Ladybird Alert ~ 7-spot at Minsmere

I have hardly seen any Ladybirds this year, but we did see this one, hidden in a post at Minsmere on 30 June, the day I also saw - but failed to photograph - my first Clouded Yellow Butterfly.

I shall log the Ladybird on the UK Ladybird Survey here.

Dragonflies and Damselflies ~ Beautiful Demoiselle at Snape

I finally saw my first Demoiselle of 2013 yesterday at Snape Maltings. It caught me by surprise as it rose above the reedbeds, and I failed to catch it on camera. This is a (male) Beautiful Demoiselle, rather than a Banded one ... and it even features on a new postage stamp from Jersey!

The photos in this post were taken on a previous occasion, but Demoiselles - a kind of Damselfly - are so particularly striking with their iridescent colours that I thought a picture would be good.

I saw my first Demoiselle of 2010 on 12 June, so this gives an indication that summer is late this year ... but if you live in the UK, you don't need me to tell you this (how strange to be writing these words on what is officially the hottest day of the year!). In 2011 I spotted Demoiselles on 23 May. I have a feeling I may not have seen any in 2012: perhaps we were just too busy settling into our new home.

The British Dragonfly Society celebrates 30 years this July ... and National Dragonfly Week begins on Saturday.

Eye-catching Insects ~ Maybug, Cockchafer or Spang Beetle

Like many of you, we have been enjoying the *warm* weather!

Soaring temperatures seem to have brought out a flurry of Maybugs or Cockchafers in our garden. They have been fascinating to watch. Two have flown into the house and have been coaxed outside again.

Unlike the Cockroach, the Cockchafer is harmless and is not considered a public health pest, though the grubs are not popular with gardeners! Male Cockchafers have seven 'leaves' on their antennae while females have six. 

I gather the insect is often known as the Spang Beetle in Norfolk, and was in decline as a species until the the use of pesticides began to be checked in the 1980s.  

Anthology Alert ~ 'Words for Wide Skies' in aid of WWT Welney

I do not cross-post very often, but today seemed to be one of those occasions of obvious overlap between my poetry blog and this one, so here goes ...

'Haunting, quirky and evocative, these beautiful poems

chart the changing moods of the Fenland landscape.'

Elaine Ewart

This new poetry anthology has recently been published by FlightFeather Press in celebration of 'nature and the Fens'. Sale profits will raise funds for the conservation work at the Welney Wildlife and Wetland Trust Centre.

Elaine Ewart, the editor and 2012 Fenland Laureate, was helped by three assistant editors, Karen Harvey (of Atelier East), Samantha Lee (the Public Engagement Officer at Welney) and Carol Turner (a member of the Friends of Welney Group). The cover was designed by Karen Harvey and the superb cover illustration is entitled 'Whooper Swans and Lapwings' by Dafila Scott. Leanne Moden, the 2013 Fenland Laureate, has also been involved with the project. 

The volume contains 22 poems, including my piece inspired by the Welney hares, 'For the Love of Long Ears'. I am particularly delighted to have a poem in this volume because I love this Norfolk reserve and am impressed by the conservation work that goes on at the site.

The collection features poets from East Anglia and is described by eco-literature warrior, Irish Sirmons on the Wildeasters blog, as holding ‘exceptional talent and potential’. Words for Wide Skies can be purchased from the WWT Welney shop, priced at £5 plus postage and packing. Contact WWT Welney on 01353 860711 or by email at info.welney@wwt.org.uk

• Elaine Ewart's FlightFeather blog. Elaine performs her poetry around the country and organizes poetry events. She is studying the MA in Wild Writing at Essex University and is also a volunteer at WWT Welney.
• Initial feedback on the anthology
• the Words for Wide Skies launch event (which happened while I was north of the border)
• J.S. Watts and Words for Wide Skies

Seals and Cetaceans: Seals at Dunvegan, Skye

I mentioned a few days ago that I would return to photos from our recent Scottish holiday. We have a particular love of the Isle of Skye, also known as Eilean a' Cheo - the Misty Isle. 

A particular treat is to take the small seal boat from Dunvegan Castle out on the glassy waters of Loch Dunvegan to see the seals on the skerries.  

On this occasion we shared the boat with another couple and the skipper. It was a very warm humid day with grey skies. It was the only day of our holiday when I felt that we were actually 'troubled' by midges, but once we out on the water, there was hardly an insect to be seen. The skippers are very experienced and know the moods of the sea-loch like the back of their hand. They are also very familiar with the seals, knowing just how close to go without causing disturbance or unrest of any kind.

