Not the 58 - Just the 1

Sunday, 28th June 2020

How do I follow up the epic tale of the pursuit of the 58 species of butterflies?

The simple answer is - "I have no idea".

Were I Charles Dickens or William Shakespeare I would be brimming with ideas, but I'm not!

If anyone wants to make a suitable suggestion for topics to keep us going over these days of guidelines and restrictions please let me know.

Over the past week a few of us (never more than six - keeping in line with the guidelines) have wandered about late in the evening looking for glow worms.

There are, apparently, three species of glow worms in Britain. However one of the species is only known from museum specimens, and the other is extremely rare, glows very dimly and is about half the size the Common glow worm, Lampyris noctiluca.

The Common glow-worm is the one we went searching for. The female is about 25mm in length, the males somewhat smaller; the female is flightless whereas the males are winged; the female is the one usually found by observing its quite bright glow. 

The females glow to attract the males for the purposes of mating. The adult life span of the female is only a few weeks, but once she has mated the female quenches her light, lays her eggs and dies. 

Much more information about glow worms is available on the UK Glow worm Survey website.

What about our efforts?

Our first outing was to Stretton Westwood quarry on Wenklock Edge.

I found one about 6 feet from where I parked the car in the car park for the site. Here it is:

In all we saw about 18 in the 90 minutes or so that we stayed on site. My find came after the other attendees had all found at least one and I was getting desperate to find one "all by myself". We had decided to call it a night, and were wandering back to the cars when I noticed it. Now I know how our hero felt when we found the Clouded yellow!

Our first sighting was about 10.45pm when David spotted one in the lowest section of the quarry. It was in low, damp, sparse vegetation. After that they were found quite regularly in the same and two other areas of the quarry.

Photograph: David Williams

Photograph: David Williams

Quite a few of the females hade males in attendance.

Photograph: David Williams

A couple of days later we went to the Wollerton end of the Hodnet Old Railway path. This is a well-know site for Glow-worms. The vegetation here was very different from the quarry. It was much denser and taller. 

As we walked along the lushness of the vegetation was causing us concern. We did not have the super-sensitive sight of the Glow worm males so would easily miss the glow when looking down into the growth. 

However, luck was on our side and there through a gap in the nettles was a tell-tale glow. Bob, never one for taking the safety first approach to the art of photography, plunged head first into the nettles and was able to get a snap of the insect.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

In all we saw 6 glowing females and a few males.

Finally we ventured out to Haughmond Hill. We followed the track from The Criftin up to the trig point. Fortunately we were not looking for a needle in a haystack as we had been told where they were most likely to be found. And that is where we found them! Just the two females plus one male.

So another successful little project - but we had found them where we expected to find them and not somewhere new - that is the next challenge, should we choose to accept it.

And now for a round up of wildlife sightings that have come my way over the last fortnight. (I did not include any of these in The 58 - Episode XII, so there is a bit of catching up to do.) Thank you to everyone who has sent me the photographs.

Mating Azure damselflies:

Photograph: Peter Hodgkison

A hoverfly, Chrysotoxum festivum: 

Photograph: John Martin

A robber fly, Dioctria rufipes taking an aculeate, ensuring the sting is well out of the way

Photograph: John Martin

A moth, from a Lincolnshire garden, Ethmia quadrillella:

Photograph: Liz Roberts

And another, a Broad-barred white:

Photograph: Liz Roberts

Back to Shropshire, a Four-spotted chaser:

Photograph: Peter Hodgkison

A Gasteruption jaculator employing its long ovipositor:

Photograph: Peter Hodgkison

Returning briefly to Lincolnshire, a host of Garden cross spiderlings:

Photograph: Liz Roberts

Returning, again, to Shropshire, mating Large red damselflies:

Photograph: Peter Hodgkison

A Speckled bush cricket nymph:

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

A mining-bee with a serious mite problem:

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

And an assassin bug, Reduvius personatus.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

In the week I visited Burnside Meadow in Shrewsbury and managed to photograph this longhorn beetle, Agapantha villosoviridescens.

The nettles, and some hogweed plants in this site, supported a large number of Peacock butterfly larvae.

A few moths from the moth trap that I have run every few days in my garden.

Crambus pascuellus, a common moth found in most grasslands:

A very well marked moth, Enarmonia formosana. Regrettably the photograph does not do it justice.

A Figure of eighty

A Lime-speck pug

Another moth let down by the camera, or my method of using it, Phtheochroa rugosana, a punk rocker amongst the tortrix moths, with scales going in all directions.

And a rather more sombre moth, the Sycamore:

Finally a little Front Garden Envy. 

A couple of weeks ago I included a photograph of our front lawn which had benefitted from "No Mow May", (and is still benefitting). I was sent this photograph which put mine well into the shade.

Photograph: Catherine Wellings

Bravo!

To be fair Graham has a lot more to work with than I do but wouldn't it be great if all front lawns looked a little more like this than over-mown grass.

Keep well.