Bumblebees get a grip

Bumblebees are quite conspicuous in the garden. They are big, bright and loud. Because they don't really seem that good at flying they tend to bumble around the flower they are trying to land on. I want to let you into a secret. They can fly with great skill but their problem is landing. The feet of a Bumblebee consist of a pair of spikes that are supposed to grapple the plant, but due to the size of the Bumblebee it has trouble getting a grip. Here seen in ultra ultra slow motion through the bigascope is a male Red Tailed Bumblebee or Bombus lapidarius struggling to get onto a leaf. Seen this way the bumblebee kind of looks like an overweight mountain climber. The Bee at the very end of the clip is a Female White Tailed Bumblebee or Bombus lucorum

The music used in this video is royalty free.

I suppose the next question is, what is all the fuss about? Well, bees pollinate plants like no other insect. In this country the efforts of bees are worth about a billion pounds. In the US that number is around 15 billion dollars. If they organised themselves a bit better in two years bees could pay for their own Apollo space program.

This picture, taken through my ultra bigascope (bigascope+microscope), shows the microscopic pollen grains of Marsh Woundwort. Ever since the cretaceous period, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, plants have been producing pollen to stick to bees. Bees don't even know that this is happening, all they think about whilst drinking the sugary nectar is "Wow, free food". There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Out in the hedgerows

During late July a lot of the fruit flowers have been pollinated and nothing is left but for the fruit to grow. Blackberry, seen here, has an unusual flower. Whereas some plants have one stigma in the centre, the blackberry has many. Each of these stigmas will bring the sperm cells from the pollen to a different seed. Each nodule on a blackberry is fertilised separately in this way. Next time you eat a blackberry think about the fact that you are eating the genetic information from about fifty plants.

Its a good time of year for birds as well. Many, like this Yellowhammer or Emberiza citrinella above, have been busy bringing up a second brood. Here we can see a male bird with a caterpillar in its beak. For a few minutes it sat on this metal gate in Nottinghamshire and didn't once try to swallow the grub. I remember thinking at the time that he must have many mouths to feed somewhere. Tomorrow we will take a look at bumblebees.

Update on the school meadow

There were a couple of plants that I couldn't identify straight away but now thanks to my peeps over at Wild About Britain I can bring you another identification.This is Hairy Tare or Vicia Hirsuta. It is a pea, like tufted vetch and has in the past been a cultivated legume. Now it thrives in meadows like the one at the school.

Miracle Caterpillar

Another spot I go to for encounters with wildlife is a quiet country lane near the village of Barkby, Leicestershire. The long silent road has hedges both sides and beyond that fields full of crops. Here and there old trees stand and sometimes congregating to form little islands of wilderness. I went down there the other night looking for any crepuscular species, such as foxes, badgers or owls. Though I could hear a lot of wildlife, I couldn't really see any. I was on my way back to the car in the dark when I came across what is ultimately my worst nightmare. A huge silk web stretched out over metres of the plants at the field boundary. All at once I was filled with revulsion and fear and very nearly bolted for safety. In the nightime conditions I barely dared to look at the seething mass of web and movement in case I should see some horrible thing. But just as I did I noticed that the whole bush was swarming in a pulsation kind of movement. What was it? I went back in the daylight and strangely felt significantly less afraid of the thing. It was a huge web swarming with creatures. Just, not spiders as my over zealous imagination had depicted. It was caterpillars. Thousands of them. Black and hairy and all twitching and throbbing on some giant web. What on Earth was going on? When Peacock Butterflies or Inachis Io lay a good number of eggs on stinging nettle leaves the caterpillars work together to bridge plants with a silk web they produce. The Caterpillars then have a highway that allows them to change bush. Check out this video to see some close up action with the bigascope.

This was interesting indeed. By working together in a colony the caterpillars were increasing their chance of survival. Greater numbers could be supported if they just all worked together. Cooperation by evolution. This is something that human beings do. The fields surrounding the caterpillars was evidence of this. The farmer does not live by his crop alone but cooperates with others of his species. We share a common survival strategy with this insect.

