Phenology – Enviro-Mentalist

New Resolutions

Despite my best intentions, for a nature lover and local organiser of a survey for Butterfly Conservation I am not very good when it comes to recording and submitting my own sightings – whether it is birds or bees, or anything in between. It’s not as if there is a shortage of ways to submit and record data.

When I do record my data I tend to use either the appropriate survey scheme site (i.e. the Butterfly Conservation site, BTO BirdTrack site, or the Bumblebee Conservation Trust BeeWalk site) or the iRecord site but there are many other recording schemes and apps out there that will automatically plot your position and give a more accurate location.

But, the very first recording I did was with the Woodland Trust’s Nature’s Calendar. This has been going for twenty years now and, with a database of 2.7 million records, has shown the effect of a changing climate on the various events that happen each year in the Natural World. Whether it is the first or last sighting of swifts, your first orange-tip butterfly or when blackberries ripen, there are a host of events to choose. I haven’t logged into Nature’s Calendar for many years, but having just read an article in the British Wildlife Magazine highlighting some recorders with over 2000 records clearly showing the shifts with changing temperatures I am shamed into digging out my password, logging on and making a list of the things I can easily record in expected chronological order – something to do on my day off tomorrow! Perhaps this will encourage me to keep better records – I can feel a new notebook coming on…

New Year Plant Hunt

Flushed with the success of actually completing a nature survey last year (Bumble Bee Conservation’s Bee Walk) I decided to start the New Year off with more naturing and decided to look for flowering plants to submit to BSBI ‘s New Year Plant Hunt. I’d had a bit of a look round Daventry last week and saw quite a few plants in flower including daisies and clover so I was hopeful it wouldn’t be a complete dud.

I should mention, that I am at least as bad at recognising plants as I am bees, but I took my camera with me to get some shots so I stood a slight chance of finding out what they were at some point. Unfortunately, a lot of the shots were not very good, but I still managed an ID of all the plants. Final count was 15! Not bad for an hour of looking around housing estates in Daventry really. (I also found a couple of mushrooms as well that I am hoping I have ID’d).

These are two of the shots I’m not ashamed of, first Blackthorn flowering over two months earlier than I would have expected and then a plant I have seen quite often but never recognised; green alakanet. I had thought it was a member of the speedwell family, but it isn’t. I am not surprised to discover it is a member of the Borage family – I thought those leaves looked familiar!

The full list of flowers that I found is as follows:

Common Daisy
Common Dandelion
White Dead Nettle
Red Dead Nettle
Common Groundsel
Common Ragwort
Common Whitlow Grass
Common Field Speedwell
Green Alkanet
Creeping Buttercup
Common Mouse Ear
Common Bittercress
Shepherd’s Purse
Blackthorn
Smooth Sow Thistle.

The word common means that these should not be a surprise, but I have learned the names of 5 new flowers already and it is only the second of January!

Spring? Where?

Signs of spring have a been a bit few and far between so far this year, although I have managed to find some in the last week.

There has been a dearth of insects about – so far, apart from a probably very short lived peacock butterfly on 2nd January, I’ve seen a solitary brimstone, and five bees – all apart from one were Bombus terrestris (the buff-tailed bee). This is a good time of year (well, if it gets a bit warmer it will be) for learning to ID our bumblebees as for the next month or so there will only be queens of true bumblebees about. None of those pesky cuckoo bees or males to confuse matters. For more info on bumblebee ID, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust has loads of help. Even the views I did get of the bees were from a distance:

I found one lurking on some broom and a couple of others sunning themselves on trees.

However, it is probably a good thing that there aren’t many invertebrates braving the cold at the moment (although I was told today that 2015 temperatures have been normal for this time of year) as I’m not sure if it is just that I’m looking in the wrong place, but I’ve not seen many flowers in bloom yet. I have some snowdrops and hellebores in the garden, but by the roadsides I’m not even seeing many dandelions which flower for most of the year.

The willows are only just breaking out and it took me until the beginning of this week to find any celandines in flower – a bloom I usually associate with February. However, find them I did, and, what’s more I also heard my first chiffchaff of the year (about a week earlier than I expected) – trying to drown out the sound of traffic on the Bedford Road. So maybe spring is on its way after all.

