Let’s end National Insect Week with a real doozy: this is a fig gall on an elm leaf in the hedge between Sleepers and Cornfield. It is caused by Tetraneura ulmi, an elm-grass root aphid with a very complicated and quite astonishing life cycle.
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This is the penultimate day of National Insect Week, time to look at one of our more dramatic beetles: the golden-bloomed longhorn beetle (Agapanthia villosoviridescens), first identified and photographed in the reserve by our wildlife photographer, Simon Knight, in the summer of 2020.
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Last week, just in time for National Insect Week, Ian reported the reserve’s first nest of peacock caterpillars, late but very welcome.
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A real mouthful of a name:
Xanthogramma pedissequum, the superb ant-hill hoverfly, a rarity spotted by Ian early on a spring morning in 2021 and added to our species list.
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Yes, they can: unsettling news for some, we know, but nevertheless important.
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This is one of the UK’s largest flies: a great pied hoverfly, so named for its black and white colouring. Ian photographed it at the bottom of The Race, near the Wildlife Wheel, feeding on the flowers of cow parsley. It is also called the pellucid hoverfly because, in certain lights, the pale patches on its sides are translucent: a see-through hoverfly!
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Our common spotted orchids are in flower! Ian has sent photographs and we have added pictures from previous years to make a gallery.
Header image by Ian Bushell
This evening, at 9.50pm, the sun will reach its most northerly point, the Tropic of Cancer. That means that today will be the longest day of the year and tonight will be its shortest night. Officially, summer has begun.
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This is an ichneumon wasp feeding on hogweed near Lambrok Stream.
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Here’s a recipe for bee bread:
We are too inclined to think of butterflies if anybody says anything about metamorphosis: eggs under a green leaf, caterpillars, chrysalises, and the beautiful adult wings unfolding in the sunlight. But all insects metamorphose and in many different ways.
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Grasses are flowering plants: they have all the same essential bits and pieces as a buttercup or a dandelion. The difference is that they are wind pollinated so they have not adapted their structure to meet the needs of insect pollinators: they have no scent, no nectaries, no colours or ultra-violet sign posts and no petals to make landing platforms.
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Message from Ian:
I think this is a very recently emerged female Ruddy Darter – Sympetrum sanguineum – taken on Friday June 7th near the reserve’s big pond.
All pictures taken in the reserve by Ian Bushell
There are always drinker moth caterpillars (Euthrix potatoria) somewhere in the reserve at this time of year. You just have to know where to look.
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More than 80% of insect species undergo a metamorphosis of four stages.
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You might see all these butterflies on your buddleia this summer but they all need other, less garden-friendly, sometimes undesirable, plants if they are to complete their life cycles.
This is Stachys sylvatica, commonly known as hedge nettle, hedge stachys or hedge woundwort. It is growing at the far end of Lambrok Meadow.
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The New Scientist has reported that three Asian hornet queens (Vespa velutina) were captured in Essex in March this year, more than a month earlier than migrants from mainland Europe usually arrive here.
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Anthropogenic evolution is evolutionary change in a species caused by alterations that we, Homo sapiens, make to the environment.
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Our common vetch (Vicia sativa) is in flower. It’s a scrambling plant and you’ll find it among tall grasses, holding itself upright with the tendrils that grow from the tip of its leaf stalks. Its bright pink flowers attract all kinds of invertebrates.
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Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 