11 August 2023

Wildlife Blog by Ron Allen – 11 August

Hornet hover-fly, Black knapweed, Leaf-cutter bees, Big Butterfly Count, National Moth Week, Hornet, Ants, Treecreeper, some Fungi and a Rainbow

What a month it has been, terrific heat early in the month and torrential rain in the second part and occasionally brighter into early August. However, brighter sunny intervals brought many butterflies out and we have seen many young birds in the garden.

Hornet hoverfly

We took the youngest three of our four grandchildren for a walk and on the way stopped by the Seven Stars pond. There were a few damselflies but then the youngest said ‘what’s that’ and the middle one said it’s a hornet and to my joy there was a splendid Hornet Hoverfly, here in Stroud. This species was the header for previous blog and here was one in the centre of the village. No picture of course because young children are not conducive to photography and with the point of small finger this giant of a harmless hover-fly was soon on its way.

Black knapweed and Canadian Fleabane insects

The corner of our lawn, which every year we leave to do its own thing (image 1), has passed from yellow primroses to white oxeye daisies and is now a wonderful show of purple black knapweed providing pollen and nectar for butterflies, bees, hoverflies and a great many other highly beneficial insects (images 2 -5). A mini wildlife paradise rich in so many insects and spiders of all sorts. Interestingly, many of the butterflies (other than Peacocks and Red Admirals) and other insects seemed more attracted to the knapweeds than the buddleia. Canadian Fleabane (image 10 below) often considered a weed, has splendid yellow insect attracting flowers.

1 White buddleia and black knapweed in a corner of the garden.

3 Honey bee on black knapweed.

2 Bumble bee worker on black knapweed.

4 The wasp mimic, marmalade hoverfly, on black knapweed.

5 Patchwork leaf-cutter bee on black knapweed.

Leafcutter bees

Of special interest have been the Leaf-cutter Bees that collect pollen from the knapweeds (image 5 above). Unlike other bees, the leaf-cutters collect pollen in a pollen brush underneath their abdomens. The two common species are separated by the colour of hairs on the tip of pollen brush on the underside of their abdomens. The Patchwork Leaf-cutter Bee ( image 5) is wholly orange underneath and has been collecting pollen from our black knapweed flowers (image 5) while Willughby’s Leaf-cutter Bee has darker or black hairs at the tip of the abdomen (image 6) and is using our bee hotel.

6 Willughby’s leaf-cutter bee at our bee hotel.

Having feasted and collected pollen from the knapweeds, these bees head off to a soft leaf (often garden roses) and cut a neat circle of leaf that they take back to separate the individual egg cells of their burrows, in our case drilled holes into logs forming home-made ‘bee hotels’ on our south facing house wall. After the bee lays an egg at the end of the hole, they separate it from the next cell by these circles of leaf. Watching them bring their leaf circles to the nest can be fascinating; if the leaf disc does not fit they chew the edges until it does fit.

Unfortunately for the leafcutter bees, their parasites soon appear. Sharp-tail Bees (image 7) sneak into the nest while the leaf-cutter is away and use their pointed abdomen to cut a slit in the last leaf circle to reach the chamber in which to lay their egg. Gasteruption wasps (image 8) use their long ovipositor to reach into and lay eggs inside the leaf-cutter chambers.

7 Sharp-tail bee, a parasite of leaf-cutter bees, investigating our bee hotel.

8 Gasteruption, another leaf-cutter bee parasite.

Big Butterfly Count

The nationwide citizen science Big Butterfly Count ran from 14 July to 6 August this year; launched in 2010 this survey has become the world’s biggest survey of butterflies https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/about

Big Butterfly Count

Be part of this nationwide survey and help take the pulse of nature. Butterfly declines reveal the poor health of the environment. We need your sightings.

bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org

The public were invited to record a selection of the commoner butterflies (and a few day flying moths) seen in one location over a 15 minute period and submit results to the phone app or the website. The results will be published later in the year.

I see from the map on the butterfly count website that within Stroud Parish we had 12 butterfly species recorded during 12 counts including, three counts along the track by the school, one count in a garden off Ramsdean Road, one count by the Seven Stars, one count in a field, three counts on the village green, and three counts in our own garden.

The most commonly recorded species in the allotted 15 minutes were: Gatekeeper (35), Red Admiral (22), Large White (21), Small White (17), and Meadow Brown (13 counts). Smaller numbers of Peacock (image 9), Holly Blue (Image 10), Comma, Brimstone (image 11), Small Tortoiseshell, Speckled Wood and Small Copper were also recorded. The highest individual counts were twenty six butterflies recorded on the village green, twenty one along the lane by the school and eleven in our garden. The lowest count was on the Seven Stars front lawn with none recorded. While Gatekeepers are a common native species, the Red Admiral is mainly a migrant from north Africa and continental Europe and of which butterfly we have seen a massive nationwide increase this year.

9 Peacock butterfly on white buddleia.

10 Holly blue butterfly on Canadian fleabane.

11 Male brimstone butterfly on purple buddleia.

Moths and hornets

National Moth Week ran from July 22^nd to 30^th July 2023 and moth enthusiasts around the UK (and the World) were discussing, promoting and recording moths. No space left to discuss moths in detail, but perhaps next time. Meanwhile, here are a few moths for now: Lesser Swallow Prominent (image 12), Old Lady (image 13) thought to look an old ladies shawl, and the well camouflaged Dark Dagger (images 14 and 15) here sitting in broad daylight on one of our bee hotels. Many other insects are attracted to moth traps (known as ‘moth trap intruders’) and we have had several hornets in ours (image 16).

12 Lesser prominent moth.

14 Dark dagger moth amazingly camouflaged against the log of our bee hotel.

13 Old lady moth, a large species resembling an old lady’s cloak.

15 Zoomed in image of the dark dagger.

16 One of the hornets that have been attracted to our light trap.

Flying ant emergence

We have had two flying ant days. By the time we saw the second, the winged queens had mostly left leaving myriad winged males (image 17) and female workers running all around. Once the males have done their job they soon die while the queens fly off and, if they avoid the birds, set up new colonies.

17 Male flying ants recently emerged from their underground nest to mate with the new queens.

Treecreeper and spotted flycatcher

A call of ‘treecreeper alert’ from Mary created a dash for the camera and a quick lens change and there on our oak tree were two treecreepers. We think one was an adult (image 18) and the other a juvenile. We had a fleeting visit from spotted flycatcher in the garden although two years ago we had a nesting pair. Chris Packham in his Wild Britain series suggested that the lack of insects this year may have affected their UK flycatcher populations.