and cough syrup as a way of easing a sore throat and dry, tickly cough. Lettuce itself is sometimes cited as a food that has remarkable calming properties, although having seen a lot of very anxious rabbits I’m not completely convinced.

The flowers are rather small compared to the size of the plant  – the one I saw was flattened on the ground, but would easily have been five feet tall if vertical. The flowers only open in the morning, a few at a time.

Prickly lettuce leaf and flowers (Photo Two)

According to my Harrap’s Wild Flowers, prickly lettuce was introduced to the UK in 1632, and while still a plant mainly of southern England, it is happily moving north and west. However, in Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica he remarks that the plant is ‘probably a native’. He also says that because the upper leaves are held erect in a roughly north-south plane, prickly lettuce has been given the name of ‘compass plant’ (by botanists rather than by ordinary folk, though I believe there is some overlap 🙂 ). Prickly lettuce is found throughout Europe, North Africa and Asia, and is naturalised in a number of other countries.

Prickly lettuce showing those north-south leaves (Photo Three)

My further investigations into prickly lettuce have led me to the cult of the Ancient Egyptian god Min, usually portrayed holding his erect penis in his left hand and raising a flail with his right. Prickly lettuce was sacred to the god, probably because the latex had a resemblance to semen, and Min was a fertility god. Lettuce was offered to the god as a sacrifice and then eaten by the men who had brought it (in a kind of ‘take a bottle to a party and then take it home when you leave’ fashion). During the Festival of Min, the statue would be taken out to the fields in the hope that the god would increase the harvest, and there were many naked rituals, including the climbing of an enormous tent pole.

It’s worth remembering that the fertility of humans, and of fields, was such a mystery (and in a way it still is), and was so important,  that keeping in with Min was undoubtedly worth a bit of naked-clambering and a few lettuces.

Image of Min from the Temple at Karnak, Egypt (Photo Four)

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite is said to have laid the dead Adonis on a bed of wild lettuce, which has led an association between lettuce and food for the dead. Look as I might, I can’t find a single painting of Adonis dying on any kind of salad vegetable, so you’ll have to make do with this one, which is by John William Waterhouse and apparently shows Adonis waking up in a bed of anemones. Much nicer, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The Awakening of Adonis by John William Waterhouse (1899-1900) (Public Domain)

And now, a poem. Sadly, poems about prickly lettuce are difficult to find, but as I remarked earlier, ‘our’ plant is the closest living relative of the cultivated lettuce. And so, here is a wonderful poem addressed to a lettuce. I love the poet’s wry voice, and the serious truths that this superficially simple poem conceals. Let me know what you think, as always.

Prickly lettuce (Photo Five)

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Me – I took this photo in The Hague, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=937504

Photo Two by By Jeantosti, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=790020

Photo Three by Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1021227

Photo Four by By zolakoma – https://www.flickr.com/photos/zolakoma/2862898326/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16089330

Photo Five By GTBacchus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6820388

Male gatekeeper (underside)

Dear Readers, can I have a big round of applause for Mike at Alittlebitoutoffocus who got 30 out of 30 for this week’s quiz. I didn’t think anyone would manage to get all of the answers correct, so very well done!

Dear Readers, here are the answers to Sunday’s quiz, which I think was a stinker if you also decided to try for the sex of the butterflies. The answers are below, and if you look at the photos, you’ll see that I’ve included a photo of the opposite sex, where relevant.

1) h) Clouded yellow (Colias croceus) – Male

2) i) Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) – Female

3) j) Large white (Pieris brassicae) – Female

4)m) Small white (Pieris rapae) – Male

5) o) Orange tip (Anthocharis cardamines) – Female

6) g) Purple emperor (Apatura iris) – Male

7) f) Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) – Both sexes the same

8) k) Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) – Both sexes the same

9) n) Small pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria selene) – Female

10) e) Silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia) – Female

11) c) Camberwell beauty (Nymphalis antiopa) – Both sexes the same

12) b) Brown hairstreak (Thecla betulae) – Female

13) a) Holly blue (Celastrina argiolus) – Female

14) l) Adonis blue (Polyommatus bellargus) – Male

15) d) Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus) – Male

1) h) Clouded yellow (Colias croceus) – male

1) ii Clouded yellow – female

2) i) Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) – female

2) ii – Brimstone male

3) j) Large white (Pieris brassicae) – female

3) ii Large white – male

4)m) Small white (Pieris rapae) – male

4) ii Small white – female

5) o) Orange tip (Anthocharis cardamines) – female

5) ii – Orange tip – male

6) g) Purple emperor (Apatura iris) – male

6) ii Purple emperor – female

7) f) Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) – both sexes the same

