Hollesley Butterfly Count

David is counting butterflies (with my help) and submitting records to iRecord for Butterfly Conservation. We visited SWT Hollesley Marsh this afternoon, where we counted a total of 207 butterflies in less than two hours, logging ten species ...

1. Gatekeeper
2. Large White
3. Small White
4. Meadow Brown
   
5. Red Admiral
6. Painted Lady
7. Small Heath
8. Peacock
9. Speckled Wood
10. Small Tortoiseshell
    

As you can see, the views are beautiful, but the dry grass, harvested field (with stack of bales) and ripe blackberries we saw made it feel more like September than July. 

Visitors are not permitted on the beach to preserve the environment for wildlife

Wasp Spiders and their Egg-Sacs

Female Wasp Spider, home patch

We first encountered these fascinating spiders (Argiope bruennichi) in September 2020. Between 5th and 9th September last year I recorded four females, the large striped ones, in our home patch. 

We have enjoyed watching them again this year, though we have never seen more than three at a given time. This morning we discovered a second egg-sac in the long grass, so we hope this means that there will be more Wasp Spiders in 2022. 

These spiders like natural grassland, and we suspect it is our lack of mowing, the result of a pledge we made at the Suffolk Wildlife Trust Summit, that has attracted them to our wild garden. The long grass has certainly attracted grasshoppers, a key food source.

The discovery of a new egg-sac seemed a good moment to post some of our Wasp Spider photos. I hope you enjoy them!

Female with prey

Ditto

Female with egg-sac

Female near the stabilimentum

 

You can read about the 'ultra-violet reflective' stabilimentum or zigzag section of web here in the beginning of an article.

Underside of female (with egg-sac)

Female with egg-sac

Damp weather; female with parcel of prey

Stabilimentum

Evidence of two different spider species in close proximity

 

Female upside-down, with egg-sac

Female and egg-sac

Female

Underside of female. Stabilimentum

 

Stabilimentum

Do you see the tiny spider on the right? Is this a different species?

The male Wasp Spider is much smaller than the female. It is light brown and has two yellow lines running along the underneath of the abdomen.

Is the same spider as the tiny curled creature in the photo above?

... and this? Do leave a comment if you know.

Wasp Spider egg-sac spotted on Sutton Heath near Woodbridge

My thanks to David (Gill) for a couple of the photographs in this post.

#30DaysWild, Day 2, Butterflies in the Garden

Speckled Wood, 1 June 2020

I decided that one of my lock-down projects would be to take part in the Garden Butterfly Survey laid on by Butterfly Conservation. The photograph above, taken yesterday, shows the first Speckled Wood we have noticed in our garden since May 2018. It was almost my first butterfly sighting for June.

But I am jumping ahead of myself as this post, representing my Day 2 activity of #30DaysWild, is to note the butterflies I saw in the garden during May. I have highlighted each of these species in my paragraphs below.

Sadly I have seen very few Orange Tips this year, due to lock-down restrictions. I hope the Large White population will increase as we come to the second brood in a few weeks time. There should be plenty of Small Whites here in June, particularly if my Nasturtiums finally put on a growth spurt. It was lovely to see two Green-veined Whites since they are not common garden visitors. It is always a particular joy to see the buttercup-yellow of a male Brimstone, and I am so pleased that one put in an appearance. It seems very sad that I failed to see a Peacock during May, though David has already spotted one nectaring on the Ox-eye Daisies for June. I am longing to see my first Small Tortoiseshell of 2020, particularly as others have mentioned recent sightings. I was excited to read that there have been a few Large Tortoiseshells in certain parts of the UK, including in Norfolk: how wonderful it would be to see one of these. The Small Copper is a fairly new addition to our garden list, and a very welcome new arrival.

Small Copper, May 2020

We watched the first episode of BBC Springwatch on iPlayer last night, and were delighted to discover that our number of Holly Blue sightings was pretty much in line with Chris Packham's list. I have never seen (or noticed?) so many of these beautiful insects. They make me revisit the poem 'Blue-Butterfly Day' by Robert Frost. It takes us back into April, but, in my opinion, is well worth a read. You can find it here in a post from First Known When Lost by Stephen Pentz in Seattle, USA. Speaking of blue butterflies, I was delighted when a Common Blue alighted on a on a yellow ?Hawkweed flower on 20th May.

Common Blue, May 2020

I hope that June will bring more Comma butterflies and my first Red Admiral. Unexpected butterfly sightings are always exciting, and I was absolutely thrilled to see a single Green Hairstreak on two separate occasions. I wonder what the next surprise will be.

Green Hairstreak, May 2020

P.S. There is still time to consider submitting a five-line poem for Photo Challenge 3 (Puffin) over on The Glow of Emerald Light. The challenge is open to all who are 18+: please check the guidelines on the site. My hope is that you will have a go. It's good to remember that much can be said in very few words. You have five lines at your disposal, and may find it helps to recall Bashô's famous three-line frog Haiku: you will find a number of translations (of varying line lengths) here. Happy writing!

Various Sightings and Suffolk Wildlife Trust Nature Summit

I had seen records of the Garden Tiger on the web so I knew the adult moth was on the wing, but I had not expected to encounter this larva on the path at Dunwich Heath last weekend. It hardly seemed real, even when we looked closely. The white hairs seemed so long! 

I was particularly pleased to find it as I have poem in my chapbook (The Holy Place, co-authored with John Dotson) about the metamorphosis of a Tiger moth. 



