Quelle surprise!

Wednesday 22nd September 2021, Telford Millenium Village

I am not sure why I slipped into French for this report but it seemed, for some reason, to be more expressive that “What a surprise!”.

And what was the surprise?

I could leave you hanging and save it until later.

But no, I’ll mention it now.

A couple of us spent the day in the Brecks in Suffolk at Cavenham Heath National Nature Reserve. At the end of the day, as we were making our way back to the cars, we spotted a bird in the field which was worthy of further study.

Regrettably our binoculars were not up to the task of getting a good enough view of the bird to identify it. 

Fortunately, however, we noticed a couple who had a camera with a sizeable telephoto lens taking snaps in roughly the direction we had seen the bird.

We made their acquaintance.

“Could that have been a Stone Curlew that we had glimpsed?” we asked.

“Oh yes” they replied and pointed to a group of birds in amongst some grazing sheep in the middle distance.

Binoculars trained on this group we were able to see the birds very clearly.

And there were plenty of them. I counted 16. 

Taking a photograph was more tricky. My companion had the “wrong lens on” and had not brought the “right lens” with him. In desperation I set my camera on full optical zoom and managed this fuzzy shot.

At least you can tell what the bird is, if not the fine detail.

So, yes, “Quelle surprise!”. It was not an animal we had hoped to see at the site.

Right, back to the subject of this report, although there will be more about our trip to Cavenham Heath later.

Under blue skies on a lovely warm September day a baker’s dozen of us met in the capacious car park.

Actually eleven of us met, two had gone astray, suffering SatNav woes. They eventually arrived and we were not very late setting foot onto the site.

One member of the group who is also a volunteer helping with the care and maintenance of the site offered to guide us around.

“I have a rough route for us to follow” were his fateful words. 

I wished him luck.

I used to have plans for routes to take on these outings but soon realised that group dynamics tend to dictate where we go rather than my ideas. I have abandoned plans and reined my ambitions back to just getting people to the site and letting them loose. In the main it works well as we tend to stick loosely together and move in the same general direction.

No sooner had we entered the site en route to an area of heathland than we were distracted by the invertebrates in the hedgerow and rough grassland at the edge of the path.

Once again hoverflies dominated the invertebrates who were photographed:

Epistrophe grossulariae;

Photograph: Jim Almond

Melangyna umbellatorum;

Photograp: Jim Almond

Sphaerophoria scripta (this is a male making it easy to identify as its wings are shorter than the abdomen, a distinctive feature of this species);

Photograph: Jim Almond

Eupeodes luniger;

Photograph: Jim Almond

And Sericomyia silentis.

Photograph: Jim Almond

However other familiers jostled for their share of the attention.

A large fly, Tachina fera;

Photograph: John Martin

An Angle shades moth;

Photograph: John Martin

A pair of Rhopaliid bugs, Myrmus miriformis;

Photograph: David Williams

And a Green shieldbug.

Photograph: David Williams

Pied shieldbugs seemed to be quite common a few years ago, often being found on White dead-nettle basking in the sun. However sightings of this insect have declined markedly over the last few years. 

When a patch of White dead-nettle was pointed out to me “I’ve given up trying” was my off-hand response. However a feeling of guilt made me give it a quick sweep.

And what did I find?

Yes!

A Pied shieldbug!!!!!

Photograph: Jim Almond

We entered an area of heath that used to be covered in gorse but had been cleared by the efforts of the local volunteers.

There was still plenty of gorse but large amounts had been removed. My efforts to find Gorse shieldbug in the plant were unsuccessful but one was found by someone else.

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

The white spots on the wings struck us as unusual as we could not recall seeing similar markings before. But, are they really markings or just two bits of white detritus that, by coincidence, happened to lodge in roughly the same part of each forewing? We will never know.

Finding a Tortoise shieldbug on a site used to be a significant event but they seem to have expanded their range considerably recently and we now come across them quite often. And this site provided us with another sighting.

Photograph: David Williams

Lunch was fast approaching but we still had time to find this well-marked Araneus diadematus on its web;

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

And take in the view.