My interest in this grew when I spotted the caterpillar above. Amongst all the brownish black caterpillars was one with a greener head and whiter spikes. Amongst this seething mass of caterpillars one was different. Here are my three hypothesis.

1) Its a different species

2) Its the same species after shedding its skin

3) Its a mutant

Firstly, I don't think it is a different species. It has too many commonalities with the other caterpillars. It could be a newly shed version, but its spines actually look longer near its head compared to the others. Finally the idea that this one caterpillar is displaying variation within the species is not so far fetched. It by such individuals that evolution happens. What the answer is I don't know. Neither do my friends over at Wild About Britain. What is for sure is that doing a Google image search for Peacock Caterpillar does not bring up a single image of a caterpillar with white spikes. Whatever little miracle we are witnessing here, it is extremely rare.

Re-wilding of spoil heaps

So, what did we find in growing on the one year old spoil heap at the school?

Broad Leaved Dock Rumex Obtusifolius
Broad leaved Willowherb Epilobium Montanum
Common Poppy Papaver Rhoeas
Hedge Woundwort Stachys Sylvatica
Herb Bennet Geum Urbanum
Meadow Vetch Lathyrus Pratensis
Red Campion Silene Dioica
Red Clover Trifolium Pratense
Redshank Persicaria Maculosa
Ribwort Plantain Plantago Lanceolata
Scarlet Pimpernel Anagallis Arvensis
Small flowered Crane's Bill Geranium Pusillum
Stinging Nettle Urtica Dioica
Tufted Vetch Vicia Cracca
Weld Reseda Luteola
White Campion Silene Latifolian Alba
White Clover Trifolium Repens

As you can see quite a variety of species. This list is not definitive. It was basically compiled from plants that caught my eye. Still, there are some interesting species established already.

The Broad Leaved Willowherb is, like a lot of wildflowers, considered to be a weed. A weed? Have you seen this thing? How could something so beautiful be called a weed? I rather like this delicate flower. I'm glad it is thriving at the school. You can tell just by looking at this thing that it is designed for the honey bee and during our plant hunt we did see an unusually large number of honey bees around.

The Redshank is an unusual cluster of pink flowers. For thousands of years humans have used Redshank. Its leaves can be eaten as a salad and just in case someone accidentally runs you through with a sword as you are eating, the leaves will also staunch heavy bleeding. When eaten it can stop diarrhea and cure infections. This is a good plant to have around.

Tufted Vetch is a pretty blue flower found on the south facing slopes of the spoil heap. This plant has a forgotten history. It turns out that we used to grow this stuff as a crop. It was, in fact, one of the earliest species of plant to be grown by human beings anywhere in the world. In the bible there is mention of beans being eaten. Go look up 2 Sam. 17:28. This is a reference to this plant. The beans we eat today are mostly North American species.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of those flowers I always wished I would find. It has gained fame after a play was named after it in which English aristocrats would go rescue French aristocrats during the French revolution. The leader of which called himself the Scarlet Pimpernel and signed his letters with a small drawing of this flower. Back in the real world, this pretty pink flower is a tiny but welcome addition to the spoil heap. Some say its leaves make a nice salad, but others say it is deadly poisonous. Ho hum. What is for sure is that this plant contains chemicals that can kill you.

Finally for today, let us look at Small Flowered Crane's Bill. Like the Redshank the right parts of this plant will staunch heavy bleeding, cure pain and stop diarrhea. Great stuff!

Tomorrow I will show you a freak of nature.

That Ladybird ain't no lady!

The animal that had a good go at biting me yesterday was a ladybird lava. That is, a ladybird before it has metamorphosed into a proper ladybird. Ever heard that ladybirds are good for the garden? Well what they actually meant to say was that lava are good for the garden. All the adult ladybirds do is look pretty, mate and lay eggs. I picked this chap up with the intention of looking at him through a microscope. Almost as soon as I did he started to bite me. Maybe he was just trying to establish what kind of plant I was. Maybe he just didn't like me. It turned out that he was too quick for that. In fact he was almost too quick for the bigascope until I made a jaw dropping discovery. My camera does slow motion video capture. I have got to admit it, the thought of combining the bigascope with ultra slow motion video capture was almost too much. I had to sit down and have a ginger nut biscuit just to get over it.