Is it going to be a good butterfly summer?

That apparently depends on the butterflies. There has been some dialogue on Twitter that has revolved around an old belief that if the first butterfly seen in a year is yellow, then it will be a good summer, if it is white it will be a quiet summer and if it is brown or orange it will be a terrible summer.

I am not sure where this piece of wisdom has come from. There are four butterflies that overwinter as adults; Brimstones, Commas, Small Tortoiseshells and Peacocks. Therefore if you should see Brimstones first then the summer will be good, see one of the others and we are doomed to a watery summer, see a white butterfly and, I can only assume they mean an Orange Tip as they are the first white-coloured butterflies that are about, then it will be quiet.

I wondered if the reason for this was that Brimstones tend to overwinter outside and therefore if they are in a place that catches the sun then the air will warm up around them (they often shelter under dark coloured ivy) and they might be tempted outside if it is a particularly warm sunny day. However, the Small Tort and Peacocks tend to overwinter in old buildings and sheds and are therefore less likely to experience sudden changes in temperatures and probably wouldn’t notice an occasional sunny day. However, this doesn’t take into account the fact that Commas also spend the winter in the undergrowth so they should be out with the Brimstones. Maybe Commas need the weather to be a bit warmer, or maybe they are much less noticeable than a bright yellow butterfly catching the sun as it flits past so they tend to be overlooked. If the Orange Tips are out first then it must be April and hasn’t been particularly warm or cold so far and possibly a bit damp as they tend to spend the winter as pupae and then emerge to patrol damp verges and ditches to look for a mate.

Unfortunately I haven’t been keeping track of which butterfly I have been noticing first for the last few years – in Northamptonshire the Peacock has beaten the Brimstone for the last couple of years, but I wonder if that is because some have been overwintering in heated buildings and have come out in January. For those that are interested my first butterfly this year was a Brimstone seen on 7th March, with Peacocks and Small Torts turning up a couple of days later along with a lot more Brimstones. So, maybe it will be a Butterfly Summer after all (fingers crossed).

On Red Admirals and Migration

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the fantastic Red Admiral that I am hoping will be around and about as soon as the weather warms up. However, the reason that I was prompted to write about the butterfly was due to an interesting article that I read in the wonderfully informative British Wildlife magazine.

Whilst many nature lovers are aware of the satellite tagging that is now being done on all sorts of species, particularly the cuckoos and ospreys that have been tracked to Africa and back, you may not be aware that there are other ways to track the movement of species (particularly small, delicate ones such as butterflies).

Scientists have recently been investigating the levels of different isotopes of hydrogen found in the wings of Red Admirals across Europe. These are taken into the body of the butterfly when, as a caterpillar it does what caterpillars do and eats. Across Europe the normal foodstuff of a caterpillar will have different levels of these hydrogen isotopes. Comparison of these levels with non-migratory species of butterfly then allows scientists to tell where the butterfly spent its time as a caterpillar.

The results of the work were very interesting. Italian butterflies examined in autumn showed different isotope levels to non-migratory species. This indicated that the butterflies had developed in northern Europe and migrated south. Italian butterflies examined in the Spring had levels similar to those of local butterflies indicating that they were locally bred as a result of a winter breeding cycle and were not overwintering adults from further afield. In addition there were also some individuals that seemed to have migrated from further south in the Spring.

In Northern Europe the examination of butterflies in the Summer appears to suggest that they had migrated from central Europe, whilst those examined in the autumn appeared in the main to be more local, but with some migration still occurring from the south.

So, in conclusion it would appear that butterflies move north to breed in the Summer and then move south in the autumn to breed into the winter months. Will this change with the changing climate and, as previously noted, an increased propensity for adult Red Admirals to overwinter in some northern parts of Europe?

