Dear Readers, you might think that most of the spiders that crop up in the UK are ‘a bit boring’ compared to those found in the tropics, but have a look at this beauty! This is a female Wasp Spider, found in Long Lane Pasture here in Finchley – the site is right next to the North Circular Road, but punches well above its weight in terms of plants and wildlife, largely due to its amazing volunteers.

Female Wasp Spiders are pretty much unmistakable – the one in the photo looks enormous, but actually they only grow to about 15mm long. The males are much smaller, and are very easy to miss.

The webs are also pretty distinctive: they contain a cross made of a different, more robust kind of spider silk. This helps to stabilise the web, and one theory is that this ‘stabilimentum’ is used because the main prey of the Wasp Spider is grasshoppers, which are pretty robust and vigorous insects. The patterns made by the stabilimenta are also thought to reflect UV light in a way that attracts prey to the web.

Wasp Spiders are mainly found in grassland, but seem to be fairly adaptable – my friend L found the spider in the photo below in gorse at Thorpeness.

Impressive as the Wasp Spider is, her relatives in other parts of the world have taken colouration and web design to a whole new level.  Have a look  at some other spiders in the Argiope genus below…

Back to ‘our’ Wasp Spider. As is usual with spiders, mating is a bit of a tricky affair – the female will eat the male spider given a chance. In order to avoid this, male Wasp Spiders hang around waiting until the female has had her final moult – at this point, her jaws are still soft so she can’t murder her mate. However, the male will try to ‘plug’ the female, to prevent other males from mating with her – to do this, he uses one of his pedipalps to position the package of sperm. Pedipalps are those ‘boxing glove’ appendages that you sometimes see next to the head of the spider. Once in place, the pedipalp breaks off, preventing other males from mating. However, the male spider has only two pedipalps, so only two chances of passing on his genes.

As the female can also only mate once, due to the ‘plug’, she produces a lot more eggs than you would expect for a spider of her size – as she will only ever have one clutch, it’s important for her to ensure that at least some survive. Eggs are laid inside this rather elegant egg sac, which gives them some initial protection.

Interestingly, Wasp Spiders, which were once confined to the very south of England, seem to be moving north – global warming is shuffling everything up, and it will be interesting to see where these fascinating arachnids eventually end up. Do let me know if you’ve spotted any¬

Dear Readers, many years ago (in 1984 to be exact) I was working as an accountant at Fitch and Co, a rather trendy design consultancy based in Soho. One of the perks of working there was that we had a cassette player (later replaced with a CD player). As I sat right next to it, I had some control over what we played – we featured a lot of Prince, Madonna, Ultravox, and the band of one of the guys who worked there, which was called ‘Gay Bikers on Acid’. If you’ve never heard of them, I am not surprised.

Every so often, though, I would try to inject a touch of something more calming, and on would go ‘Songs of the Humpback Whale’. Sadly, my fellow finance bods were not so impressed, especially when it got to the bits of the recording that sounded like giant farts, and so it was soon back to Roxy Music. However, I have always found the recording both moving and inspiring – to think that we share the world with such creatures fills me with awe.

The recordings were collected by cetacean scientist Roger Payne, who heard the recordings of Frank Watlington, a marine engineer who had recorded the eerie wailing sounds of the deep ocean. When Payne listened to them, he realised that the ‘songs’ repeated over time. He also discovered that all male Humpbacks in a given ocean sang the same song, but that it changed subtly every year.

Payne released the album in 1970 (so I was late to the game), and it quickly went platinum. It’s still the highest-selling environmental album of all time. In 1972 the ‘Save the Whales’ movement kicked off, leading to a ten-year global moratorium on whale hunting in the same year, followed by a complete ban on commercial whale hunting in 1986. We know that a few countries still hunt whales for ‘scientific’ purposes (I’m looking at you, Norway, Iceland and Japan) but overall a number of whale populations have grown, though, as we don’t know how large the original populations were it’s difficult to know how many whales there once were. I do know that Moby Dick describes whale pods so huge that they could crush whaling boats through sheer numbers, and Melville was a close observer of whaling.

