Category: Insects

A Wigwam of Beanstalks

raspberries and tomatoesraspberriesThe garden is at it’s most productive so Barbara is busy in the kitchen, using a couple of pounds of split tomatoes in a Crank’s recipe for chilli bean and vegetable casserole, which also includes courgettes, onions, runner beans and potatoes from our garden.

She added some of today’s raspberries (we picked a bowl and a half of them) to a batch of muffins.

today's garden producerunner beansWe haven’t been able to keep up with the runner beans. A handful of the slenderest are going into the casserole but I’ve stripped off all the large stringy pods that were beginning to swell to encourage the plants to put their energy into the fresh pods which are still appearing.

As I reached inside the wigwam of beanstalks, I was surrounded by sunlit foliage. With temperatures climbing into the 70s it felt more like high summer than the beginning of autumn.

Spider and Wasp

garden spider with wasp prey orb web spiderIt’s a time of plenty for the spiders too: a jumping spider patrols the sunny kitchen windowsill and an orb spider with a web on the outside of the lounge window fusses out of its corner to check out a tiny insect which has landed on its web but just misses it as the insect breaks away.

A garden spider at the centre of a 12 inch wide web in front of the ivy at the end of the herb bed has more success. It has swathed a wasp in silk and is slowly consuming it. Unlike the spider in the corner of the window, it doesn’t retreat to a lair: it’s been there right at the centre of its web all afternoon. Two hours later it is still clutching what remains of the unfortunate wasp.

orb spider and waspWasps nested under the tiles of the roof above my studio two years ago and, during the summer months and well into a mild autumn, dozens, if not hundreds, of them somehow blundered their way into the studio and I regularly had to release them by flipping open the Velux window.

A few found their way into our hot water system and for months afterwards the odd fragment of wasp carapace would appear when we ran a bath.

waspThis year wasps have nested under tiles again but near the apex of the main roof so thankfully well away from the hot water tank.

Blackbird Anting

blakbird5 p.m.: The workers of the ants’ nest under the paving slabs of our patio are getting rather excited but it’s not going to be perfect weather for the winged queens and males to take off on their nuptial flight as although it has been warm and humid we’re now getting flurries of breeze and fine, misty drizzle.

blackbirdAt first it was the song thrush that started anting – encouraging ants to run over its plumage – while the female blackbird hopped up the lawn and started pecking up the scurrying ants to eat them.

blackbirdNow she has taken to anting too, picking up the ants and letting them run about on her feathers. She does this at first from under the cover of the leaves of the peony that overhang the corner of the patio then comes out and continues by the bird bath.

sparrowThe sparrows are more interested in eating the ants. One male hops under the plastic bird bath which is supported by bricks, a space that the blackbird, which later reverts to simply eating the ants, cannot reach.

Hoverflies

hoverfliescranesbillThe walled garden, Nostell Priory, 10.45 a.m., 65°F, 16°C: As I draw a cranesbill in the corner of the wild flower meadow, hoverflies investigate my pen. The long thinner species is attracted to the red plunger in my transparent Lamy fountain pen while the more convincing wasp mimic, the one with the broader boat-shaped abdomen, is attracted to the circular end of the pen and later to the round face of my key-fob compass.

A third species, a small dark hoverfly feeding on the cranesbill flowers, differs from the others in the way it holds its wings when at rest. It keeps them folded parallel along its back rather than angled at 45° like the other hoverflies.

wasps' nestA metre of so from me amongst the tumbled grass stems there’s a wasps’ nest. The wasps tend to leave the nest in a determined, direct flight but half of those returning hesitate and perform two or three short clockwise loops, about six inches across, as if they’re checking out the immediate surroundings before touching down. Or perhaps they’re giving way to any outgoing traffic.meadow brown

A meadow brown butterfly rests amongst the grass stems.