Lunch over our guide decided to take us to a different habitat within the site. It seemed quite a long walk to reach an area of wet marshy grassland as, unsurprisingly, many of us became distracted on the way by areas of banked grassland at the side of the path we were following.

Our distractions included the large and attractive staphylinid beetle Platydracus stercorarius;

Photograph: Jim Almond

A tiny “inconspicuous” ladybird, Scymnus limbatus, less than 2mm in length;

Photograph: David Williams

And a delightful fig weevil, Cionus tuberculosus.

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

At last we got to the area of wet grassland.

After all the distractions did we still have time left in which to explore?

Of course we did.

So we did.

Here are some of our finds:

A couple of Nettle-tap moths;

Photograph: Jim Almond

A picture-wing fly, Euleia heraclei;

Photograph: Jim Almond

A Knotgrass moth larva;

Photograph: David Williams

A Silver Y;

Photograph: John Martin

A Slender ground hopper;

Photograph: David Williams

And a Figwort sawfly larva.

Photograph: John Martin

“It’s been a while since we saw a Blue shieldbug” was the throwaway comment I made as we gathered together thinking about returning to the car park. 

And “Hey Presto” two minutes later one was found!

Photograph: David Williams

We started our return to the car park but, as always, there were distractions, including this Rose pea gall that was on a rose at the side of the stepped path we were ascending.

Photograph: Jim Cresswell

Unfortunately two species of gall-wasps are capable of generating this gall, Diplolepis nervosa and Diplolepis eglanteriae. The advice on how to determine which species caused the gall is to rear the adult. 

The gall was left in peace.

As we neared our destination a hoverfly, Eristalis arbustorum was seen and photographed.

Photograph: Jim Almond

At last we made it back to the cars.

Photograph: Jim Almond

And went home after another very enjoyable day.

My thanks to Telford and Wrekin Council and idverde for giving us permission to enjoy ourselves, our guide for the day and the photographers for capturing so many invertebrates on their cameras and allowing me to use the photographs in this report.

Other news

Shock! Horror!

On a moth night at The Bog recently we noticed a moth being carried away by a spider.

Photograph: David Williams

We recognised the doomed moth, a Silver Y, but what was the dastardly spider?

Fortunately our spider enthusiast was able to tell us that it was probably Eratigena duellica a species that is feeling especially mean and grumpy after undergoing a couple of name changes in the last few years.

The day before the visit to Telford Millenium Village a couple of us went to Cavenham Heath NNR (as mentioned at the start of this report). 

After a rather disappointing walk past uninteresting woodland on our left and a field on our right with an intensive pig farm on its far side, the site opened out into heathland on both sides. 

Regrettably the entrances to both sides were CLOSED.

Why?

To protect the plants and animals, apparently.

A little nonplussed we walked on.

Eventually we reached an entrance that was not locked, so we went in.

After a bit more unremarkable woodland we were able to take a small path across the heathland and spend most of the rest of the day seeing what we could find.

As we walked through the heather a Wasp spider made our searching easier by climbing onto my companion’s trousers.

We detached it and placed it on the grass

Continuing our searching of the vegetation we came across the slightly bizarre looking Rhopalid bug that is not yet recorded in Shropshire, Chorosoma schillingi.

And a Hawthorn shieldbug with which I tried my hand at taking an “artistic” photograph.

A Chrysomelid beetle wandered onto one of our rucksacks by its own volition, Sermylassa halensis;

Photograph: Jim Cresswell

And we were able to find several Long-winged coneheads in the grass.

We were not done with Wasp spiders.

As we looked at the edge of a grassed area we witnessed a spider capture a grasshopper (Field grasshopper, I think) which it wrapped in silk quickly then retired to the centre of its web.

The unfortunate grasshopper was still twitching as we moved on.

On leaving the heathland several hours later we noticed a jumping spider on the gatepost. My companion tried to photograph it but it kept moving around the post as soon as he managed to focus his camera on it. He tried from the side, back, other side and front but it just kept moving. I stayed put and was able to take this snap as it paused its rotation.

On returning home I sent the photograph to our local spider expert who declared it to be the “Fencepost spider”! 

Was he joking?

No, it really is known as the Fencepost spider, Marpissa muscosa.

With a name like that I am still not sure if he was serious.

Keep well.