Payne describes how he came to devote his life to whales.

“In the late 1960s he heard on the radio that a dead whale had washed up on Revere Beach (near Tufts University where he was working) so he drove out to see it. He found that souvenir hunters had already hacked off the flukes from the dead porpoise, somebody had carved their initials in its side, and a cigar butt had been stuffed into its blowhole. He later said “I removed the cigar and stood there for a long time with feelings I cannot describe. Everybody has some such experience that affects him for life, probably several. That night was mine.”

In addition to be a founder of the whale conservation movement, Payne went on to hypothesize that blue whales and fin whales can communicate across whole oceans using sound, a theory that has subsequently been proved. One of his last campaigns was to free captive orca Lolita from Miami Seaquarium, so she could be relocated to an ocean sanctuary in the Salish Sea. Sadly, Lolita, who had been in captivity for 53 years, died before she could be moved.

Payne died aged 88. 5 days before his death, an essay published in Time magazine had this to say:

“As my time runs out, I am possessed with the hope that humans worldwide are smart enough and adaptable enough to put the saving of other species where it belongs: at the top of the list of our most important jobs. I believe that science can help us survive our folly.”

You can listen to ‘Song of the Humpback Whale” here.

You can also hear Payne’s second album, which includes the songs of blue and right whales along with humpback whales here

Dear UK Readers, has anyone noticed the increasing shortness of the daylight? It’s only the end of August, but it’s clear that the season has turned, and the long nights of winter are fast approaching. But that’s not all bad – one of the things that I love about living in the UK is the way the seasons each bring their own joys, and the first hints of colour are appearing on the trees. The crab apples are absolutely laden down with fruit, which sadly no one will want. And the weather turns from stormy to sunny in a space of minutes, hence this rather impressive rainbow spanning my street on Friday night.

But once darkness falls, my trail camera is able to catch what goes on. This huge fluffy cat is a regular visitor now, but I still don’t know who s/he ‘belongs’ to.

However, I am convinced now that we’re visited by two foxes, one early in the evening and one in the wee small hours. A couple of readers pointed out that they have different tails – one has a white tip, and the other a black tip.

This is ‘early fox’…..

And this is ‘late fox’….

Studies in cat behaviour have shown that cats segregate themselves into time ‘niches’ when there are a lot of them in a neighbourhood: the more dominant cats are out and about at prime hunting time (i.e. dusk and dawn), while the cats who are further down the local hierarchy visit in the less auspicious times, such as midday or in the middle of the night (at least if their owners let them have total control of when they come and go). I wonder if this is the same for foxes? The fox who visits earlier seems a bit younger and skinnier to me, but s/he will get the bulk of the food on offer, as it’s usually thrown out after human dinnertime (so about 8 o’clock in our house). I suppose this early fox could also be bolder, or more desperate – there are lots more people about than at 3.00 a.m.

The later fox could be older and wiser, but will definitely get less food.

Maybe early fox is a vixen, and late fox is a dog fox? It will be interesting to see if they appear together later in the year, when breeding season starts.

And then I look back to my earlier post about the trailcam, and see that the time that the foxes visited was reversed, with ‘late’ fox being early, and ‘early’ fox being late, so clearly my theory goes out of the window. Furthermore, how do I know that these are the same two foxes? More data is clearly needed! I shall keep you posted!

Dear Readers, there’s no doubt that the portraits painted by Jenny Saville can be divisive – as I walked around the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, you could see people grimacing, scratching their heads and sometimes literally backing away, because these portraits are often on a monumental scale, towering above the viewer. So much flesh! I’m reminded a little of the work of Lucian Freud, and yet…Saville’s portraits have a visceral quality. They seem alive, whereas those of Freud often resemble cadavers more closely than anything living. There is a vivacity and energy to her work that challenges us to look more closely.

One photographic image, of a youngster with a port-wine birthmark, has been reimagined by Saville several times, and was the cover of a Manic Street Preachers album (subsequently banned by several supermarkets because the image was felt to be too disturbing).