8) k) Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) – both sexes the same

9) n) Small pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria selene) – female

9) ii – small pearl-bordered fritillary – male

10) e) Silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia) – Female

10) ii – Silver-washed fritillary – male

11)c) Camberwell beauty (Nymphalis antiopa) – both sexes the same

12)b) Brown hairstreak (Thecla betulae) Female

12) ii – Brown hairstreak – male

13)a) Holly blue (Celastrina argiolus) – Female

13)ii- Holly blue male

14) l) Adonis blue (Polyommatus bellargus) – male

14) ii) Adonis blue female

15)d) Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus) – male

15)ii – Gatekeeper, female

Photo Credits

Photo 1 by By Hectonichus – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56275091

Photo 1)ii by Colin Knight from https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/album_photo.php?id=15605

Photo 2 from https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/brimstone

Photo 2 ii) by Neil Hulme from https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/album_photo.php?id=22501

Photo Three by By I, S Sepp, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2439462

Photo 3 ii) by Dave Miller from https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/album_photo.php?id=14552

Photo Four by Zeynel Cebeci / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Photo 4 ii) by Vince Massimo from https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/album_photo.php?id=14119

Dear Readers, since the lockdown Coldfall Wood and the playing fields next door have become the centre of outdoor activity for what feels like half of North London. Walkers, runners, picnickers, families with children, dog-walkers, berry-harvesters, casual drinkers, kite-fliers, cyclists, footballers, softball players, den-makers and skateboarders have all trooped through the woods. Some have observed social distancing, some have not. Some have left prodigious quantities of litter, other people have helped to clean it up. Some have moved slowly, noticing the clouds and the changes in the season, others have raced through, huffing and puffing, and some have done both at different times. Some have smiled shyly, some have bellowed into their phones. In short, all of human life has been observed during this past four months when I have walked here in the morning almost every day. Even on a busy morning you can find a  quiet spot, such as this lane next to the allotments.

One of the smaller trees has been pulled down by the ivy, and it is becoming a limbo-dance to get under it.

You never know what you’ll hear from the allotments – sometimes there’s the distant sound of a cockerel crowing, but today there was the roar of power tools. It didn’t completely drown out the yaffle of a green woodpecker, though, and there was an ardent woodpigeon in the trees cooing to his loved one.

We walk out of the lane and head towards the playing fields. There is always the brightness ahead, the sudden sense of the world opening out.

Running towards the light

The crows seem to be socially-distancing, but I imagine they are each patrolling their own small area looking for worms.

Elsewhere, autumn is well on the way.

Blackberries

Thistledown

Sycamore ‘keys’

There are a few common red soldier beetles (Rhagonycha fulva) about on the yarrow, but their heyday is when the hogweed is out – you can sometimes see dozens on a single flower head, and indeed some wag has nicknamed them the ‘hogweed bonking beetle’. The adults eat aphids and the larvae eat slugs and snails, so this is definitely an insect that you want to encourage in your garden.

And while this big critter looks like a bee, it is in fact a bee-mimicking fly, possibly a drone fly.

A woodpigeon is making the most of the elderberries – these birds really do prefer wild food to anything humans can offer, as anyone who has seen them fighting over ivy berries will attest.

Elderberries.

The Japanese knotweed is still doing extremely well I notice.

There is an unmistakable whiff of autumn in the air. Everything is in a hurry to spread its seeds before the nights draw in.

Greater knapweed seedheads

Seeds on my mysterious beet plants

Fennel seedheads

Am I the only one who loves the burdock? Actually no, the bees are quite keen as well….

Some things are still in flower, like the lady’s bedstraw.

And the spear thistle is still popular…

And then, as we reach the wood again, the coolness and the darkness are welcome.