So here for your viewing pleasure is a ladybird lava running full pelt in ultra slow motion. Enjoy!

Yes, I know what you are thinking. That does not look like slow motion. Well check out this difficult to film full speed video and you will see it as it really is.

That noise in the background sounds to me like juvenile specimens of the Homo Sapien species. This primate is quite common in these parts, and quite noisy to. That reminds me, what I was doing when I found the ladybird lava was investigating the species that had reclaimed a large spoil heap outside of a newly built school. The idea being that if the ground was surveyed every year, you would witness the re-wilding of the land. The process of identifying everything we saw is a big one but I have nearly completed the task. I'll let you know the results when I have them.

Clover, loved all over

It is a common sight in most lawns. Many have spent hours on hot sunny days sitting idly on the grass and marvelling at the discovery of a four leafed clover. Few people have spent more than a second looking at the plant itself when lady luck has not provided us the discovery. This time of year the clover does something new. It flowers. If you don't believe me go take a look at your lawn. Those little white balls are the flowers of White Clover (Trifolium Repens).Each flower is a starburst of white trumpets that radiate from a central seed chamber. Here with the bigascope we can see deep into its heart. The flower stalks are a deep red. Wait! there is more! Did you know that there are several species of clover? Non are so different from the White Clover as the Red Clover. From a distance the Red Clover (Trifolium Pratense) looks, well, just like a purple version of the White Clover. However, be not fooled, there is something different going on deep in the flower. Check out this picture.

Can you see what is different? The red rods sticking out of the flower lead us to the startling conclusion. The Red Clover sticks its Stamens out. In moderation, clover is a good species to have in your wild patch because they are the food providers for a number of species that you definitely want to attract. Firstly there is the Common Blue butterfly which despite its name has alluded me up to now. Secondly its nectar is warmly appreciated by bees. Next time you are about to cut the lawn, and decapitate a multitude of providers, think about the bees!

That leaves me with just enough time to show you this. Whilst at work today this creature pounced on me and buried his jaws into the soft flesh of my hand. Again and again his mandibles closed on my skin. What on Earth I was doing and what this man eating creature is will have to wait until tomorrow. :-)

Unknown creatures in the long grass

The meadow I visited on Saturday was so rich with life that I still haven't got a full handle on what I saw. There was a few species that I just didn't recognise. There were a couple that I couldn't even identify afterwards. How is it that the average person knows all about life in Africa and yet doesn't know half the things that live in the fields around his home? How is it that I see something completely new every time I go outside?

The answer is - because Earth is a wonderful world. Here living alongside us, whoever we are, is a multitude of life so diverse that no single human being can know everything about it. The plants and animals here on Earth are like the stars in the sky. Some people understand how they work, some might be able to group them into families, but nobody could ever know each individually. That is why the Universe is so amazing. It is easy to be humbled by the complexity of its workings. All around us is more than we could ever know. For the curious there is an endless feast of curiosities. Its not the knowledge that gives the pleasure, it is the discovery.

And what better pleasure could be had than starting a day having no clue what an animal is that you have photographed and then finding a community of people able and willing to tell you what you have found. The Wild about Britain website is fantastic. I posted a pictures of two unknown creatures and within a day both had been identified. Thanks to users Toby and Nutmeg.

So here we are, two meadow species new to me.I would like you to meet the nymph (which is the word used to describe the childhood stages of an insect) of a Meadow Plant Bug (Latin name Leptopterna dolabrata). This creature seemed quite happy sitting on a blade of grass and wasn't disturbed by me. Here is some juicy gossip, apparently the Meadow Plant Bug feeds on the growing seed heads of long grasses causing the grass to abort the seeding process. Bad news if you are a wheat farmer. However, its natural home is in the grass. It is our fault that it is attracted to the huge fields of wheat we plant. It makes you question why we have the right to use pesticides. Maybe farmers should create more edge of field habitats for insect eating birds. Maybe the supermarkets should pay the farmers enough to allow them to rest some land in this way. Maybe the government should make the supermarkets do this. Maybe we should make the government make them. Maybe we should get our bread from farm shops where there is a commitment to organic farming methods.

