Local Patch – Page 2 – Enviro-Mentalist

Bumble Bee Walk No 3

I’m in to the third month of my bumble bee walks and I am becoming obsessed with watching the weather to see which is likely to be the optimum Saturday or Sunday to go out and look for bees.

This time it was a bit breezy, but the sun did put in an appearance and it was generally warm (that was a week ago and it has been quite chilly and wet this weekend so it was a good call).

My walk is divided into five sections, according to the type of habitat. I tried to choose some near houses, some near fields and hedges and some near disused land. Again though, there were not many bumbles about. In the first section there wasn’t a lot flowering other than hawthorn which I was surprised to notice was pretty much bereft of any insect life. I assume something must pollinate it or there would’t be any berries, but it wasn’t popular on this Saturday. I returned a score of null points for this bit.

I wasn’t very hopeful for the second section as it is along a path besides some new housing (which they are just finishing off). Fortunately I was in luck and spotted three different types of bumble bee. Next up was a long stretch with fields of crops on the left and houses on the right, mainly grass, but hedgerows, umbellifers and dandelions were scattered liberally. It was the dandelions that rescued me on this stretch, with a red-tailed and white tailed worker gathering pollen and nectar.

Off back into the houses and we found loads of mason bees, but also some bumbles, including a couple of queens feeding on lonicera. Fortunately this seems to be a favourite with both housing developers and bees, otherwise we would have drawn a blank again.

On the final stretch we have some disused land – it was a field and I’m sure they will build some houses on it, but for the time being it had some vetch, birds-foot trefoil and dandelions flowering on it. I counted three carder bees and a red-tailed on the birds-foot, but also my first cuckoo bee of the year on a dandelion – a queen red-tailed cuckoo bee Bombus rupestris. It was quite lethargic which allowed me to get a good look at it’s back legs – all hair, no shine or pollen baskets. Coupled with its very smoky wings and this was definitely a cuckoo bee.

So another disappointing bee walk. I’m starting to get concerned about the lack of bees (I’m not even seeing huge numbers in my garden). It can’t have been the weather this time as we spotted lots of butterflies – including orange tips and even a brimstone. At least by doing this regularly we will hopefully find out if it is indicative of a decline or just that there still aren’t many workers out yet.

My new bins – first impressions

The suggestion was made – ‘wouldn’t it be cool if you could watch insects in real time with the same magnification as with your macro lens?’ And yes, it would be but does such a thing exist, can you get closer than a few metres to look at insects with a pair of binoculars. Enter the Pentax Papilio in either 6.5x or 8.5x magnification.

The online reviews were very good, but I have to admit, that I was a bit skeptical of the one that said they could count the segments on the antennae of a butterfly. But, with a minimum focus distance of 0.5m and the potential to use them for birding as well I had to give them a go. I got the 6.5×21 version as it should make it easier to track an insect about.

First up, was a moth that I saw at work – it looked a bit tiny with the naked eye, but with the bins I saw texture on the wings, white lines across it and little furry feet. I have no idea about the segments in the antennae as it didn’t appear to have any. This is what it looked like through my point and shoot camera – and I could eventually manage to ID it as a chocolate tip moth. Very cute, very furry and sticking two fingers up to the moth people that wouldn’t come and do any moth trapping at work because we didn’t have any interesting moths – it is all relative!

However, this was only a limited test and I needed to try them out in the garden and see what was there. First test – bees in the front garden zipping about the rosemary. I have been trying to ID them, and I know some are probably red mason bees, but others look different, and behave differently, rarely stopping to nectar at all, these looked much greyer, almost white on the thorax and head. My bins passed the first test. Not only did I get a good view of the female mason bees (as shown on forget-me-not below), but I discovered that the others were male mason bees. They aren’t grey at all, just very blonde and very furry with quite long antennae. I was confused as well by some of what thought were females but which looked grey on the thorax with a red abdomen – my new bins showed that this was a result of having lots of rosemary pollen stuck to their hairs! As a result I am fairly confident in my Osmia bicornis ID skills. It’s amazing how orange and how furry these bees look in close up!

I watched a couple of hoverflies, well, hovering, one was definitely a marmalade hoverfly, but I couldn’t ID the other, but I could even watch their legs and feet tentatively making contact with the rosemary flower as they touched down – amazing!