A lone rowan tree by the stream

When I listen to the sounds of people in the wood, I wonder if it has been so intensely used at any time in the last few hundred years. Once upon a time it was coppiced every year, with the hornbeams being cut right back and the wood taken by ordinary folk to make charcoal or as tinder. What a social event that must have been! Not to mention when hunting parties rode through, and what a bunch of hooligans I imagine they were. It gives me some comfort that the woods are resilient, and have known all kinds of usage in the years that they’ve been in existence. The woods are a nature reserve but they are also a vital public space, used by people with no gardens and no access to the outside. Getting the balance between welcoming people and protecting the vulnerable parts of the wood right will be essential, because, as I know from my time volunteering in other open spaces, people have to feel that the woods belong to them too for them to care about protecting them. Let’s hope that some of the people who have never ventured into Coldfall Wood until the lockdown will grow to love it as much as I do.

Little stream in Coldfall Wood

Dear Readers, I hope that you can stand yet another insect-related quiz (the last one for a few weeks, I promise!) This week, I thought I would ask you not only to identify the species of the butterflies in the photos below, but what sex they are – I will give one mark for the species, and one for the sex. If the sexes are identical, you can say ‘both’. I suspect this is pretty tricky (though every week I am amazed), so good luck!

So, if you think the butterfly in photo 1 is a holly blue, your answer is 1) a). If you want to hazard an answer as to the sex, it will be 1) a) m (male), 1) a) f (female) or 1) a) b) (sexes identical).

a) Holly blue (Celastrina argiolus)

b) Brown hairstreak (Thecla betulae)

c) Camberwell beauty (Nymphalis antiopa)

d) Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)

e) Silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia)

f) Painted lady (Vanessa cardui)

g) Purple emperor (Apatura iris)

h) Clouded yellow (Colias croceus)

i) Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni)

j) Large white (Pieris brassicae)

k) Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae)

l) Adonis blue (Polyommatus bellargus)

m) Small white (Pieris rapae)

n) Small pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria selene)

o) Orange tip (Anthocharis cardamines)

1)

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Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)

Dear Readers, the temperature is due to get into the 90’s today, and so I decided it was a good morning to do the Big Butterfly Count for Butterfly Conservation. This year, you can do as many counts as you like, and so I thought I’d maybe do a few between now and the 9th August when it finishes. Sadly the buddleia at the front has pretty much gone over, but the hemp agrimony at the back  is still pulling them in. As usual, as soon as I was all set up with my app loaded and my chart at the ready, all the butterflies went on strike. Where were the clouds of holly blues from yesterday? Where were the peacocks and the red admirals? Well, actually I suspected that the big colourful butterflies were all looking for buddleia elsewhere, because in spite of the popularity of my hemp agrimony with all the little butterflies and bees, the big ones don’t seem to like it.

Holly blue (Celastrina argiolus). On strike today.

However, there was one moment of great excitement. There was a flash of deep copper-orange, and this amazing moth landed in the lilac.

Jersey tiger (Euplagia quadripunctaria)

I love the delta wings (which remind me of my favourite V-bomber, the Vulcan), and the absolute nonchalance with which it flies – presumably the orange colour is a warning to birds that it is unpleasant to eat.

Photo One

This is actually the second or third Jersey tiger that I’ve seen in the garden during the last few days, and I am wondering if my huge stands of hemp agrimony are actually being used by the caterpillars. How exciting would that be! As the name suggests, the Jersey tiger came originally from the Channel Islands, and the first time I saw one it was in parents’ Dorset garden. A friend saw one in North London earlier this year, and now they seem to be everywhere. The caterpillars can apparently be spotted from September onwards, and the tiny caterpillars overwinter amongst their foodplants, so maybe I won’t cut back my plants this year just in case. They also like all kinds of ‘weeds’, such as nettles, ground ivy and dandelion, so keep an eye open, London folks!

Jersey tiger caterpillar (Photo Two)

Now, here’s a question for you. When you’re thinking about the weather, do you think in Centigrade or Fahrenheit? All the ‘young’ people in my team at work think it’s hilarious when I tell them that ‘it’s going to be in the 90’s on Monday’ and ask me what the ‘real temperature’ is. Hah!  Is it just an age thing? I’m old enough to remember pre-decimalisation (which was in 1971) but I don’t remember ever being told that we had to think in Centigrade. Or maybe it just passed me by. Anyway, it is a constant reminder that I am about 25 years older than the next oldest person in my team (that and not being eager to return to the office because, pandemic).