The other creature I saw was this pretty little moth. To me it looked like most moths. Small, dull and mothlike. However that ignorance is my problem. The variety and beauty of our native British moths is incredible. This chap is called the Chimney Sweeper (Latin name - Odezia Atrata) and is widely described as an unusual moth. In fact you could call it a goth of the moth world. It stands out like a sore thumb dressed in black and hanging out in the sunshine whilst contemplating why the world thinks it is strange. It is almost completely without markings, with the exception of a pair of white edges on its wings. Here are three facts about the Chimney Sweeper that I bet you didn't know.

1) It gets browner as it wears out (don't we all)

2) You don't really find them further south then here.

3) The caterpillars eat only the pignut plant (which I don't really know)

Anybody wanting to see this moth in their patch needs to obtain some seeds from a pignut plant. That sounds fun, I may do that. Another project you could do is try and photograph the caterpillar. As far as I can tell there is no image of the caterpillar of this moth on the web. This would be difficult as several moth and butterfly species lay on this plant. You would have to inspect every Pignut plant in late summer and collect representative specimens of egg laden leaves. Then all you have to do is watch and wait (and continue to feed) to see what each caterpillar turns into. Maybe a good project for a keen 12 year old.

Meadow butterfies

The Meadow Brown or Maniola Jurtina is a common butterfly that most people wouldn't recognise. It lives out its life in the meadows and normally minds its own business. Though they are common we take no notice. They have no striking red bands like a red admiral and don't look as startling as a peacock. Despite this, in its own way the Meadow Brown is a beautiful creature. Should we only hold affection for the most beautiful things, or see the beauty in everything? This was a zoom shot as they would never let me get close with the bigascope.

Back to the bigascope then. The flowers are changing so quickly this time of year that I will have to include a flower section nearly every day just to keep up.

Today's flower of choice is the Dog Rose or Rosa Canina. These pink flowers can be seen on green bushes down most country lanes this time of year. It is funny really how the rose is considered "the" flower for romance. Its just a flower. It is a nice flower but not necessarily any more romantic then any other. I wonder why we attach meaning to nature like this?

This photo is a close up of the flower's stamens. The name stamen refers to the male part of the plant and refers to most of the gubbings shown in this picture. Each of the composite bits does have a name though. The long stalks are called filaments and the brown heads are called anthers. The light toffee coloured edges on the anther are its microsporangia. Visible on the microsporangia in this picture are pollen grains that are no more than a couple of microns wide. Pollen grains are little hard balls that each contain two sperm cells.

The aim of the game is to get the pollen to stick to a passing bee. The bee then moves to the next flower carrying with it the pollen. The pollen will get stuck the stigma of the plant and release its sperm cells. How do you convince a bee to visit? The rose, like most flowers, provides the bee dinner. Around the Stigma is nectar, a sticky solution of sucrose, glucose and fructose that the bee mixes with its own saliva to make honey. Insect spit, Yum!

A weekend with Barn Owls

Anybody guess what it was? No? Well, it was a Barn Owl or Tyto Alba. I am quite impressed really. There are only about 3000 of these in the whole country. I first saw this one as it was flying towards us. At a distance it looked very much like a big bird of pray but as it drew closer you could see the owl like flat face and great broad wings. It swooped back and forward over the meadow searching for food until it stopped in the air and hovered. This was truly impressive. With some powerful beats of its great wings it held perfectly still and silently concentrated on its prey. Then like a stone it dropped down into the long grass for the kill.

Then it started to fly towards us. Do not misunderstand my pictures, I was at the extreme extent of my zoom lens. Even though this bird was a long way off it did spot us easily from this distance and flew away. On the video you can actually see it look at me and then move its head to take into its view the person standing beside me. Remarkable considering that in our eyes it still looked like a distant seagull!