Some of the images are beautiful, and yet all seem to depict vulnerability, and a kind of honesty.

And some depict power. The ‘contour lines’ on this monumental figure of Saville (Plan, 1993) can be read in a variety of ways. They link the body to the geography of the landscape, and yet Saville explains that these are also the marks that are used by surgeons prior to liposuction.

The contour lines are not simply painted on, but gouged out of the paint.

And there is no doubting Saville’s mastery of the human form – there are charcoal drawings here too, and some interesting comparisons with Old Master paintings. But more than anything, Saville’s exhibition finds her an honest broker when it comes to the human form, with all its fragility and strength, its beauty and ugliness.

If you want to see it, though, you’ll have to get a move on, as the exhibition finishes on Sunday 7th September. Details here.

Well, Readers, the kittens have now been liberated from the little back room that was used for while they were settling in, and now they have the run of the stairs and kitchen as well. Plus, the living room when I’m there to make sure that they don’t eat any of the plants/disappear up the chimney. It’s fair to say that it isn’t the most relaxing of occupations, but they are utterly adorable…

Earlier on, I decided to take a trip to Brent Cross – in truth, it’s probably quicker to go the the West End, but i rather like just jumping on a bus, and I rather love Brent Cross’s scale – it’s been modernised recently, but it’s still on a human scale (unlike some of the newer shopping centres) and I absolutely love the diversity of people that you see shopping and eating there.

Anyway, my hunt was for buttons – a friend has recently had a baby, so I’ve made a little jacket in yellow.

And in John Lewis I found these buttons! It gives the jacket a little touch of Bug Woman 🙂

And on the way home, I took the bus via Hendon, and watched what I describe as the ‘priority seat fandango’. Priority seats are usually close to the door of the bus, involve no steps or other awkwardness, and are meant for people who are unable to stand easily. If there’s a priority seat free on the bus, I usually take it, as I have my cane and my balance isn’t so great. However, I’ll stand up if someone gets on who I think is more unsteady than me, and it’s lovely how often people will then stand up for me. Today, a man got on with a suitcase and sat in one of the priority seats as the bus was half empty. Then, when a wobbly lady got on, he leapt up and came and sat next to me, only to move again when a wobbly gentleman got on. Then an extremely wobbly gentleman got on and the wobbly lady got up to let him sit down. This all happens without a word spoken, and it doesn’t seem to matter what colour or creed the people involved are. It feels like London at its very best, and I am always so happy to witness it.

And now, I have to go, as the cats have discovered a ball point pen, and that is definitely not going to end well 🙂

Well, Readers, this week’s poem is a rollicking ride – I can’t think of many poems that are so breathless, and which conjure up the rhythm of galloping so well (although Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ probably comes close. The whole story is an invention by Browning, and we never do know what the ‘Good News’ was, or  why it had to get to Aix in such a hurry. In fact, the only known recording of Browning’s voice has him reciting this poem, though unfortunately he forgot the words. Huzzah! It happens to the best of us. See what you think!

How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix 

Robert Browning

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

’Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with ‘Yet there is time!’

At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray.

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye’s black intelligence,—ever that glance
O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, ‘Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her,
We’ll remember at Aix’—for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
’Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And ‘Gallop,’ gasped Joris, ‘for Aix is in sight!’

‘How they’ll greet us!’—and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is, friends flocking round
As I sat with his head ’twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent

Dear Readers, I might have mentioned before that a variety of ‘exotic’ trees have been planted in the County Roads in East Finchley, amongst them this rather fetching Judas Tree (Cercis siliquastrum). I can’t believe that I missed it flowering, but maybe next year I’ll pay more attention.

Seeing this tree reminds me  of the Judas Tree which was just around the corner from where I worked in  the City of London – I was desperately looking for somewhere green (the City of London has less green space than any other London Borough) and after some searching I found a couple of spots  where I could rest my weary gaze when looking at spreadsheets got too much. I never did see this tree in flower either, but maybe one day I shall take myself back and say hello to it. These fine old trees, hidden  amongst all the stone and concrete, are valuable trees indeed.

