May 2015 – Page 2 – Enviro-Mentalist

The Dragonfly Diaries – a review

I promised this year that I would learn more about bees and butterflies and not buy any books. Then I found a copy of Ruary Mackenzie Dodds’ book at a reduced price and all my good intentions went out of the window (this was a book that was already on my to read list).

This is not a book about dragonflies though. It is a book about the author pursuing a dream and establishing a dragonfly sanctuary and, later, a dragonfly museum and, bizarrely, a museum of old farm and estate equipment. Don’t get me wrong, the dragonflies get many mentions, and there is some information about them, about their requirements and they really are the author’s raison d’être but if you want to learn about dragonflies then this is not the book for you. After saying what it isn’t, then it is only fair to say that what it is is very engaging nature writing and story telling.

Ruary Mackenzie Dodds had what many would call an epiphany when out taking photographs near a canal in London during a lunch break when a dragonfly landed on his shirt. Before that moment, he’d never even noticed them. Over the next few years, after discovering that dragonflies were under threat, he came up with a plan to create a dragonfly sanctuary. It helped that his girlfriend was the niece of Dame Miriam Rothschild who happened, along with her son, to own the large estate that once belonged to Charles Rothschild who created what has now become the Wildlife Trusts. In addition, being an incredibly well known entomologist, Miriam Rothschild also knew anyone who knew anything about dragonflies.

Whilst this was probably the main reason that the venture got off the ground, it required an awful lot of hard work, vision, cajoling and recruitment of volunteers to get the sanctuary off the ground and this is the story of how he went about it. By the end of the book, twenty three years later an awful lot had been achieved including the creation of a charity, the restoration of vast amounts of farm machinery, not to mention one of the first sets of electricity generating equipment circa 1900, and a lot of education of the public about dragonflies. Most remarkable is the ability to attract funding and volunteers from all walks of life, and to keep them volunteering (although it appears there was more than a bit of luck preventing quite a few accidents).

All in all this is inspiring stuff, and whilst most of us cannot create anything on the scale of the author’s achievements, it did make me wonder just what I could achieve. Hmmm, time will tell. In the meantime, the wonderful writing style has at least motivated me to get blogging again and to dust off my Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Ireland.

A good afternoon’s birding or, how I was proved wrong yet again (twice)!

OK, not an afternoon of birding, but a couple of hours at Daventry Country Park on a grey, chilly and blustery Saturday afternoon. It was the one afternoon when rain wasn’t forecast though, so I thought I would go and check on my terns (more on those in another blog post). I also hoped to hear the sedge warbler that I heard last weekend (the first time I have heard one at the Country Park).

After the excitement of Brandon Marsh, I was prepared for a quiet couple of hours watching the terns go by. And, by and large that’s what I got. Most of the black-headed gulls have gone (taking the Little Gulls that I missed last week with them) but there is a flotilla of Lesser Black Backed and Herring gulls at the far end of the water. Most of the ducks have gone too (although I did see some teal last week) and the cormorants are much reduced in number (down to just five or six from ten times that number in the winter).

I spent most of my time watching the terns, but having house martins and swallows zooming by, and twittering up high. I got some really good views again through my scope. Following my last blog when I mentioned that Brandon Marsh was the only place that I saw sand martins, I now have to make a retraction, because I saw at least one in the groups dashing about above the water. It definitely didn’t have the white rump, was smaller than the swallows and was a lovely warm brown when it turned to flash the upper side of its wings into the sunlight – noticeable different to the smart midnight blue of the house martins and swallows. A new for me on my local patch.

It was whilst I was watching these that I happened to notice a very yellow looking bird flapping about along the dam. It looked like a wagtail, but it moved to fast for me to find it in my bins. Then I saw three yellow birds on the path – they were so yellow that I thought at first they were yellowhammers – but they were scared away by some children pedalling towards them before I could get a good look. They looked and sounded like wagtails though – probably grey wagtails as I’d seen these on quite a few occasions at the Country Park.

I also fancied I heard a skylark in the distance so I thought I would have a look around the fields on the south side of the water (and also see if I could see the wagtails along the dam). No joy on the wagtails, but I did hear something singing in the distance that could be a skylark – I hope so. I heard another call coming from the fields that was unfamiliar – then I saw a yellow bird fly upwards and back down into the crops – yellowhammer? I stood watching for a while, then the yellow bird flew up out of the field. I was in luck – it landed at the top of a tree near the path and didn’t fly off when I came close. I got a good look, definitely a wagtail – long tail, but very yellow underneath, long black legs, olive-green on top and with an olive eye stripe. I was hopeful that this might be a yellow wagtail. I checked the RSPB website when I got home, which also has a recording of its call which I listened to for quite a while when stood under the tree. It was definitely a yellow wagtail – a lifetime first for me and in my local patch as well! How cool is that.

On my way back home I bumped into a lady who asked me if I had seen anything interesting. We chatted about the tern rafts and I mentioned that the swifts would be back soon – I usually see the first ones about the 5th or 6th May. WRONG! I was wandering out of the Country Park and looked up to see 22 swifts coming over the trees (yes, I did count them). I am hopeful this means that warm weather is on its way!

The folly of making assumptions

On my recent trip to Brandon Marsh I happened along what I thought was a caterpillar crawling along the path. I took a picture, and couldn’t find any butterfly caterpillars that looked anything like it.