During the weekend I was also able to get the bigascope into the fields and get a closer look at the everyday things that normally just pass us by. I think that the Cow Parsley has nearly finished now, so I will use this last opportunity to delve into the world of the tiny white flower.

My flower book describes Cow Parsley as "Flowers arranged in a double umbel. Involucre lacking. Bracteoles with several broadly lanceolate lobes. Petals to 2mm". In English that means "The flowers are arranged in great number, all held aloft at the end of equal length stems, so as to resemble an umbrella. The flowers do not have a back to them, they are attached directly onto the seed pod. Seed pods are lance shaped." That is great but they do not describe the flower. Each flower has 5 petals up to about 2mm long and heart shaped. What is interesting is that only the middle four or five flowers carry the stamens, whilst the outer flowers in the bunch have no stamens. Maybe this is to stop the plant pollinating itself. The photo above is of the outer "female" flowers. The double ended female stigmas are present on every flower as can be seen in the photo above. These sticky appendages are specially designed to be as long as a bumblebees leg so as to be just at the right length to capture pollen stuck to the bee.

The colours are changing. The fields are starting to redden. What species of wild flower could be causing this? Stay tuned.

Fruit season is on its way

The solstice is upon us. The sun barely sleeps before it returns to warm the soft June meadows. With rolling gentleness the prevailing wind sways the tall grass. A scent is in the air, a sweet smell that reminds you of camping in your youth. The night has not yet begun but the day has long but ended. The wilds are in switch over. Birds tweet their last song before closing their eyes. The cattle in the fields yawn as they settle awkwardly with their calves. The last rays of golden light touch the tops of the tallest trees and leave a world of encroaching blue.

Elsewhere eyes are opening. The dusk presents an opportunity or two if you are equipped. Up in Nottinghamshire a large animal is surveying the meadows. With total silence its huge wings let it glide as it scans the grass below. Then something catches its eye and it pauses. With immeasurable grace the ghost stills its flight and by silently flapping its huge wings targets some invisible quarry. Then in one movement the fury of old drops from the air and ends the game. What did I see? I'll show you tomorrow.

Until then let me show you this.

Raspberries or Rubus Idaeus. Here slowling ripening under the gentle early summer sun. The canes seemed well loaded this year. I think it will be a bumper year for fruit. The apple, pear and cherry trees look heavy and the blackthorn laiden with Sloe. If every blackberry or Rubus Fruticosus flower succeeds in becoming fruit there will be far too many to eat. I suppose that is the point. In the disturbance caused by animals as they clamour for another berry several get knocked onto the floor. Birds carrying a nice ripe blackberry may drop it mid flight. Everytime a blackberry hits the floor another plant grows. The blackberry and the raspberry have evolved a cunning plan. By providing for birds they have ensured their own survival. They have done this in a way that mimics how the early flowers came into partnership with the early insects. Sometime 70 million years ago something momentous happened. Some plant may have flowered and produced a small pod of seeds much in the way that Cow Parsley does today. The intention is that when ready they will drop to the floor. However this time something different happens. A small dinosaur, covered in scaly feathers has crash landed into the bush. This animal has evolved feathers to help it make a quick getaway from predators. Using the domain that the predators can't and taking to the sky it ensures its own survival. However times are now bad. The insects that the animal normally eats are few and far between and the animal is desperate. In desperation it tries the seed pods of the plant and survives. Its young are taught by their mother that when things are bad, you can always eat this plant.

Generations pass and this animal continues to feed on the plant and in doing so messily scatters its seeds all over the place . The plant survives and the bird survives. Variation between plants lead to those plants with more visible seeds being spotted, eaten and thus scattered. The more successful birds now are those that can fly between plants and take advantage of many opportunities. We only have berries and birds because this happened.

Britain's smallest (and hardest to film) bird

Haven't had the opportunity to get out and about the last two days, so here is one from the archive.