And now, let’s go back a couple of years for a look at the Judas Tree.

Dear Readers, I do hope that you’ll forgive the preponderance of tree-based posts over the past few weeks. It’s difficult to find more herbaceous species in the winter, plus I am intrigued by the variety of street trees around my office in the City of London. They are a solace when I’m overcome by the busyness and the sheer number of people, and I have come to see some of them as individuals: the swamp cypress in the Cleary Garden and the Indian bean tree in St Olave’s Court come to mind immediately. They have a lot to teach us about resilience and stoicism, about bending to circumstance and about making the most of resources. Plus, they are extremely good company, quiet, dignified and unlikely to want you to explain your spreadsheet in minute detail.

So, this week I am turning my attention to the Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum). It comes from Southern Europe and Western Asia, and is a protected tree in Israel. The Cercis family is a genus in the pea family, Fabaceae, and this should come as no surprise if one looks closely at the flowers. The name ‘Cercis‘ comes from the Greek for ‘weaver’s shuttle’, which refers to the shape of the seedpods (see the photo below).

The one in the photo above cascades out of its bed at the back of the Guildhall, opposite the gardens of St Mary Aldmanbury. The church here was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, rebuilt and then bombed flat in the Blitz in 1940. The remains were taken and reconstructed in the grounds of Westminster College, Missouri as a memorial to Sir Winston Churchill.

But I digress, as usual. The only other Judas tree that I know of is also related to a ruined church, on Marylebone High Street – it is in the Garden of Rest next to the Marylebone Elm, one of the Great Trees of London. The name ‘Judas tree’ comes from the legend that Judas Iscariot, full of shame after his betrayal of Jesus, hanged himself from a branch of the tree, so I wonder if its appearance in churchyards is a result of its Biblical connotations. The tree is supposed to have turned its flowers from white to red as a mark of its disgrace, although Paul Wood points out in ‘London’s Street Trees’ that many of the cultivars to be found in the Capital have white flowers.

What flowers, though! They burst straight out of the bark, and I look forward to revisiting ‘my’ tree in the spring.

Sometimes the flowers dangle from the tree, however, and the seedpods certainly do, giving the appearance of little people hanging from the branches if you have a macabre turn of mind. I think that you would have to squint very hard to find that idea plausible. It is also said that if you tell a lie under a Judas tree you will drop dead, which makes a change, as regular readers will know, from dropping dead if you bring the flowers into the house. Yet another source mentions that the tree is a favourite haunt of witches, and that it is dangerous to go near it at night. The tree bears such a lot of negative connotations that it’s no wonder that the one that I saw is bowed over.

Other scholars, however, say that the name ‘Judas tree’ is a corruption of the French name for the plant, Arbre de Judée, meaning ‘Tree of Judea’, an area where the tree is commonly found, so all of the Judas myths might be founded on a misapprehension.

The flowers are pollinated by bees, but yet another folktale tells that the nectar is poisonous, and kills whoever feeds on the flowers. Not so, but handy as a cautionary tale to beware of temptation. In fact, the flowers are edible and are often pickled or thrown into a salad to add a touch of colour. The young leaves can also be eaten in salads.

In North America, the blossom of the closely related redbud trees (Cercis canadensis in the east of the continent, Cercis occidentalis in the west) is often used in the same way, and in fact the redbud is another London street tree, in particular the Forest Pansy variety, with its orange, red and purple foliage. It would be surprising if a city as diverse as London didn’t reflect this in its trees, and a walk around the City can often feel as interesting as a trip to a botanical garden.

Now, in the search for references to the Judas tree, I came across the sculptor Michael Winstone. Without understanding for a second exactly what he does, I found his work interesting, with an erotic tinge. What I do know is that each sculpture is based on a computer-scan of the bark of a particular tree, in this case a Judas tree (actually an Eastern redbud, but we’ll let him off). The computer then ‘grows’ this pattern organically, to make a form that is part tree, part human body. Sometimes, the tree itself will have disappeared, but its uniqueness is preserved in digital form. The title of each sculpture gives its exact original geographical location, in this case Forest Row, which appears to be midway between Crawley and Royal Tunbridge Wells.