More Spring Flowers

From April through to June you might see masses of white flowers in the churchyard, along hedgerows or in damp meadows (there are usually lots at the bottom of the dam in Daventry Country Park). If you get closer you will see that these are not white flowers, but very pale pink or lilac. These are cuckoo flowers or lady’s smock (they are also called milk maids, bittercress, mayflower, meadowcress and pigeon’s eye in various parts of the country). Their name originates from the coincidence of their flowering time with the call of the first returning cuckoos from their African wintering grounds. The name lady’s smock dates from the Tudor period due to the resemblance of the flowers to the smocks worn at the time. Possibly originating from this time is also the belief that it is unlucky to bring a cuckoo flower into the house.

These are a perennial, native plant with yellow-centred flowers (which close up at night and in heavy rain) held on thin stalks that are usually about a foot in height (although they can grow to twice that height). Their small kidney-shaped leaves are rich in Vitamin C and were used to fight against scurvy. Although it has been used in salads when lettuce was not available, it hasn’t gained the popularity in modern times of its close relative, watercress.

It is however much prized by the caterpillars of both the orange tip and green veined white butterflies. In fact, one of the easiest ways to see the orange tip butterflies is to find a hedgerow containing cuckoo flowers and, if it is a sunny day, it probably won’t be long before you see a male orange tip butterfly patrolling by.

Another plant that is seen in hedgerows alongside the cuckoo flower is garlic mustard. Like most flowers this one also has numerous other names, the most common being jack-by-the-hedge, although it is also known as Garlic Root, Hedge Garlic, Sauce-alone, Jack-in-the-bush, Penny Hedge and Poor Man’s Mustard.

This is a much taller, more erect plant than the cuckoo flower growing up to about a metre in height. In the first year there are rosettes of green leaves close to the ground. These overwinter and throw up strong, tall stems. Between April and June there are clusters of small white flowers, each with four petals arranged in a cross shape. These then form seed pods which are about four centimetres long that burst open in mid July scattering shiny black seeds up to a metre around.

The name derives from the smell of garlic when the leaves are bruised and, like the cuckoo flower its leaves (and sometimes flowers and seeds) have been added to salads. In this case they are said to taste of both garlic and mustard.

It has also been used medicinally as a diuretic, disinfectant and to treat gangrene, ulcers and sore throats.

It was introduced to North America in the 1860s and is now considered and invasive species (depending on conditions it can self pollinate and the seeds can lay dormant for a couple of years). In some areas it is threatening native butterflies which confuse it with food plant of their caterpillar. They then lay their eggs on the garlic mustard, but the caterpillars cannot eat the leaves and therefore don’t survive.

In the UK it is an important food plant for the caterpillars of the orange-tip and green-veined white butterflies, as well as supporting many other native insects. Its seeds are also important in the diet of farmland birds.

Flutterby Butterfly – look out for these beautiful insects this spring

One of the first butterflies that you will notice as the days get a bit warmer and lighter is the Brimstone. As its name suggests this is a yellow butterfly, which it is thought was the original butter-coloured fly from which butterfly was derived – its name later being changed to reflect its sulphurous colour.

The Brimstone is one of the few UK butterflies that overwinter as an adult and therefore it is one of the early fliers in Spring. In fact Brimstones were spotted on 2^nd January in Hampshire and Surrey, and have already been spotted in Northamptonshire in February.

Whilst many butterflies live as adults for only a few weeks Brimstones are a much longer-lived insect and, despite laying eggs only once a year, can be seen from February through to November, depending on where you are in the country. The best time to see the butterflies are reported to be April, May and August (the latter when the year’s eggs have gone through their full cycle and the adults have emerged). However, I think they are much more noticeable in March when there are fewer insects about and the bright yellow of their wings becomes very noticeable as it catches the spring sunshine. They are another of the indicator species that I use to decide that spring has finally sprung.

So, how do you recognise a Brimstone butterfly and where will you see one? The males are a bright yellow colour whereas the females are much paler but both have an orange spot on their wings; their colour makes them unmistakeable in flight. They are a medium sized butterfly, their wings are about 2 1/4 inches and they are very strong fliers, often roaming away from their food sources in search of a mate.