A bigger test for the bins though was in the back garden – it is usually much gloomier due to the large amount of foliage shading the area. I wasn’t sure that I would find anything to look at, but I was wrong. I watched a spider tense itself under a leaf when a fly landed on the top surface, only to be thwarted as the fly took off again after a quick clean. I saw a tiny yellow and black fly on a hazel leaf that I wouldn’t have even noticed otherwise. It was less than 5mm long, yellow underneath, with orange legs and a yellow almost checkerboard pattern on the top of the abdomen / thorax. It had a yellow head with a blackish stripe between its eyes and thing yellow stripes on its scutellum. It is not the kind of thing I would be able to take a picture of, but I think I managed to ID it from my notes as a grass fly, Chlorops sp.

The good thing about the bins is that they show you things you would never have seen otherwise (either with or without a macro lens). I saw a moth crawl out from under a leaf. It was tiny and looked like a black speck and I probably would have thought it was just that if I hadn’t seen it arrive. It had glossy purple black wings and a yellow head and legs. It was so small I couldn’t even get a good picture with my macro lens. This is as good as it gets:

This is a fern smut moth Psychoides filicivora, I had never noticed them before amongst our many ferns! Now I’ve seen quite few of them crawling around at the bottom of the garden.

So, the verdict. The view through the bins is even better than through a macro lens – not least because it is in real time and works without a tripod in poor light. The only downside is that there is some barrel distortion, but it doesn’t ruin the view. Can you count the segments on a butterfly’s antenna? I still don’t know because I haven’t seen a butterfly since I got them, but my guess is yes.

My new bins are opening up a whole new world full of creatures or behaviours I’d never noticed before, and I’m afraid I’m going to be boring you with lots more mini beasts that are inhabiting the garden.

High drama at the Country Park

I am eagerly awaiting the first chicks from the common terns at the Country Park so I am going to try and get down there once or twice each week for the next month or so (not a hardship). There are no signs of chicks yet, I am sure there would have been more bringing of fish if there were, but I think there are at least 6 or 7 nesting pairs. The new tern rafts give a pretty good view of the terns and there were several looking as though they were quite settled, some were on scraped up shingle, one was redistributing shingle around the ‘nest’ and I saw a change over between a pair – so definitely some eggs incubating going on. There was quite a bit of bickering and fighting amongst the terns on the raft and even some mating, so I think chicks might be hatching over the space of a few weeks.

However, the terns are not the only nesting birds at the Country Park. For the first time I have found a grey heron’s nest. The last time I was there the heron was sitting there, looking pretty comfortable. This time it looked empty. Fortunately, when I had another look a bit later on, one of the parents had come back and was feeding a youngster. It seems that there is only one in there , so perhaps they are new parents, or the cold weather has reduced the brood. Either way, the chick didn’t look very old – it was definitely grey and tried to flex its stubby little wings. I shall have to keep an eye on this nest as well as the terns!

Anyway, back to the high drama. Other than the herring and lesser black backed gulls that the terns often had to chase off (we watched one almost drowned after being forced into the water), they also had a go at some canada geese and a mute swan. But this isn’t the drama I am referring to.

As well as a mallard with eight ducklings and a pair of greylag geese with four goslings (very different parental approach between the ducks and geese), the aforementioned pair of canada geese also have four goslings. The reason that they incurred the wrath of the terns was because they had been chased halfway along the reservoir by a male mute swan with a huge attitude problem. I know that despite appearances swans are not at all serene and peaceful, but this one seems to see everything as a threat. Suffice it to say there is only the one pair of swans at this end of the water (and they have six cygnets).

At no point did this family (four adults and four goslings) go anywhere near the cygnets, but he chased them across the water and at one point seemed to separate out one of the goslings from the rest (a bit like the sheepdog on One Man and His Dog). The adults would attack the male swan, diverting his attention so the gosling could get further away. But, sometimes this wasn’t enough and several times one or more of the goslings dived underwater (they can stay under for quite some time) to avoid being killed. One poor gosling got completely separated and was chased away from the family group by the swan. Two of the adults worked together to try and get the gosling to safety, whilst the remaining goslings appeared to be under the care of the other two geese. This chase / attack lasted for a good fifteen minutes or so, with the gosling going on land, under water and in the reeds. Eventually it was led to safety by one of the adults and shepherded up to the far end of the water with its siblings whilst the other goose kept the psychotic swan occupied.