The city of Istanbul is especially rich in Judas trees (known there as erguvan), and their blossoming heralds the beginning of spring. The purple-pink colour of the buds is reminiscent of the royal purple of the Byzantine emperors, and during Ottoman times the buds were gathered for food and the wood turned into walking sticks. Today, the trees are becoming a major tourist attraction, much like the cherry blossom in Tokyo.

And now, a poem. There is a lot of poetry about the tree’s association with Judas, but I wanted to commemorate the tree’s origins in the Middle East, where it is best loved and understood. This work is by the much-loved Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou, and was written to commemorate his friend Vartan, an Armenian Iranian who was arrested by the Iranian secret police (SAVAK) because of his affiliation to the illegal Communist party. He was tortured in order to get him to reveal the names of his comrades, and the location of a printing press, but remained silent, and died as a result of his injuries. Shamlou had to replace the name ‘Vartan’ with ‘Nazli’ because of censorship concerns until after the Iranian revolution of 1979. As with much poetry written under authoritarian regimes, there is a lot of symbolism here, especially with regard to the coming of spring and the end of winter, but I think it also works on its own merit. See what you think.

Vartan by Ahmad Shamlou

Under the window in our house, the old lilac has blossomed.
Dispel all your doubts!
Don’t wrestle with the ominous Death!
Being is better than not being, especially in spring …”
Vartan didn’t say a word:
Gloriously
He suppressed his anger and then went away …
– “Vartan, say something!
The bird of silence
is waiting for the offspring of a horrible death
to hatch its egg!”
Vartan didn’t say a word:
Just as the sun,
he rose in the dark,
set in the twilight of blood,
and then went away …
Vartan didn’t say a word.
Vartan was a glowing star,
momentarily glistened in the dark,
and then vanished for good and all.
Vartan didn’t say a word.
Vartan was a violet:
He came into blossom
and gave us the good news,
“Winter has fallen apart.”
and then went away.
– “Vartan, spring has arrived and the Judas tree is in flower”.

Photo Credit

Photo One by By Rangermike at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7957214

Photo Two by Bouba at French Wikipedia – photo by Bouba, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1658073

Photo Three by By Kurt Stüber [1] – caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/mavica/index.html part of http://www.biolib.de, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8033

Photo Four by Sballal [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Photo Five by Omi4DSculpture: Michael Winstone – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47448719

Photo Six from https://www.theguideistanbul.com/judas-trees/

Photo Seven by Schezar from New York City, USA [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

 

Dear Readers, I was sitting on the patio after eating a Waitrose Lemon Curd yoghurt (and if there’s a more middle-class statement than that I’d like to hear it) when I noticed that three Greenbottles were attracted to the empty yoghurt pot. And being the curious person that I am, I wondered why they came when no other insects did.

Well, first up Greenbottles have very superior taste (joke!) but actually they are attracted to the colour yellow, and also to the scent of many flowers. Notoriously, they love the smell of flowers like the Dead Horse Arum Lily, which stinks of carrion, and this makes sense, as Greenbottles are blowflies – they lay their eggs in carrion, and their larvae devour the corpses. However, when the adults can’t find carrion, they eat pollen, which is also very high in protein – females in particular are drawn to flowers, especially pregnant ones, who need the protein for their eggs to develop.

I’d noticed this attraction to flowers on many occasions – Greenbottles are often the first insects to arrive on newly open blooms, especially ones like wild carrot or cow parsley, with lots of tiny flowers. These flies are not specialist feeders like bees, but they are important pollinators of lots of plants, transferring pollen from one plant to another as they search for something to eat.

The love life of a Greenbottle is a complicated thing. First, the male pushes a potential mate several times with his head, and then taps her with his front legs. If all is going well, the male will mount the female whilst continuing to tap her with one front leg. If she’s amenable, the mating will take place, and the result is possibly 200 tiny maggots laid in a dead rabbit or some other corpse. However, if she’s not happy she will kick the male away with her back legs. Apparently, male Greenbottles have ‘handedness’, with some preferring to tap with their left foreleg, and others being ‘right-handed’.