At rest you will notice that their wings are a beautiful leaf or shield shape. This helps them camouflage themselves for roosting overnight under ivy leaves or for when hibernating over winter. I was actually surprised by how well they blend in when I watched one move underneath the leaf of a dogwood in the garden to shelter from the rain.

Brimstone caterpillars eat mainly buckthorn and alder buckthorn plants, they are bright green and apparently resemble the caterpillars of the cabbage white butterflies. I haven’t seen any yet, but I will let you know if I find some.

They are found almost anywhere there is a bit of sunshine. Males can be seen patrolling along hedgerows and roadside looking for love, whereas the females tend to be a little less obvious and hide in the vegetation. They are particularly fond of purple and nectar rich plants. In the spring you will often see them on primroses, cowslips and bluebells, whereas in the summer knapweed, teasel (which their long proboscis allows them to feed on) and thistles are popular. The Brimstones that I have seen in my garden tend to like the buddleia and verbena- as do most of the other insects.

So, in the coming month, keep an eye out for this remarkably pretty butterfly. If you see it, you will know spring is on its way.

If you want to know more about butterflies or help conserve them then the Butterfly Conservation website is a good place to start.

Daventry and District Invaded

Many people may have noticed some unusual visitors to their garden during the recent cold snap. They look like thrushes, but there is something a bit different about them. Those of us not fortunate enough to have these birds in their garden may however have noticed flocks of light coloured birds flying over head, or hopping about in the fields. Or, if disturbed on a walk round the country park, flying up out of the hedgerows making a loud chacking alarm call.

Did you see a large thrush (about the same size as a mistle thrush), but with a grey head, and chestnut back, perhaps it flew off and looked very pale underneath, or a flock of pale looking birds flew over you? These are fieldfares, visitors from Scandinavia, three quarters of a million of which arrive around the end of October (braving the north sea and the waiting, hungry gulls), slowly spreading south and west, making the return journey in March and April. Their arrival has been seen as a sign of winter for centuries, dating back to Chaucer’s day when they were trapped and eaten for food, apparently they are as tasty as quail (which I have also never eaten).

Unlike most thrushes, these are very gregarious, they arrive in flocks, leave in flocks, wander around the countryside in flocks and even nest in groups back in Norway. When was the last time you saw a flock of song thrushes (or more than a couple together for that matter)?

Normally fieldfares would feast on invertebrates and are usually seen in groups ‘head up, chest out, all facing the same direction and spread evenly across a snow-dusted field’. However, once the ground freezes they move into the hedgerows to eat berries, particularly hawthorn, and will also take advantage of windfall apples and cotoneaster berries in larger gardens.

The other member of the thrush family that visits in winter is the very pretty redwing. These arrive about a month before the fieldfares and are usually heard before they are seen, thousands arriving at the east coast overnight, making ‘seeping’ noises (not sure what that sounds like!) as they travel further west in their flocks. Hundreds of thousands of them arrive each winter, but these are less robust than the fieldfares and other thrushes and a particularly harsh winter could result in the majority perishing. They also leave to venture back to Scandinavia around April.

These little thrushes are very similar to the song thrush, but they have a cream stripe above their eye which makes them unmistakeable, even at a distance. The red patch under their wing is just visible when perched, but contrasts with their creamy underparts and becomes much more visible in flight.

These are much shier than the fieldfares, and, although they feed on the same invertebrates and berries they are more likely to be found in hedgerows than in the open fields. As soon as they are disturbed they will fly off into higher trees, making their alarm calls (hence my incredibly poor picture being the best I have managed to date). I think that they tend to come into gardens more often than fieldfares (although neither have appeared in mine), being particularly fond of cotoneaster berries.

These little thrushes are also apparently quite tasty, years ago they were particularly prized in France where they arrived in time to fatten themselves up on the ripe grapes.

So keep your eyes open for these winter visitors, there are lots around Daventry, and they are likely to be here into March, depending on the weather.

A cold day at Ryton Organic Gardens

I rarely visit Ryton gardens at this time of year because, well, to be frank, it is even less exciting than my own garden and much colder. However, I felt the need to go out with my camera and so I called in on my way home.