Not hairs this time, but spines! We went outside two nights ago and were thrilled to hear a munching noise under the Silver Birch tree, and, yes, there was a hedgehog making its way along the back of the fence. We didn't want to disturb it, and in any case, it was not easy to see: the photo above was taken in the dark, hence the 'cropped' appearance! 

Neither hair nor spines this time, but the beautiful scales that make up the wings of the Wall butterfly. I have only seen this species once before. This butterfly was at Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Carlton Marsh reserve near Lowestoft on Saturday.

We also saw our second Common Frog of 2019 on the reserve...

... and I say second because a few days before, we had found our first in our own back garden. It was a first not only of the year but for my home patch species list. Perhaps it likes our all-too-tiny pond!

I mentioned Suffolk Wildlife Trust (SWT). We are members of the Trust, and I am excited to report that we are off to the SWT Nature Summit later this week. It should be a really interesting evening.

Wall Brown butterfly and Other Creatures at Carlton Marshes

Bank Holiday Monday seemed set fair (after colossal downpours in Dunwich on the Sunday afternoon), so we took a picnic to Carlton Marshes, a reserve in the care of Suffolk Wildlife Trust near Lowestoft, in the hope that there would be butterflies and dragonflies about. We did indeed see a few, but felt the numbers were low for this stage of the season.

We had barely arrived on the reserve before another visitor with binoculars asked if we had seen birds of prey. We caught glimpses of the Marsh Harriers, but it was this pair of kestrels who made their presence felt. As you can tell, they were some distance away from us when I took this record shot.

I took this photo of Cuckooflower because although we heard more than one Cuckoo, we failed to see any of these elusive summer visitors. I discovered later that the caterpillar we encountered, a Drinker Moth larva, is a favourite food of the Cuckoo.

These caterpillars spend the winter hibernating in a partially grown state. This one was stationary on its stem: most of its feeding will take place under cover of darkness.

We kept an eagle eye out for odonata. There were a number of brown dragonflies on the wing, and I suspect some may have been Norfolk Hawkers. We found this beautiful Chaser in our favourite part of the reserve... It looks a bit like a Scarce Chaser to me, but I'm not very sure.



The photos below show the damselflies we encountered around the dark dykes ... Most were Large Reds (Pyrrhosoma nymphula). My camera found it hard to focus when there was so much contrast between the sunlight and the dark water, not to mention the iridescence of the insects themselves.

Do the legs look red on this one, indicating Small Red? Not sure...

Large Red Damselfly

I believe the creature below is a male Azure Damselfly.

Blue or Azure? I'm not sure...

I wonder if anyone can identify this casing which is pretty much actual size...



I noticed silken threads above the casing, and have pinpointed these with orange lines in the photo below ... Do you think they are linked to it? I wondered if they were made by spiders, but odonata may be a more obvious guess.



Speaking of spiders, we checked the places (photo below) where we thought we might see a Fen Raft Spider, but our searching was not rewarded on this occasion ...

 

I did, however, see a tiny Green Orb Weaver spider on a bush ...

Sadly my camera failed to focus. It was about half the size shown above.



This is the path through our favourite part of the reserve. The new reeds were shimmering in the sunshine and it was still pretty damp underfoot in places.

There are plenty of watery habitats in this area ...

and plenty of logs for insects.

Reptiles haven't been forgotten: look at these reed piles, perhaps two metres across.

The wild flowers were spectacular, particularly the swathes of Ragged Robin and Meadow Buttercup.

Ragged Robin, close-up

We noticed this orchid, too.



Something moved, and there in a bush was a Reed Bunting. It was pretty camouflaged against the foliage.



Such a beautiful path!

We had noticed a pair of Mallards earlier in the day. They were still there when we passed by later on.



They blended in well with the light and shade.



And speaking of 'blending in', the bottle may well match those beautiful purple shades on the drake's speculum, but what a shame to find plastic rubbish dumped like this. It was over on the far side of the dyke and I guess one would have needed a net to remove it.



We noticed a young family of Moorhens enjoying the water.



It was soon time to head back for a thermos of tea, but there was a Kestrel to watch on the way.

This Red-headed Cardinal Beetle was hiding in the shade of the nettles.

There were some beautiful stalks of Pink Campion (below),

I'm not sure whether this is a particular kind (Common or Greater, perhaps?) of Bird's-foot-trefoil, but it was putting on a good show of bright yellow colour. The Common variety is a particularly valuable plant in the butterfly food chain.

The path to Oulton Broad was lined with a variety of purple Vetch ...

I always feel that pictures like the one below with a sail appearing in what seems to be the middle of the landscape represent a typical and tranquil East Anglian scene.



There were a good number of Starlings around the picnic area, and one or two Sparrows ...

Sadly I hardly managed to photograph any butterflies. Those that were about, the Orange Tips and Common Blues were pretty skittish. The Peacock below rested for a few moments.

Perhaps our best sighting of the day, though we didn't realise at the time, was a Wall Brown butterfly. We had been told that they were about, but we failed to see any in the area that had been recommended to us. However, we eventually saw a butterfly in the mud: assuming it was going to be Small Copper (I had seen a flash of orange), I grabbed my camera and took the picture below from a distance with my zoom.

It was only when we got home and uploaded our photos that I was able to see very clearly that the insect was indeed a Wall Brown, which I think may be a first sighting for me. Science suggests that this species may be the victim of climate change, which is perhaps why I have not seen these insects before.

I enlarged the photo, and while the quality is poor, it makes a good record shot. It also makes me want to see another Wall Brown, and next time I will hope to recognise it immediately.

Postscript: is it more usual to refer to this species as Wall or Wall Brown? Both terms seem to be used interchangeably on the web.