Anyhow, I also wanted to give you a heads-up about my latest garden experiment. Whenever I go to tropical butterfly houses, I see fermenting bananas left about, and the butterflies seem to love them. So, I have stuck an ageing banana on the bird table (opened of course) and I shall being keep an eye open to see who turns up. I suspect that it might be more attractive to moths because of their well-developed sense of smell, and I’m hoping that wasps are still concentrating on protein rather than sugar at the moment, otherwise things could get very interesting. I shall keep you posted, readers, but in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for my next butterfly count – let’s hope that I find more than the three large whites and five gatekeepers that I saw this time.

Butterflies on banana (Photo Three)

Photo Credits

Photo One By AJC1 from UK – Jersey Tiger Moth, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64517234

Photo Two from https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/jersey-tiger

Photo Three from https://www.aviano.af.mil/Site-Pages/Wyvern-Warriors/Display/Article/282410/enter-the-enchanting-world-of-butterflies/

Dear Readers, if you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know that I’m a confirmed foxophile (not sure if that’s a word) so when my friend A lent me this book I couldn’t wait to dive in. My previous go-to work on foxes was ‘Fox Watching – In the Shadow of the Fox’ by Martin Hemmington, who had been rescuing and rehabilitating foxes in the UK for over 25 years, and who was the founder of the National Fox Welfare Society (NFWS). What I loved about the latter book was the author’s close observation of foxes, both in the wild and when under his care, and his obvious deep passion and empathy for them. ‘Fox Watching’ was going to be a hard act to follow.

‘The Hidden World of the Fox‘ ranges more widely. Brand is a mammal ecologist, and has led research in five countries. She brings a scientist’s eye to many fox controversies, and there were many things here that I didn’t know. She roundly debunks many of the ideas about fox deterrence, for example: why would male urine frighten an urban fox when they spend all their days hanging around our streets? And why would lion dung from the zoo frighten a fox when, in many countries, foxes rely on top predators to kill prey too big for them to manage, so that they can scavenge the remains later? You might think that lion dung would attract foxes rather than deter them.

Interestingly, Brand points out that the one thing that might work, if consistently applied, is one of the sprays such as Scoot which disguise the scents that foxes use to mark their territories. A fox without a territory is in constant danger of attack by other foxes, and can never rest, so this might persuade the animal to move on.

Quite why you’d want them to move on is a mystery to me, however.

A young vixen in St Pancras and Islington cemetery. My favourite British wild mammal.

Brand also explores the ‘human/fox interface’. We have, of course, impinged on the fox’s territory, rather than the other way round, and it’s interesting to see how intolerant we are of the mess that foxes undoubtedly create if rubbish is not suitably binned. In a study that Brand conducted in London, over 33% of Londoners apparently said that they disliked foxes, largely because of their scats, the way they could scatter the contents of a dustbin bag over half the street, and the way that they dug up garden plants, stole anything left in the garden and murdered inadequately-housed rabbits. A surprising number of people were also afraid that the foxes would kill their cats and mutilate their children. I am being a bit flippant here: I have had a dog-fox visit who was so tame that he would cheerfully have come into the house, and there is one case of twin infants being bitten by a fox who entered the room that they were sleeping in.

Dog Fox in my garden last year.

Brand has very clear guidelines on interactions with foxes, and with people who are afraid of foxes, or dislike them:

• Do not hand-feed them, or allow them to come into the house
• If you are going to put a small amount of food out for them, put it a distance from the entrance to the property
• Do not deny that foxes can cause problems, but make people aware of the efficacy of products such as Scoot
• Do not assume that all fox bite stories are either untrue or the fault of the people bitten

A reason for overfriendliness that I don’t remember Brand writing about (though I might have missed it as the book has no index), is toxoplasmosis: this parasite is known for making its hosts reckless, and certainly Martin Hemmington thinks that it might be responsible for all kinds of peculiar behaviour. In rats, toxoplasmosis has been shown to make the animal less afraid of cats (the parasite is passed on in the droppings of carnivores). There was even a study that showed that humans with toxoplasmosis (occasionally picked up from cleaning out the cat litter tray) are more likely to be involved in road accidents, both as pedestrians and as drivers. It’s easy to imagine that an infected fox might wander into a basement floor through an open door and, maybe smelling the milk on an infant’s breath, start to look for the source.

Young fox

Another point where Brand and Hemmington differ is on the whole subject of treating mange with homeopathy (often Psorinum 30c). Hemmington’s charity actually provides free homeopathic treatment for foxes with mild mange: you might remember that I spent some time treating a vixen with mange in our local cemetery by lacing jam sandwiches with homeopathic drops.