What is Britain's smallest bird? It isn't the Wren as most think, it is the tiny Goldcrest (Regulus Regulus). I saw one down at Watermead a few weeks ago, near where the kingfisher lives. At first I thought it was a tree creeper. It seemed to dart up and down the bark of the trees and moved every couple of seconds. This made photography very difficult. In the end, I was just lucky to be filming a spot that it moved to.

These little birds eat tiny insects that live on the bark of trees. If you want to see some of these in your garden then you need to plant flaky bark trees like Yew and Juniper. Here is an interesting fact; there are as many Goldcrests in this country as there are unemployed but they are harder to see because they don't queue up at the job centre.

White flowers of Early June

The weather was quit a lot sunnier today than yesterday. The sun shone hot and was obscured only by the odd fluffy white cloud. Yesterday's hive of slug related activity was now over and I expect the slug population is now tucked up in bed having a siesta.

One thing different about the route today was that there was delicate white flowers everywhere. The daisies in the grass were white, the elderflower on the trees were white and dominating the meadows there is the white Cow Parsley, Anthriscus Sylvestris. No wonder people dance about on mayday in white, or have a white May wedding. White seems to be the colour of nature at this time of year.

The nature reserve off Shady Lane is dominated by Cow Parsley right now. Standing up to six feet high these plant have little foliage and can look kind of all stork, like Parsley. This time of year they all produce large umbrellas of white flowers and hold them aloft in great rafts.

These dense bunches of flowers seemed to be popular amongst the bumble bees but there was a distinct lack of other creatures fertilising them. The apparent scarcity of insects could be due to the shear number of these flowers all demanding pollination in one place.

There is something a bit odd about Cow Parsley though. If you look at the petals in the picture above they resemble stretched heart shapes. Now look at the picture below and compare the petal shapes.Firstly the petals are nearly round. Secondly the flowers are not laid out in a raft but are nestled in a ball shape. Thirdly the scale of this flower was much smaller. It was like a mini Cow Parsley. It is in fact an entirely different species. This is Greater Burnet-Saxifrage (Pimpinella Major). I'm surprised but glad that I even noticed it.

Still, that's not the full extent of the strangeness. Check out this photo below. It is a purple Cow Parsley.

I really have no idea what this is. I've trawled the Internet for an ID but it seems nobody has ever heard of purple flowering Cow Parsley. Is it a new species? If you know, please let me know!

Aliens invade Leicestershire

Before I start talking about how much I love a good thunder storm I want to add something interesting about the weekend's Damselfly encounters. Did you know that the female yellow damselfly has its own latin name, Ischnura elegans f.infuscans? No, neither did I. Each of the different colours that the females can come in has its own classification, as if it were a different species. Strange but true.

It is also a good opportunity to add a little about another creature we saw yesterday. A deadly alien so bad that you must report it to the authorities if you see one. There wandering around on a stinging nettle leaf, minding its own business, at the edge of Thornton Reservoir was a Harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis).

This ladybird was released accidentally into North America in the eighties and now dominates over all the native species. It was accidentally released into Britain in 2004 and will replace our familiar 7 and 2 spot ladybirds as the primary aphid eater. It out eats all other lady birds and will predate on the Laval stages of British ladybirds. If that is not bad enough if it lands on you it probably will bite you. It will also try and come into your house during the winter, perhaps in large numbers and feed on you as you sleep. Seriously! So really not a nice insect to have. It came to this country from Asia in bunches of flowers and has in four years spread all over southern England. Scary stuff!

If you see one (and they are not always black) make sure you report it here http://www.harlequin-survey.org/

Today, there were no aliens. There was not allot of anything really. The rain threatened, then it came. Drizzle at first and then real rainy rain after. In the first instance I thought all the wildlife was gone. There was no birdsong. There wasn't any insects either. But then I noticed that the rain presented opportunities for other species. The lack of avian predators allows some of the slower moving creatures a chance. The wetness helps too, that is, if you are a slug. I counted 64 slugs on the way home. Occasionally it was hard to put your feet down in the gaps between slugs.

Here's a big slug enjoying the rain.