I assumed therefore that it was a moth caterpillar – it even moved along like a caterpillar (see my very poor attempt at video below) so I put a request for an ID out on twitter.

Anyway, I was mainly ignored except by a friend who correctly ID’d it from his insect guide book. It is in fact the larva of a glow worm, Lampyris noctiluca. Neither of us had ever seen one before but I had assumed that they weren’t found round here (in fact I blogged about them 6 years ago) so it never would have occurred to me that this could have been a glow worm in the making. My level of excitement about this discovery would be considered by some to be a little bit sad or over the top perhaps.

So, obviously, more research was needed and I came across an excellent website all about glow worms and discovered that the larvae are just as interesting as the adults (all the information I have included here along with so much more is included on this site – please take the time to visit and learn more). For a start, glow worms spend only about two weeks as an adult, but an average of 15 months as a larva. Adults never eat, they have no mouthparts, so they have to get sufficient food reserves before they pupate. They do this by eating snails and slugs so they tend to hang about in the same place as small snails and slugs (surprising they are not in my garden then!) and prefer damp conditions in the dark (their eyesight is very poor). They find their food via their very sensitive antennae and the palps on the front of their mouth that they wave about almost constantly.

When the larva finds the snail (or slug) it bites it and delivers a toxin that starts to digest the victim from the inside. Larger snails require several bites and apparently the larva often rides on the snail’s shell whilst waiting for it to die. The larva has to be careful not to get stuck to the snail as its defence mechanism is to cover itself with sticky mucus. Once the snail has died the larva sucks up the molluscian broth, and even has little hairs in its mouth to filter out any bits that are too large and pointy blades on its mandibles to cut them into smaller pieces. These larvae are so cool!

As previously mentioned, slugs and snails are pretty sticky, so after polishing off its dinner the glow worm larva has to clean itself up – it has a special attachment on its tail end with lots of hooks for this purpose and scours itself clean. This is also handy for hanging from plants if necessary.

All this eating snails means that the larvae get too big for their skin, and therefore, like some other invertebrates, they shed their skins several times before they make the transition to full adulthood, a process which takes a couple of weeks and for which the larvae tend to group together. The glow worms now have two weeks to find a mate or die trying.

Oh, and one further cool fact, even the larvae can glow a little, although as yet, no one seems to know why they do – there being several reasons put forward, some more plausible than others. I just like to think that it’s so they can find each other.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, never make assumptions when trying to ID something new.

Brandon Marsh Blog part two

So, the reason why I often find myself disappointed with Brandon Marsh is because on my first visit there I was spoilt with fantastic views of kingfishers and a hobby from the Carlton Hide. I haven’t seen a hobby there since and it’s a while since I spotted a kingfisher there (I have in fact seen both of these at Daventry Country Park). The Carlton hide should offer fantastic views of waders and water birds. But it doesn’t. Last time I went the bird count was similar to that at the Teal Pool Hide – aka nothing. So I was set for disappointment when I opened the shutters (there was no one else there). But, today, my view was filled with house martins and swallows darting about in front of the hide, chasing insects over the reed beds, twittering to each other and performing aerial acrobatics.

View from the Carlton Hide

I saw another whitethroat at close range and saw my first black cap of the year – a male (I’d heard plenty, but not seen any so far). There were reed or sedge warblers about – I think sedge and I got a good view of a female reed bunting darting about in the reeds – as they do I suppose. There was a cuckoo up here too, although I still couldn’t see it and it sounded some distance away.

In the last few years they have extended the reserve, the latest addition being some screens up at Newlands, overlooking more of the reed bed. Or at least that was what was there last time, now they have a new hide!

The Ted Jury Hide

These are the views left and right through the screens:

But when I went in and opened up the shutters, oh my, what a view, it nearly took my breath away:

There was a constant burble from the house martins hunting in the reed beds in even larger numbers, but there wasn’t a lot else that I could see. Still, it is early days and these things tend to take some time to settle down. I waited a while in case an osprey turned up – after all they’d kindly erected a platform for him to land on, but not surprisingly, he didn’t show. Still there were plenty of house martins and sand martins to keep me mesmerised. I realised that the sand martins were much easier to differentiate than I thought, even at speed (theirs, not mine). They don’t have the white rump that their cousins the house martins have and they also make a very different sound, more squawky than the tweeting of the house martins. I hate to say it, but a hobby would have had good hunting round there today.

I worried about getting back before they closed the gates, but couldn’t resist going towards one of the hides and out towards a different part of the reed bed in the hope that I might find a Cettis warbler as I’ve heard them round that side most years. However, on this occasion they disappointed and I didn’t hear anything. I wandered further along and met a couple of gentlemen who were going the opposite way and told me that there was always a grasshopper warbler singing in the nearby marshy areas if I just stopped and listened. A grasshopper warbler – that would be a lifetime first for me. Although, going by my sedge / reed warbler dilemma the chances of me actually recognising it were close to zero. Still I stood and listened. And, I heard a sedge warbler or was it a reed warbler. I waited and then I heard it, very faint, but definitely, something that really did sound like a stridulating grasshopper. Amazing – what a day.

I didn’t hear it again, although I wandered along the path by the reed bed. I did hear other warblers and, some sounded less scratchy than the sedge warblers I’d been listening to and they didn’t seem to stop to start again. Hearing them side by side I am pretty sure that I did hear a reed warbler, so, although I still haven’t seen one, I have now heard one. After all, the whole point of warblers is their song.