I’m leaning on the gate post

Wednesday 14th September 2022, Tankerville SWT reserve

I’m leaning on the gate post waiting for ten entomologists to pass me by.

Oh me, oh my, I hope the entomologists will come by.

(With apologies to the songwriter Noel Gay.)

Photograph; Bob Kemp

This trip was to the recently acquired Shropshire Wildlife Trust reserve at Tankerville. The site is very close to Pennerley Permaculture where we visited a few weeks earlier. It is a hundred yards or so from that site, across the Stiperstones to Pennerley road, but up the hill. The hill being the Stiperstones!

We parked in the same spot as the previous visit. And we were met by one of the owners of Pennerley Permaculture who returned an item we had left behind when we visited.

It was a bit of a walk to the site. Firstly down the road, then gently up through Bergam Wood, which has recently been clear-felled, to, eventually, the gate of the site.

To encourage the group onto the site I assumed my mental blinkers and pressed on to reach the gate.

Once through I decided to hold it open whilst the rest of the group filed past.

Unfortunately only about a half passed by in the first few minutes.

What was keeping the others?

I admired the view for a while.

After a while, waiting and wondering, I peered back to where we had come from. I could see the rest staring intently at ... I knew not what.

What was holding their attention?

This was one cause.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

A communal group of sawfly larvae chomping their way through a willow leaf. The larvae were identified later as Euura pavida. 

(The photograph was taken later in the day as we made our way back to the cars.)

The other big attraction was captured by this photograph.

Photograph: Nigel Jones

An enormous aggregation of the fly Sepsis fulgens. 

Research by the County Recorder has found an article suggesting that the swarms are a gathering prior to hibernation. The article also suggests that the flies lay a scent on the chosen spot; this firstly attracts other wandering sepsid flies to join the swarm, and, in spring, after emrging from hibernation, brings them back to the same area to facilitate the sexes meeting and mating.

Eventually all the other entomologists had passed me by and I was able to stop leaning.

An early find was a Sloe bug, which was wandering around a camera trying to find out how to take a selfie. I saved it the trouble.

A longhorn beetle, Pogonocherus hispidus, was dislodged from an ash.

Photograph: David Williams

The path followed the lower boundary of the site. For the most part the rest of the site was guarded by impenetrable vegetation. We decided that the best way to get to the upper grasslands was to follow the path to the far end of the site where the vegetation became more open and provided easier access to the top of the site.

Following the path and observing as we went we came across a strikingly coloured beetle, Platycis minutus.

Photograph: David Williams

Reaching the end of the path there was no alternative but to start the ascent.

The first objective was to reach a small area of spoil below a mine shaft. 

(Do not worry the shaft was fenced off.)

This became the location for lunch.

Whilst taking in refreshments we were entertained by Mottled grasshoppers.

Photograph: David Williams

Lunch over most of us continued the ascent up the hill.

We came across a Laburnum in a group of trees at the edge of a small patch of woodland. I looked for and failed to find the psyllid that inhabits this species of tree, Floria variegata.

However others, scouring the leaves, were more successful and found a leaf-mine caused by the larva of the fly Phytomyza cytisi.

Photograph: John Lyden

Whilst some progressed through the trees and scrambled to the higher slopes, a few of us decided, after a little thought, to take a more gentle route by leaving the site and using a bridle path that passed nearby to get to the top. (We had been told there was a gate at the top that provided access from this path!)

The climb was worthwhile. The top of the reserve provided a panoramic view of the land to the north and west of the site.

Here the grassland, kept short by grazing, was punctuated by gorse and hawthorn bushes with some bracken, before dropping down to a patch of woodland.

A Ruby tiger moth larva was found and photographed.

Photograph: David Williams

An old boundary was marked by a few larger trees. One of these was a Rowan. Tapping its lower branches and leaves revealed another longhorn beetle, Pogonocherus hispidulus.

Photograph: David Williams

If you think it looks like the one we found earlier, the similarly named Pogonocherus hispidus you would not be wrong. They are very similar in appearance as well as name.

Their distinguishing features are:

The scutellum. In hispidus it is all black; in hispidulus it is black with a central white stripe.

The trailing edge of the elytra. In hispidus there are two small points; in hispidulus there are four.

I have stitched the two photographs together, side by side, and annotated them to show these differences.

From photographs by David Williams

Time for afternoon tea and a chat …

Before beginning our descent from our lofty position. 

I was quite happy to go back the way we had come, picking up any stragglers (i.e. those who had resisted the climb) on the way. However I was persuaded to take the shorter and not too difficult route down.

To pick up anyone we may miss by going this way I tipped my hat to modern technology and used a mobile phone to call them and arrange a rendezvous.

After a fairly uneventful walk down through grassland which passed between gorse thickets and bracken we regained the path not too far from the entrance gate.

A Comma was spotted which promptly flew off across the fence to land on a tree just beyond.

A more leisurely pace was set for the walk back through Bergam Wood to the cars to allow the group to see what most of them had missed on the way to the site.

Additional finds included:

A bee, Halticus rubicundus;

Photograph: Nigel Jones

An assassin bug, Empicoris vagabundus;

Photograph: Nigel Jones

And a case-bearing moth larva, possibly a species of Dahlica.

Photograph: David Williams

My thanks to Shropshire Wildlife Trust for inviting us to do what we enjoy doing and to the photographers for providing their wonderful images that illustrate the report.