In fact this is a Large Black Slug. No really, that's its name. Arion Ater. He only eats after it rains and so was trekking across my path to feast on the vegetation on the other side. Here are some facts about slugs that I bet you always wanted to know. It has four tentacles. The top two are eyes, the bottom two feel the terrain in front of it. The rough shoulder like hood is called the Mantle and has a breathing hole or pneumostone on one side.

So the moral of the story is, if you go out in the rain you are much less likely to be eaten as predators don't like the rain.

Romance by the water

Down at Thornton Reservoir today most animals were coping in spite of the hot sun. Some species seemed almost to be enjoying it. Some Blue Tailed Damselflies, like what we saw yesterday, were busying themselves with acts of mating. The male Damselfly grabs the female by the neck with his tail and the female in response moves her tail under and in front of her to join with the base of his thorax. Normally this requires landing on a branch or leaf, but some seem to be able to fly as well whilst doing this. It gave me a good opportunity to get some close up shots without them flying away.
These photos were taking through my home made bigascope. That is a picture taken through a pair of binoculars backwards. Trust me it works! The female in this case was a yellow version of the male. In this picture you can see the blue tail of the male coming down and gripping the female behind the head. In a couple of days she will be full of eggs and will land at the edge of the water to lay them. To do this she will have to dive under water and affix them to some aquatic plant. The nymphs of this species will then predate on the larval stages of the midge and mosquito.

So knowing what we now know about the love lives of Damselflies, how do you explain the next picture?No, you are not looking at gay Damselflies, this is in fact a male female pair. Some females attract a mate by looking like males. Sounds strange but nothing is more attractive to some male Damselflies than a female that looks like a male. Others prefer their girls in yellow, green or brown.

There were other things of interest down at Thornton. In between being buzzed by kingfishers, attacked by robins we were serenaded by a male Reed Bunting (Emberiza Schoenicius). At the time I thought it was a tree sparrow, but it wasn't. It should be busy at the moment supporting its second brood, since its first brood will have fledged by now. Maybe he hasn't found a mate this year, maybe that is why he was singing to us.

There was a couple of other surprises down at Thornton today, but I think I'll save those for a rainy day.

Blue-Tailed Damselfly at Watermead

Strangely enough, I never thought about writing a blog about random things I find interesting before. However, I can't keep quiet any more. Here is my blog about things that catch my eye.



Lets start with Watermead Country Park. What a great place. Today the sun was shining brightly, the air was still and scented sweetly by some unknown flower. As we got out of the car I became aware of how quiet it was. Then I suddenly realised that I could hear lots of things. Firstly there was layers of bird song coming from every direction. It was coming from nearby and from further afield. There was the joyous chirping from unseen robins and blackbirds and the more solemn wooing of distant pigeons. Beyond that you could hear the constant low rumbling of water pouring over a weir.


We walked south on the east bank of the River Soar past countless flowering dog roses and into a meadow. This meadow always seems to contain a marvelous variety of strange looking snails. I have wondered in the past if they are Roman snails. Sound strange? In the undergrowth around sites where the Romans lived you can often find Roman Edible snails that in the 1500 years they have had to escape just didn't get far away from where they were domesticated. Since there was a Roman taverna near here I think its quite possible.


Occasionally a Damselfly would fly past and settle on a leaf. I saw three species but only managed to photograph one, The Blue-Tailed Damselfly or Ischnura Elegens as he is known to his mates. I could tell that this one was definitely a male, since the females are brown. This is a good animal to see in our rivers because they mostly eat midges and mosquitoes. Its also an indicator species. Because this species is resistant to allot of pollution if you see this damselfly and no other then the river is polluted. Luckily we saw two other species whilst we were down there.


We were also impressed by the range of wild flowers that we could see growing on the river banks. One that caught my eye was the purple nettle Marsh Woundwort (Stachys Palustris). Several of these could be seen amongst the stinging nettles,which were well in flower and had stopped stinging. In times gone by this was used to stop heavy bleeding as the fine nettle like bristles created a large area for the congealment of blood. It also is one of the few plants that support the Green Tortoise Beetle.