The seals in this colony love to laze around on the kelp-strewn rock. They know that the skippers will only go 'so close'. Most of the time they look so sleek and docile that it is hard to believe that they could inflict serious injury if frightened. I get a huge thrill from being 'nose to whisker' with these mammals, and mid-summer proved a particularly rewarding time for our visit as the cow-seals were pupping. It surprised me that the skipper had a particular date in mind, saying that most pupping seals in this colony would produce their offspring on the same given day. 

This magnificent creature was particularly unfazed by our presence. I love the pink tongue!

You can appreciate the excellent view we had from our clinker-built craft.

I love the way that the seal on the left has draped itself over the kelp ... and I also like the folded flippers of the creature behind!

I suspect this seal may have been waiting to give birth. What beautiful folds of skin around the neck! 

This younger seal (one of last year's pups, perhaps) seemed to have a more quizzical look. It can be very hard not to describe these wild animals in anthropomorphic terms ... but at the same time, I am well aware that these mammals are dangerous and quite capable of inflicting serious injury. 

Minutes pass so quickly out on the loch, and it was soon time to return to the castle gardens ...

... but not before we took a moment (please excuse the string of adjectives!) to admire this utterly irresistible shiny black day-old pup!

Beautiful Birds: Hobby on the Wing (Minsmere again!)

While we were watching the Bittern at the weekend, a Hobby flew right up to the hide, taking us all by surprise. There were a number of dragonflies zooming about, which was probably the reason!
 

Much to my surprise, the Hobby has been awarded Green conservation status. I say surprise because this is a bird that I have only recently started to see ...

You will find some far better photos of a Hobby at Minsmere here ...

Beautiful Birds: Bittern at Minsmere

I love to watch birds per se, whether they are the Blue-tits and Robins in my garden or whether they are the showy Little Egrets or Avocets in the wetlands beyond, but I always feel a thrill when I add a new 'lifer' to my list. Last weekend it was the turn of the Bittern. 

I have mentioned the RSPB 'Conservation' board game on this blog before. We used to play it as a family back in the 1970s. The Bittern was one of the endangered species to feature, and I doubt back then that I thought I would ever have an opportunity of seeing one of these rare birds. 

Since moving back to East Anglia, we have had close encounters in the form of hearing the distinctive Bittern boom, but until last weekend, we had never seen the bird with the deep voice! 

The bird was doing a spot of fishing at Minsmere, where it is listed as a Star Species. The Bittern is described as a 'thickset heron' on the RSPB site, and, not surprisingly, it has red conservation status.

Did you know that (according to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust) Bitterns were called 'butterbumps' in Norfolk? 

Odonata: Norfolk Hawker (a first sighting for me)

I am planning to post a few more Scottish photos, but we saw this female dragonfly at the weekend at Carlton Marshes near Lowestoft, and I wanted to post the photos while I remembered!

It was very well camouflaged, but we knew that there had been recent Norfolk Hawker (Aesha isosceles) sightings so we were keeping a sharp eye open.

You can imagine our delight when we realised that our watchfulness had been rewarded. The Norfolk Hawker has been described by Paul Green (The Little Guide to Dragonflies and Damselflies of Minsmere Nature Reserve) as an 'extremely rare insect confined to just a few sites in Norfolk and Suffolk', although I gather the dragonfly is also known on the continent. It is listed on the Red Data List and a licence is required if handling is to take place. This dragonfly is a UK-BAP Priority Species.

It is, as you can see, a large brown creature, with arresting green eyes. The yellow triangle on segment two (S2) is also a distinguishing feature. You can make out the amber wing-spots. We read in Britain's Dragonflies by Dave Smallshire and Andy Swash that 'any brown hawker with clear wings seen in East Anglia in early summer is sure to be this species'.    

Mustelidae: Otters in Scotland

I love to watch otters in the wild. They are very difficult creatures to spot, so we felt particularly pleased to have three sightings during our recent fortnight in Scotland. Two clues help me in my initial spotting, the first being that telltale V in the water as an otter swims, and the second, well, you have probably guessed, that 'ring of bright water' that was borrowed as a phrase by Gavin Maxwell from 'The Marriage of Psyche', the poem by Kathleen Raine.

We often use the car as a hide. It means that the otter is less likely to notice a human scent or to hear a strange noise. It also means that we can keep dry, though we had to keep switching on the windscreen wipers during the time we watched the otter above in the Assynt area.
 

That ring of bright water, emanating from the steel-grey loch ...

Two of my three otter sightings were of otters in the water. The third sighting, on Skye, began with an otter swimming near the shore, in and out of the kelp. To our great excitement, the creature climbed out of the water on to a long low rock, allowing us to see its whole form before it dived back and disappeared into its mysterious watery world.