Brand points out that

‘Psorinum 30c has become a major feature of many charities’ anti-mange efforts. It is much easier to obtain than Ivermection because a vet does not need to prescribe it. Unfortunately, that is because homeopathic treatments are medically inert: they are a discredited invention from the eighteenth century that has become a multi-million-pound industry‘.

She does, however, point out one possible beneficial side-effect:

‘It is possible that homeopathy can have an unintended benefit; by putting out regular food with the dose, a home owner may support the fox’s general health and assist its fight against the disease‘.

She also points out that:

‘Once mange progresses beyond the early stages, many foxes suffer a terminal deterioration of their symptoms. But in others, the condition reverses. The bare blotchy skin patches and lesions remain, but the mites die, and the fox gradually heals‘.

I had little faith that using Psorinum 30c would do any good, being something of a homeopathy sceptic: I know that acupuncture, herbalism, reflexology and a host of other alternative medicine techniques can have positive value, but the scientist in me baulks at homeopathy. However, the little vixen that I was treating did improve over the course of the summer, and whether it was the jam sandwiches or the homeopathic medicine, that was a good result. The one great thing about homeopathy is that it is guaranteed, at the very least, to do no harm, unlike the many medicines given to humans and animals that have long-lasting and sometimes serious side effects.

The fox I was treating in March 2016

So, I enjoyed Brand’s book – she has an obvious objectivity and a scientific approach, and she casts her net rather wider than Hemmington does in his book. But I didn’t love it. The focus seems to be more on the relationship between humans and foxes, particularly in urban areas, rather than the foxes themselves. I found the lack of an index really frustrating. The book seems to fall into the hinterland between a scientific study and a personal account, and so, for me, it doesn’t fulfill the promise of either approach. But any work that seeks to help us understand our wild neighbours and their habits is to be warmly welcomed. I look forward to seeing what Brand does going forward. Foxes need all the friends they can get.

The dog fox from the cemetery

The vixen waiting patiently for her dinner

Dear Readers, this magnificent black cat has been visiting the garden ever since lockdown started. He wanders down the side entrance, and I can always tell that he’s coming because the blue tits and the robins start their chorus of chinking and tsicking. He gets to the corner and has a quick look to see if anyone is there. If I’m having my coffee, he proceeds a little more carefully .  If I think he’s looking too predatory I will stand up abruptly and that’s enough to send him elsewhere for half an hour. If he looks relaxed, I’ll watch him as he strolls around ‘his’ domain and plonks himself down in the sun.

Photo through the kitchen window (not cleaned since lockdown, sorry!)

I love cats, and yet at certain times of the year I will discourage them from the garden whenever I see one (apart from Bailey of course. I think a bird could land on his back and he’d pay no attention). When the new fledglings first appear, I am hypervigilant. If there’s been a particularly cold snap and the birds are too hungry to take their usual care I will be keeping an eye open for hidden felines (though it’s much harder for them to hide when there isn’t so much foliage). I love cats, but I have no illusions about the damage they do.

I do think that prey animals know whether a cat is in hunting mode or not, though. My Mum’s enormous fat old cat, Snuggles, could lay on the patio surrounded by sparrows and they would ignore him. When I was in India I noticed that a tiger in plain view was not seen as a problem while everyone could see it and keep their distance. There sometimes seems to be an uneasy truce between predator and prey, a fine balance that it only takes a twitch of the tail or a tightening of concentration to disturb. There are so many dramas played out every day in an average garden, and lockdown has given me the chance to tune in to some of them.

What a beautiful, beautiful cat though. It is a pleasure to watch him.

And now, for something completely different. I was asked to identify some insects earlier this week by Mrs K over at Old Yarns and Woolly Thoughts She had found some unusual creatures under one of her strawberry leaves and wondered what they were.

First instar Green Shieldbugs (Palomena prasina) (Thanks to Mrs K for the photo)

I recognised them as shieldbugs, and with the help of the Insects and Other Invertebrates of Britain and Europe Facebook group we were able to identify the species – green shieldbug (Palomena prasina). I had one of these in my kitchen a few years ago – when they grow up they are very fine critters indeed.