I have to admit, the drab and dreary weather (it started to rain whilst I was there) did not lessen the dull feel of the gardens, but, here or there were some hidden gems that made me think that underneath the mud and general brown tinge there was a whole host of life just waiting to get out.

There were quite a few hellebores there, but many did not look their best – not sure if it was the early morning frost or if they just needed some TLC – however, not far away were some bright points of blue – I think they are scilla – there were not enough to cover the ground, but they still grabbed my attention.

Whilst I didn’t see much in the way of edibles, the trees in the orchard were full of big, fat buds, and underneath they were planted with iris or daffodils. The daffodils were just showing some colour, in a couple of weeks they will be amazing.

One thing that I did notice was the amount of bird life there. They have put bird feeders in every garden. I am not sure if they have always done this, but there are never any out in the Summer. As a result, with every step, there was a flurry of activity as a chaffinch or blackbird or unidentifiable small bird zoomed off into the safety of the hedges. The lack of visitors at this time of year, and the mist and drizzle lent an air of tranquility to the place. The cacophony of bird song just added to this feeling. One bird that I used to hear a lot more around Daventry, before they built even more houses, was the yellowhammer, so I was very surprised that to find it in the middle of the gardens. I think it was just getting its voice back after the Winter, the song was almost there, but the characteristic wheeze at the end was much shortened.

I always like the sensory garden at Ryton – whatever the time of year they always have something flowering, and this weekend was no exception – look at the little cyclamen that I found. I have planted corms several times in the garden, but whilst I seem to have one or two that will throw up some leaves, I never seem to get any flowers. (However, my anenome blanda – all of which seem to be blue – have just started to come into flower.)

My biggest surprise of the day also came in the sensory garden – my first bumblebee of the year, foraging on some heather. This will be a queen going out to gather food before the first of the brood start to hatch. It just shows the importance of having some early flowering plants in the garden – mahonia and some early flowering honeysuckles are also good for the early bees. Sorry for the poor quality picture though – I was taken a bit by surprise and she didn’t stay around for long!

Spring

I think that most people must have noticed that Spring is not too far away now. It is light in a morning when I walk to work, and, what used to be a fairly quiet walk punctuated by the occasional song thrush or robin singing, is now a cacophony. The great tits are everywhere, but, even more noticeable than these repetitive calls are the songs of the male chaffinches sitting high in the trees.

I thought about going to one of the woods in Northamptonshire that are showing off their carpets of snowdrops, but decided against getting in the car and stayed local instead.

The trees are starting to show signs of life; hints of green, fat buds and pussy willow starting to look furry. Later on as the air warms these furry grey buds will be a riot of yellow as the male flowers open, providing much needed pollen for insects emerging from hibernation. The bark of this willow (goat willow salix caprea) contains salicin, which is closely related to the active ingredients in aspirin.

At the country park I found that there were a lot of clumps of snowdrops, but they were only just starting to open and come into flower, and, other than the witch hazel planted near the entrance, most of the colour was provided by the ivy growing up many of the trees. In my endeavours to try and take some pictures of the witch hazel and snowdrops I think I did annoy a pair of great tits that were checking out the nest box nearby.

The verges around Daventry are littered with crocus, but it is not just the non-natives that are flowering. I found my first celandine of the year, flowering all alone in the grass on the way to the country park, as well as the occasional daisy and one very early dandelion. I also came across some chickweed (pictured) and speedwell flowering. I know that these are weeds and are found pretty much everywhere, but I was surprised to see so many things flowering just a couple of weeks into February. However, I shouldn’t have been surprised. A quick search of the internet resulted in the discovery that common chickweed has been known to flower under snow and that they can self pollinate – hence they are found everywhere, all year round and are considered a weed. How can you fail to be impressed by such a hardy little flower? They are also edible and contain lots of vitamins and minerals as well as supposedly having numerous medicinal properties. But the most endearing feature I found when researching this plant is that at night the leaves fold over tender buds and new shoots. (Information pointing out chickweed’s good points was taken from Alternative Nature Online Herbal, Garden Organic wasn’t such a big fan.)