We have re-visited old haunts on our recent holidays. We have also enjoyed new places along the way, but we have discovered that tried and tested destinations often yield good sightings. It takes patience, of course, and there is always the unpredictable element of timing: you just have to be in the right place at the right time!

Swimming close to the shore

Herpetofauna: Adder at Minsmere

I had been wondering how long it would be before I encountered one of the Adders that frequent RSPB Minsmere, and thanks to the warm sunny conditions last weekend, I was able to take these photographs. My instinctive reaction was to jump, and then to warn David to keep a sensible distance away. At that point we watched the snake together. I got out my camera and took these shots, using my zoom lens, before the reptile slithered off into the shade of the undergrowth. 

Adders are a protected species under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act. They are protected from being taken from the wild, from being killed and from being sold. These snakes do not bite unless startled or provoked. About 100 people receive an adder bite in the UK each year. Immediate medical attention must be sought in the case of such an eventuality.  

I have recorded the sighting here on the 'Add an Adder' section of The Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Trust, for the purposes of monitoring and conservation. 

Forked tongue (and red iris)

A veritable snake in the grass . . .

Butterflies and Moths: A Caterpillar with Red Spots on Mersea Island

We crossed over The Strood, the small causeway bridge separating Mersea Island from the Essex mainland. There are certain tides in the year when you cannot cross for a few hours, but as you can see, we had no difficulty today.
 

I was quite excited by this caterpillar. The two red spots suggested to me that it would be potentially harmful, so I only allowed myself to get 'up close and personal' via my zoom lens.

The caterpillar turns out to be the larva of a Brown-tailed Moth. I have only seen this species once before, and that was on the Spurn Head peninsula. You can read the health warning here. You can read about these caterpillars in Suffolk here.

On Spurn, we had seen the tents, but here I could only find the one individual in my photos. It will turn into a black chrysalis later this month, before emerging as a brown-bodied white-winged moth in July.   

We enjoyed a quick wander through Cudmore Country Park ...

... taking in the views ...

 ... and looking right across to Bradwell and Othona. My zoom was on maximum, and the image was very fuzzy, but I quite like the effect. The building above is St Peter's Chapel. It was constructed in 654 by St Cedd from the masonry of a nearby Roman fortification that formed part of the Saxon Shore. The ruined chapel was used as a lighthouse in Tudor times. You can read more here.

The photo above shows the footpath on Mersea Island to the foot ferry to Brightlingsea. We saw Lapwing and Swallows from this path - and Skylarks as we walked through the footpath in the grassy areas of the country park. 

The clergyman, Sabine Baring Gould, who penned the words to the hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers', was the incumbent (1870-1881) at East Mersea's church, dedicated to St Edmund King and Martyr. He wrote Mehalah, a Gothick novel of violence and tragedy, about the island. The tale is certainly atmospheric (rather like parts of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins). Mehalah is a very strange read!

• Mersea Island blog about wildlife on the island

Home Patch: Ruby-tailed Wasp

It is always interesting to see new things in the garden. I have been watching my Ladybird house, and while - alas - I have not seen any Ladybirds, I have noticed some flying insects who keep alighting on the wooden post, just below the house. More often than not, these insects have invariably flapped their wings and flown off in the time it has taken me to adjust the zoom on my camera. I am wondering whether at least one of them, a cuckoo wasp, is linked to another insect's nest in the Ladybird house.

Yesterday, however, I saw an insect (no photo, I'm afraid from that sighting, despite an attempt) of an insect I recognised instantly from a visit to Minsmere last August ... a Ruby-tailed Wasp. These insects with their metallic rose-red abdomens and their emerald green head and thorax have been described as  'perhaps one of the most beautiful British insects'. The photos I tried to take at Minsmere last year have been re-posted below, underneath my recent pictures.  

The insect in the photos immediately above and below was sighted this morning. It shone with iridescence, but the areas of colour were not defined, unlike those of the Ruby-tailed Wasps I have seen.

The insect below also visited the same post below the Ladybird house this morning. I would guess that a creature with those white markings would be relatively easy to identify ... but an ID has eluded me thus far. I have found somewhat similar-looking insects on websites from the USA ('black and white' wasps etc.), but nothing from the UK.

Later: taking a second look, I just wonder whether the four white 'moons' could simply be reflections due to the iridescent nature of the elytra. What do you think?

If you can help with identification, do leave a comment or email me (email on Profile page). All these insects have wings, and when they land, they don't stay still for long!

You can read my previous post about the Ruby-tailed Wasp here ... and the identification help I received from 'What's that Bug?', which is here.

Ruby-tailed Wasp