The Tern Report – 2015

This year I saw my first common terns back at the country park on 19th April – this is about the same time as last year, give or take a day or two and is one of the many signs of summer. Even better news is that there are now two shiny (figuratively speaking) new tern rafts with a much better view of the nesting level. Thank you Daventry Country Park!

I’ve been over a couple of times since they returned and will try and get there more regularly going forward (weather and work permitting). The first time was about a week after they had arrived. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, but very little fish catching in evidence. I only saw them dipping towards the surface, perhaps finding very small crustaceans or just taking insects.

None of the terns seemed particularly settled on any tern raft, so I don’t think they had particularly paired up. However, I did see what might have been courtship / pairing as described in the Tern book that I recently read. I saw two birds circling in the air, slowly gliding downwards passing past each other – called high flight in the book. I missed the ascent, but the book describes it as ‘a gliding descent in which the birds sway from side to side so that their paths repeatedly cross’. That’s pretty much what I saw.

Other things I noted that day was a grey heron’s nest above the water, three sandpipers and an absence of Black Headed Gulls – I guess these have gone off to breed, and a sedge warbler singing.

So, fast forward almost a week and I was back at the country park to check on my terns. This time there seemed to be even more terns making more noise – they are difficult to count, but there must be around a couple of dozen now. Quite a few were sitting on the tern rafts, both old and new – although the ducks seem to quite like them as well. I did see some fish being brought in, but not how they were caught. I think one was trying to impress a female, but had it stolen just as he was about to hand it over – kleptoparasitism is apparently relative common in these terns and some get the majority of their food this way! The female flew off unimpressed. However, the majority of the terns still seem to be skimming the surface.

I did see some battles above the old tern rafts but also a lot of posturing with wings lowered and heads in the air which I believe is a sign of non-agression. Showing the black caps to another tern is an out and out sign of aggression. I did see a pair that were quite settled on one of the new rafts (the lighter green one for future reference) and I did see them mating so there should hopefully be some chicks in just over three weeks – I will have to put a note in my calendar to go and have a look on or after 26th May! At least they were on one of the raised platforms so I only have to worry about the gulls, not flooding!

A good afternoon’s birding or, how I was proved wrong yet again (twice)!

OK, not an afternoon of birding, but a couple of hours at Daventry Country Park on a grey, chilly and blustery Saturday afternoon. It was the one afternoon when rain wasn’t forecast though, so I thought I would go and check on my terns (more on those in another blog post). I also hoped to hear the sedge warbler that I heard last weekend (the first time I have heard one at the Country Park).

After the excitement of Brandon Marsh, I was prepared for a quiet couple of hours watching the terns go by. And, by and large that’s what I got. Most of the black-headed gulls have gone (taking the Little Gulls that I missed last week with them) but there is a flotilla of Lesser Black Backed and Herring gulls at the far end of the water. Most of the ducks have gone too (although I did see some teal last week) and the cormorants are much reduced in number (down to just five or six from ten times that number in the winter).

I spent most of my time watching the terns, but having house martins and swallows zooming by, and twittering up high. I got some really good views again through my scope. Following my last blog when I mentioned that Brandon Marsh was the only place that I saw sand martins, I now have to make a retraction, because I saw at least one in the groups dashing about above the water. It definitely didn’t have the white rump, was smaller than the swallows and was a lovely warm brown when it turned to flash the upper side of its wings into the sunlight – noticeable different to the smart midnight blue of the house martins and swallows. A new for me on my local patch.

It was whilst I was watching these that I happened to notice a very yellow looking bird flapping about along the dam. It looked like a wagtail, but it moved to fast for me to find it in my bins. Then I saw three yellow birds on the path – they were so yellow that I thought at first they were yellowhammers – but they were scared away by some children pedalling towards them before I could get a good look. They looked and sounded like wagtails though – probably grey wagtails as I’d seen these on quite a few occasions at the Country Park.