Toadlet

toadletIn the lakeside wood, a tiny amphibian hops across the path. I always assume that if it hops it’s a frog, if it trundles it’s a toad but when I pick it up to take it out of harm’s way, I can see that it’s a toad, with dry warty skin. It’s smaller than my little finger nail but it’s already has the gnarled and weathered look of a prehistoric creature.

Wood Pigeon’s Egg

eggA blackbird was pecking at this egg which looks like a wood pigeon’s. It was lying beneath a tree by the middle lake at Nostell. I suspect that a jackdaw or magpie might have taken it from a nest. The crow tribe are the usual suspects when it comes to egg crime.

Strimming the Meadow

meadow

2.50 p.m., 75°F, 28°C: By the time that I’ve strimmed a path around our meadow area, there’s just a tuft of tall grasses left in the middle, the size of a double bed. Knapweed, creeping buttercup and red campion (not yet in flower) are holding their own amongst the Yorkshire fog and cocksfoot grass.

wolf spider
Total length 4cm, body 1.5cm.

In spring I added two plants of birdsfoot trefoil from the garden centre which are scrambling up amongst the grass stems and just beginning to show a few flowers.

A blackbird which is nesting in a dense holly in the hedge makes a circuit of the newly trimmed path.

A larger than average female wolf spider rests under the cover of a chicory leaf, holding her pea-sized cocoon of eggs so that it catches the afternoon sun.

large skipper
Wingspan 3cm.

A large skipper, Ochlodes sylvanus, rests in the sun on a blade of grass, its wings half open in characteristic skipper fashion. It’s a male with a dark band of scent cells across its forewing.

Hawker

hawkerhawker10.30 a.m.: A dragonfly lands on the wall of the bridge over the River Porter at Langsett Reservoir giving me the chance to take a quick blurred snapshot before it flies off again. I draw from the photograph to try and fix the details in my mind before attempting to identify it.

It’s a hawker, possibly a male common hawker, Aeshna juncea. The male has a slender ‘waist’ at the top of the abdomen, which I’ve thickened up a bit in my drawing. Its colours are muted; it can take a few days for the bright colours to develop. It’s larvae develop in bog pools and on the coast they can tolerate brackish water.

Dippers

dipperThe dippers that we spotted building a nest alongside the weir are now feeding young, which we can hear calling for food. They sound hungry enough to eat a dragonfly.

Oak Eggar Caterpillar

oak eggar caterpillarUp on the moor at Hingcliff Common, the caterpillar of the oak eggar moth, Lasiocampa quercus, is crawling along at the side of the path. Despite the name, the caterpillar doesn’t feed on oak; here on the moor it is likely to be feeding on heather or bilberry plants. The red-brown male moths fly on sunny days during the summer but the paler female is nocturnal.

Yellow Rattle

yellow rattle69°F, 20°C, 10.25 a.m.: At the lower end of the walled garden at Nostell Priory there are two squares of wild flower meadow. Amongst the grasses, buttercups and dog daisies there are small drifts of yellow rattle, Rhinanthus minor, a plant that is semi-parasitic on the roots of grasses.

Despite a superficial resemblance, it isn’t related to yellow archangel, which I photographed in Stoneycliffe Woods at the beginning of the month: yellow archangel is a relative of the dead-nettles, one of the Lamiacea (mint) family, while yellow flyrattle is a member of the Scrophulariaceae (figwort) family, related to louseworts, cow-wheats, speedwells and foxglove.

Male Fern

male fernmale fern stemA tall shuttlecock tuft of fronds of male fern, Dryopteris filix-mas, grows by the woodland path near the Menagerie. It has pale brown scales on its stems, which helps distinguish it from another tufted fern, the broad-buckler, which has a dark stripe running down the centre of each scale. The broad-buckler doesn’t form such a robust looking shuttlecock of fronds.