Shieldbugs are ‘true’ bugs (I know in the US all insects are often known as bugs). A true bug feeds on the juices of plants or animals, and has specially adapted mouthparts to enable it to puncture its ‘victim’. It’s a varied family, with aphids and bedbugs being the villains of the piece, while pond skaters and water boatmen are all over the pond during the summer. I have written about froghoppers and their cuckoo-spit several times, but had no idea that we have a cicada species that lives in the New Forest.

Shieldbugs are named for the shape of their carapaces, but also have the less flattering name of ‘stinkbug’ – if handled they can produce a noisome chemical that is described, in Bugs Britannica by Peter Marren and Richard Mabey, as smelling like ‘rancid marzipan or mouldy almonds’. As anyone who watches Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot knows, the smell of bitter almonds is never a good sign, as it usually indicates cyanide. These bugs are probably poisonous little mouthfuls,

The green shieldbug, like all shieldbugs, goes through a wide variety of forms before it reaches adulthood – each one is known as an ‘instar’, and the shieldbug moults up to half a dozen times after it hatches. The mother green shieldbug lays three or four batches of eggs, each in a hexagonal shape, as you can see from Mrs K’s photograph above. Once the youngsters hatch, they stick together for protection – they produce what’s known as an aggregation pheromone, a chemical which encourages them to stay close. However, if danger does appear they instantly produce a dispersion pheromone, which causes them to run away from one another.

The different instars of the green shieldbug (Photo One)

The green shieldbug does feed on blackberries, raspberries and green beans, but the insects are rarely found in large numbers, and, to my mind at least, are best admired and left alone. There is a new kid on the block, the southern green shieldbug (Nezara viridula), who turned up in Kings Cross in London at Camley Street Nature Reserve in 2003, and there are some concerns that this little chap might be more voracious than the native species. So far the species hasn’t been spotted further north than Barnet, but it’s probably worth keeping an eye open for.

Southern green shieldbug nymphs (Photo Two)

The adult southern green shieldbug has clear wings, as compared with the green shieldbug (in my photo of the insect on my kitchen worktop above, you can see that it has amber-coloured wings), but it also has three white spots on the thorax which are pretty much diagnostic.

Adult southern green shieldbug (Nezara viridula) (Photo Three)

I can’t leave the subject of shieldbugs without mentioning the parent bug (Elasmucha grisea). While most insects lay their eggs and do a runner, the female parent bug crouches over her brood of eggs for two to three weeks – the number of eggs laid seems to depend on the body -size of the female. She protects them by making threatening movements towards any interlopers and, if all else fails, she will produce the almondy defensive chemicals mentioned above.

When the eggs hatch, the nymphs stay close together and feed on their eggshells – if one of them strays, the female reaches out with her antenna and guides them back to the shelter of her body. Once they start moving around to feed, the female stays in close attendance, keeping them together. The youngsters hatch asynchronously, and as the larger nymphs move away from the female they join up with others to form mixed groups – it’s been shown that these groups have a much better survival rate than individuals.

Finally, and most amazingly, adult females will sometimes join up and jointly guard all of their eggs and nymphs, with no favour shown to their own youngsters. Pairs of females seem to have the highest nymph survival rate of all. Teamwork in bugs! Who knew. Every single day I am astonished by what I discover for this blog.

Parent bugs (Elasmucha grisea) joint guarding eggs (Photo Four)

Single parent bug guarding eggs (Photo Five)

Well, I don’t know about you but shieldbugs have really gotten my attention now. I’m not the first person either: in Bugs Britannica, Peter Marren describes a book called ‘The Shieldbugs of Surrey‘, which gives helpful tips on keeping shieldbugs in captivity (not that I’m advocating such a thing of course). I find this utterly charming, probably because it’s just the kind of thing that I might have written when I was bug-smitten as a youngster.

‘If a fat bug refuses to eat, then it is probably close to a moult. If a thin bug does not eat, then there’s something wrong with the food….if a bug is running around wildly, then it may be in need of a drink….Sometimes a bug may be found lying on its back and waving its legs in the air. This is nothing to worry about….the creature may just be stuck’.

Green shieldbug eggs just before hatching. Look at all the little faces! (Photo Six)

Photo Credits

Photo One from https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/idcards/life_stages.html

Photo Two by Rison Thumboor from Thrissur, India / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Photo Three by Katya from Moscow, Russia / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Photo Four by By Bj.schoenmakers – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40664722

Photo Five by By Aiwok – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15551532

Photo Six by Line Sabroe from Denmark / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)