I also fancied I heard a skylark in the distance so I thought I would have a look around the fields on the south side of the water (and also see if I could see the wagtails along the dam). No joy on the wagtails, but I did hear something singing in the distance that could be a skylark – I hope so. I heard another call coming from the fields that was unfamiliar – then I saw a yellow bird fly upwards and back down into the crops – yellowhammer? I stood watching for a while, then the yellow bird flew up out of the field. I was in luck – it landed at the top of a tree near the path and didn’t fly off when I came close. I got a good look, definitely a wagtail – long tail, but very yellow underneath, long black legs, olive-green on top and with an olive eye stripe. I was hopeful that this might be a yellow wagtail. I checked the RSPB website when I got home, which also has a recording of its call which I listened to for quite a while when stood under the tree. It was definitely a yellow wagtail – a lifetime first for me and in my local patch as well! How cool is that.

On my way back home I bumped into a lady who asked me if I had seen anything interesting. We chatted about the tern rafts and I mentioned that the swifts would be back soon – I usually see the first ones about the 5th or 6th May. WRONG! I was wandering out of the Country Park and looked up to see 22 swifts coming over the trees (yes, I did count them). I am hopeful this means that warm weather is on its way!

Three bees are better than two bees

I decided to do this month’s bee walk on Saturday even though it was a bit breezy and not very warm. I checked the weather forecast and saw cold and potentially rain for the next week or so and figured that the sunshine and a warmer week running up to Saturday might have been enough to tempt the bees out. Unfortunately I was wrong.

During the bee survey (which lasted over an hour) we saw a grand total of three bumblebees (one unidentified, one carder bee and one red-tailed). There was plenty out there for them to eat and we saw plenty of hoverflies and solitary bees, but virtually no bumbles. After we had finished the survey and were walking home we found another two bees, but still five was a bit unexpected.

However, I don’t think the colder weather was to blame, after all, bumbles are furry little creatures and can manage the cold better than a lot of other insects. I think this was a matter of timing. Early in the year bumble queens, the only bumbles to overwinter, emerge from their winter quarters looking for food and somewhere to nest for the year. Once they have enough nutrition they lay create a wax cup that they fill with nectar and create a pollen ball in which they lay their eggs. After a few days these hatch into larvae which then remain in the nest for a few weeks until they metamorphose into a bee. During this time the queen has to brood the eggs and larvae to keep them warm (hence the nectar) and she can only go out foraging for short periods of time. Hence, I think most of the queens were in their nests and the first lot of workers have probably not emerged yet so there is a paucity of bumblebees at the moment.

Today’s new discovery

Today seemed like a good day to go insect hunting. The sun was out, the sky was blue and, for a change, it was warm. As the back garden seemed mainly to have flies in it and little else (other than a rather lovely toad) of interest, I put my boots on and we went for a walk along some of our bee transect.

However, we hadn’t even got as far as the old railway track before the butterflies were out showing themselves. And, to be fair, the front garden had a couple of bees (red-tailed and tree bee) as well as a basking small tortoiseshell.

We walked for a mile or two, and saw butterflies in many of the sections we went along, although, noticeably, not in the newer housing sections – good job as they probably would have starved. There are four, possibly five, butterflies that overwinter as adults – the jury is out on the red admiral which normal migrates over. The definite four are Brimstone, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock and all of these were out in abundance, sometimes a couple on the same flower. Dandelions seemed to be the flower of choice for the small torts, peacocks were a bit more interested in the willows and flowering cherries whilst the commas were mainly on viburnum tinus. As for the brimstones, they were just dashing about like mad things.

So, I took lots of photos, had a big smile on my face, saw some bees and discovered that in contrast to the rest of them, commas have white legs.

On the upper side of their wings commas are a beautiful bright orange, but underneath they look like an old dried up leaf – move along birdies, nothing to eat here, type of leaf – a dull, brown, raggedy old leaf. This is in fact the only butterfly with such jaggedy wings, although they are perfectly symmetrical in shape. However, they are named for the small, white, comma shaped mark on the underside of the wing. I suppose it is better than being called a dried up old leaf butterfly.

As usual, I only saw single specimens of these, as they are one of the few spring butterflies that isn’t often seen in any groups with others of its kind.

Have you seen this butterfly?

Once the weather finally makes up its mind to be warm for more than a few hours, have a look for this butterfly, the Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria.

It’s quite a common butterfly and should be out and about in the beginning of April. Like many of the browns, it tends to breed on grasses, and this one likes soft grasses in dappled shade. In Daventry there will usually be quite a few along the old railway track and in the country park. The sunlight usually picks up their distinctive yellow spots (numbers and markings vary) and often several will be seen having a bit of a tussle in the air.