 

Curry Plant

aphids

curry plantThe curry plant growing in the stone trough in the courtyard of the stable block at Nostell Priory is just about to come into flower. As its name suggests, it gives off a convincing aroma of curry if you brush against it or rub its leaves. If this is designed to deter insects, it isn’t working in the case of these black aphids that are sap-sucking along its stems.

aphidsant and aphidSurplus sap excreted by the aphids is collected by ants, which have been observed to defend and sometimes to move the aphids, like farmers herding cattle. I spotted just one ant in the macro photographs that I took.

 

Spittle Bug

cuckoo spitAlso sap-sucking, a spittle bug. The nymph of the spittle bug produces a protective covering of ‘cuckoo spit’ by blowing bubbles in the surplus sap that it excretes.

Bladdernut

bladdernut

bladdernut
 bladdernut

Upper lake, Nostell Priory: The seed capsules of bladdernut contain hard seeds that have been used as beads. Bladdernut, Staphylea pinnata, is a deciduous shrub or small tree, native to central and southern Europe and Turkey. It was introduced to Britain in the 16th century.

Bumble bees

Red-tailed bumble bee
Red-tailed bumble bee

bumble beeCatmint and geraniums are attracting bumble bees in the walled garden at Nostell Priory.

Holly Blue

holly blue11 a.m.: In a sun trap of a back garden in South Ossett this holly blue is so intent on feeding on a flowering shrub that I’m able to get within macro range with my camera. When I see a blue butterfly the size of my little finger nail I’m never sure whether I’m looking at small blue, common blue or holly blue but, once it settles, the holly blue is the only one that that has bluish white underwings with small dark spots.

The small blue has black spots fringed in white on its pale grey underwing; the common blue has black and orange spots, also fringed in white, on a grey-brown background.

Oak Apple

oak apple

Greater stitchwort
Greater stitchwort

It’s as if someone’s thrown a switch and we’re suddenly in the peak of springtime. In the last two weeks we’ve had a covering of gravel-sized hailstones and just last weekend the crowds were braving wintery showers to cheer on the Tour de Yorkshire cyclists. This morning as we follow the towpath to the Navigation Inn (which is still struggling to get fully up and running after the December floods) orange tipwe’ve got peacock butterflies and orange tips flying alongside us. Greater stitchwort, dandelion and green alkanet are freshly in flower.

A canal side oak is bursting into leaf and amongst the catkins on its branches we spot a few oak apples, made by the gall wasp Biorhiza pallida. The wingless unisexual generation of this gall wasp has spent the winter developing in galls on the roots of the tree then emerged and climbed the trunk to lay its eggs on the buds. The buds develop into the reddish spongy oak apples and from these the bisexual generation will emerge.

Goosander

blue butterflyA blue butterfly (holly or small blue?) flies up from the rock face which creates a south-facing sun trap at Addingford Steps. On the River Calder near the old Horbury Bridge woollen mills two male goosanders are diving.

lapwingA lapwing swoops over the Strands where I drew in the aftermath of the winter floods. There’s a warbler in the tall grasses. monocularFrom it’s song Barbara thinks it’s a sedge warbler, from it’s appearance – not streaky – I took it to be a reed warbler. But I’m struggling to get a decent view with my little monocular: I must bring binoculars next time!

Mayday Ants

antBlack garden ants, Lasius niger, don’t live indoors but will come in to forage. They love anything sweet. Yesterday morning Barbara spotted a column of them following a trail in front of the kick-board of the kitchen units. They were getting in through a chink in the corner of the skirting board. I filled the gaps with silicon sealant but still the odd ant kept appearing. It looked as if there might be a couple of tiny holes, big enough for a determined ant to squeeze through, so this afternoon I’ve smeared some petroleum jelly along the join and I hope that will discourage them.

antI need to take the skirting board off to check what kind of passageway the ants are using behind it, but that’s a job that I’d rather have a joiner in to do. After all the hail and rain that lashed the garden last week we’re now heading into a spell of warmer, settled weather, so I hope that the ant foraging parties will turn their attention to the great outdoors.