How do the males recognise the females in the first place, though? Scientists have found that Greenbottle males can recognise a healthy female by the rate at which their iridescent green bodies ‘flash’ through their wingbeats – 178 Hz in case you wondered. This is actually slower than  the rate of other males, and is also slower than the rate for older flies of either sex. Furthermore, Greenbottles mate less on cloudy days, which seems to indicate that they are reliant on the flashes to identify a mate.

I am utterly gobsmacked, and not for the first time. The smallest, most maligned and commonest plants and animals that surround us often have the most complicated and nuanced of lives.

Let’s return briefly to the laying of eggs and the development of larvae, though. Anyone who has ever had a maggot-filled dustbin can attest to the speed and sheer numbers of blowfly larvae that can manifest themselves when conditions are right. But how? First up, when a suitable carcass is found, many females will lay their eggs on it – scientists aren’t sure quite what signal is given, but it may be that the sight of a female ovipositing encourages other females to do the same, or there may be some kind of chemical signal. But whatever the reason, this means that all the larvae are about the same age, and will all hatch together. This mass hatching means that the larvae thermoregulate, controlling and raising the temperature of the whole group, which means that they all develop more quickly. Furthermore, each larva secretes digestive enzymes which make the carrion easier to digest, benefitting the group as a whole. The group also appears to be able to make collective decisions – they will congregate in one area if there is lots to eat, but will split into smaller groups as the food runs out. It appears that each larva secretes a chemical signal, which encourages other larvae to follow.

To us, this might all seem a bit disgusting, but it’s worth bearing in mind that without flies getting rid of dead matter, we would be in trouble. And, finally, Greenbottles are one of the first insects to colonise dead matter, and as such are extremely important to forensic entomologists, who can calculate time of death from the degree of infestation by Greenbottle larvae. Larval secretions have also been found to be effective against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including MRSA.

While Greenbottles are vectors of human disease (due to their habit of landing on contaminated or rotting food and then transmitting the bacteria elsewhere), they are so much more – detritivores, pollinators, ‘smoking guns’ in murder cases, and possible sources of medical treatment. I don’t begrudge them a few mouthfuls of Waitrose yoghurt one bit.

Dear Readers, as a member of the RHS I can get free gardening advice, and so I sent off photos of my lacy whitebeam leaves. Within 48 hours I had an answer, to species level (which surprised me) – my leaves are being nibbled by a sawfly, Cladius brullei to be exact. Also known as the Blackberry Sawfly, this little creature also loves the leaves of raspberries and hawthorn. In an average year there can be two generations, but during a hot year like this year there can be more. No wonder my tree looks a little sorry for itself.

What the hell is a sawfly, though? Well, first things first, it isn’t a fly, but a member of the Hymenoptera, which includes wasps, bees and ants. Sawfly females have ‘saws’ on their abdomen, which they use to cut open plant tissues when laying eggs. As most of these insects are fairly small, most species are very under-recorded, hence my delight at getting an identification right to species level. But what does Cladius brullei look like?

Lepidopterans and sawflies have caterpillars, but sawfly caterpillars have at least five pairs of ‘abdominal prolegs’ (those squishy ‘feet’ on the middle of the body) whereas butterfly and moth caterpillars have only four. Plus, lepidopteran caterpillars often have multiple sets of eyes (if you look closely at their heads), whilst sawfly caterpillars have only two.

The RHS have assured me that the damage to the leaves won’t cause any lasting problems for the tree – after all, it was already stressed after last year’s drastic pruning, so a bit of ‘pest’ damage is only to be expected. I certainly wouldn’t consider spraying or anything else – there have been lots of insects around this year (relatively), and I’m sure the blue and great tits will be enjoying the caterpillars. A slightly moth-eaten (or in this case sawfly-eaten) garden is, to me, a sign that it’s alive.