Charming Goldfinches

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a complete lack of greenfinches in their garden this winter. I know the Big Garden Birdwatch has seen a big drop, but I can’t remember the last time I saw one anywhere, even in the country park.

What I do get a lot of are goldfinches – one of my favourite birds (although they are not as high up as bullfinches and long-tailed tits). We tend to get at least four or five a day in the winter, but we’ve had up to two dozen – quite a lot with only one bird feeder – but I have plans for next year… In the summer we tend to get some adults and fledglings in the garden, the chicks staying with us for some time. You can usually tell they’ve arrived by the cacophony of begging noises coming from outside.

However, whilst watching the birds I started to wonder if it would be possible to tell how many individuals come into the garden. I think the short answer is going to be not a chance, but it did lead me to wonder if there is an easy way to tell males and females apart.

According to many websites, yes you can. The males have more extensive red masks and black feathers around their beaks – the females also have shorter wings and white or grey feathers around their beaks. There is also a difference in the extent of the brown on their wings. Not simple, but doable with some effort. It was then that I came across and excellent blog by a bird ringer who dispelled all of these myths with examples of birds he’d caught and sexed with certainty (and there were plenty even he couldn’t be sure about).

However, there are some differences I have spotted, such as the size of the white spots on the wing tips and, how white they are. I am not sure if this will change with time, along with the black tip to some of the beaks – so it will be worth checking again in the summer when the only birds about will be adults. See the photos below – goldfinch 1 has mainly white spots with a hint of beige, but goldfinch 2 has spots that are much closer to beige than brown.

More work required methinks, ho hum, I will just have to stand at the window watching birds for hours.

However, as these charming birds are not very long lived in the wild it is probably just as well that I can’t differentiate them.

BTW if you wondered, apparently the name charm for a flock of goldfinches comes from the noise they make rather than their appearance.

My first bumblebee walk

This year I signed up to do my first proper wildlife survey (one step up from the annual Big Garden Birdwatch or Big Butterfly Count, both of which I do most years). I have developed an interest in Bumblebees, I’m not sure why, I think it is through a combination of watching them through my macro lens and also because of all the information that is now out there due to the worry over the disappearance of pollinators.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust launched it’s BeeWalk last year. It is asking volunteers to choose a 1-2km walk (as compared to a lot of surveys where the walks are in randomly allocated squares) and to walk it once a month between March and October, preferably in warm, dry and still conditions, and recording any bees spotted along the way.

I chose my route in an area where I knew I would have no trouble getting to once a month (in fact I tend to visit most parts of it every week) and then refined it to take in as many different habitats as I could. It starts in an industrial estate, heads past some fields, some new houses with some scrubby bits, more fields and more grasslands and houses. Not overly inspirational, but I am hopeful for some bumbles this summer.

What I wasn’t too hopeful about was my chances of seeing some bumbles this weekend. The weather has not been exactly warm, but with the forecast for today looking better than the rest of the week, and March rapidly vanishing into the realms of memory, I thought I’d better get my bum in gear and get out there looking for bees. This is actually a good time of year to start learning about bees because there are only the queens of true bumblebees generally about. There are no males, very few workers and none of those pesky cuckoo bees to confuse an amateur.

However, I was pleasantly surprised as there were actually some bees out. Due to a lack of flowers to be seen on the ground, I had to look up into the trees to find them, and it took a while to get my eye in. However, during the 1 hour walk I managed to spot 8 bees of three different species (and two butterflies, one hoverfly and a lacewing).

Most of the bees, with the exception of two queens which were quartering the ground under some hedgerows, were feeding on willow catkins (I have no idea if these were from goat willow, crack willow or grey willow as I didn’t even realise that there were as many different types until I looked online). When most people think of bees, they think of flowers, and if they think of trees at all they think of cherry blossom. However, at this time of year, the catkins of willow trees are an important source of nectar and pollen for bees and other insects. This became evident when we stood under one of the willows watching the honeybees in the tree. It sounded as though we were stood near to a hive. We spotted more than a dozen and they were so covered in willow pollen that they were glinting in the sunlight, looking as golden as the catkins themselves.

The next time I’m out and about I’ll definitely make a bee-line for the willows and see what’s buzzing.