Day 14 #30DaysWild and #30DaysWildCreativity: Our Micro-Meadow

Dr Miriam Darlington's #30DaysWildCreativity for today addresses the matter of 'how people and nature weave together and cohabit'. I decided my response, and I fear it's not as 'creative' as I would like it to be, would be to show some of the ways in which we have turned our 'lawn' of last year into a micro-meadow, as a result of a pledge we made at the 2019 Suffolk Wildlife Trust Summit. 

Already we have reaped the benefit of new butterflies to the 'garden', notably the Green Hairstreak...

... and the Small Heath. 

We quite often have perhaps one sighting a year of a Stag Beetle in the air, and, indeed I watched one last night, just as it was getting dark; but yesterday afternoon we also found this female climbing our wall...

This afternoon we had what I'm guessing is a Blue-tailed Damselfly in the long grass along with a variety of bees and a few 7-spot ladybirds. 

I have been keeping a species list for some years of the wild species who share our suburban Suffolk garden with us. I am so nearly up to 100 in the insect section. I hope to reach that target, probably with the help of the kind folk at iSpot, in the next few days.

Ladybird Alert ~ 7-spots and (a rising number of) Harlequins

The (clipped) insect on the left seems to be Deraeocoris ruber, a member of the Miridae family

We went to explore the walled garden at Thornham Magna in Suffolk last Saturday. Unfortunately the garden was not open, but we enjoyed exploring the woodland paths that surround it. The place was teeming with insect life ... dragonflies, butterflies, crane flies ... and Ladybirds. 

Sadly most of the Ladybirds were Harlequins, like the one above. I am not sure whose pupa you can see below. I think it is a Ladybird one, but I need to buy the ID card on Ladybird Larvae (Brown et al) to be sure.

 

Who knows, perhaps we will be able to venture through that door-in-the-wall on our next visit!

The Ladybirds you see below are 7-spots, a native British species. 

And here's a Harlequin ...

David counted 79 Harlequins. Our four 7-spots were drastically out-numbered 

Do keep a look out for Ladybirds and log them on the UK Ladybird Survey. There is a new recording form, which links in to the iRecord site* which you can click on to from here, so if you have an iRecord ID, do log in to that first. 

* I wasn't able to sign out of iRecord easily, so have not given you the direct link, but the site is only two clicks away and worth investigating.