Grey Partridges at Calmsden Farm

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Grey Partridges declined in UK by 90% between 1967 and 2008, according to BTO surveys, and are well and truly “Red List” birds While Red-legged Partridges are widespread, often released for game shooting, their native relatives remain scarce and localised in the Cotswolds. It was really interesting therefore to attend a FWAG South West (Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group) meeting at Calmsden Farm near Cirencester, where thanks to focused habitat management the population of Grey Partridges increased from initially 2 to 50+ pairs.

While the business of the farm is profitable arable agriculture, the land is managed very sympathetically for wildlife. In this environment partridges are dependent on having cover for nesting and to avoid predation over the winter period, insects to feed the chicks during the first weeks after hatching and food to survive the winter. The requirements for cover and food are provided by leaving a patchwork of habitats in narrow 3 or 6 meter strips along the field margins and in some cases through the fields. On Calmsden Farm these habitats are really varied, provided by annual, biennial and perennial sown wild flowers, strips of un-ploughed wildflower meadow and raised grassy beetle-banks. The field margin habitats are not natural, but instead are custom designed to provide for the year-round needs of partridges, such that they can breed successfully and maintain low mortality. Predators are controlled during the breeding season, especially foxes, rats, stoats and crows, and supplemental grain (laced with anti-worm medicine) is provided at feeding stations over the winter. Other practices, like drilling autumn sown oil-seed rape directly into the stubble from the previous grain crop and maintaining hedges over a multi-year cycle, also benefit the resident wildlife. The succession of planting and cutting ensures the field margins provide cover and feeding opportunity at all times, avoiding a situation where birds are left vulnerable to foxes and avian predators such as sparrowhawks.

This dedication to preserving Grey Partridges, which are not hunted on this farm, has been hugely successful. However, it doesn’t just benefit them, but also many other farmland species. For our visit the partridges were (ironically) keeping a low profile - maybe too much cover! - but I did see Roe Deer, Brown Hares, Yellowhammers, Skylark, Stock Dove, flocks of Linnets, Goldfinches, Swallows and Meadow Pipits, Buzzard and Red Kite. All in a short walk over a few of the fields.

I left feeling really optimistic that, with planning, expertise from bodies like FWAG and some financial support from government, farmers really can reverse some declines of farmland wildlife, while at the same time still maintaining viable businesses and feeding us.

Photos show examples of wild-life friendly field margins including natural wild grass, sown annual wild flower mix, deep cover for partridges and beetle banks.

September Flowers

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Two new flowers this week, a quite late-flowering Great Mullein (#341) in one of the shadier spots in my garden, and a host of Michaelmas Daisies (#342), which grow like weeds everywhere. It would be good if these can entice out some pollinating insects, as the numbers of these have dropped right off due to late lack of flowers in the garden and summer coming to an end.

Willow Tree Witches Broom

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I noticed an unusually tight cluster of twigs on the willow tree in the garden and checking its development over the summer, it turned into a kind of Witches Broom.  I've never noticed this kind of growth on a willow tree before and thought at first it was just a chance mutation, but thanks to the RHS website I now know it is caused by a specific gall mite called Stenacris triradiatus (species #340).  Comparing photos from June and September, you can see how the witches broom has developed with densely packed under-sized leaves and then the affected part of the tree prematurely died back.  There are only two growths on the tree, so happily its not a big deal in terms of the health of the tree itself.

Hedgerow Riches at Greystones Farm

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My first Guide duty at Greystones Farm, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust reserve for a month or so, and it was a beautiful Cotswold morning. The hedges are yawning with berries, including wild hops - not something you come across too often.  Lovely colours, and lots of food for wintering birds later in the Autumn.  Some bird passage was in evidence, with a fly-over Meadow Pipit and a flock of Pied Wagtails, with one White Wagtail, feeding around the cattle.

Checking Out the Bug Hotel

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Ewan and I built this Bug Hotel earlier in the year from an old skip and various materials found around the garden.  As it needed some repairs, we thought it was also a good time for a quick look what guests had checked in (trying not to disturb the clientele too much). 

The results were pretty good - quite a large collection of creatures, were present.  Common Rough Woodlouse (#64) was the most numerous guest, dozens of them, bunking up with various snails, a Budapest Keeled Slug (#330), a couple of Lob Worms (#73) and two White-legged Snake Millipede (#208) on the ground floor.  Elsewhere we found a Flea Beetle (looking like #161 Crepidodera fulvicornis) perhaps prospecting a snug spot for hibernation, an empty moth/butterfly cocoon, some solitary bee nests in the holes drilled in the pallet and a whole lot of different spiders, including Rabbit-hutch Spider (#337), a harvestman (#334 Paroligolophus agrestis) and a quite large and well marked spider (photo below) that I still have to identify.

This shows quite well that if you build a Bug Hotel, they will come.

A Bigger Pond?

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I don't have a proper pond in the garden, but I do have a couple of large basins with bullrushes, willowherb and duckweed.  These have had frogs and some insects, but generally have been a little disappointing.  I guess I was hoping for resident mayflies, damselflies and pond insects like water-boatment & pond-skaters - but so far these didn't turn up.

Checking the smaller pond-life today, I did add water fleas to the list and also Culex pipiens mosquitos (though the latter have been there all summer).  These two species, plus Bloodworms (larvae of Chironomidae midges), Rat-tailed Maggots (hoverfly/dronefly larvae) and Flatworms (Polycleis sp.) constitute the 5 species of smaller pond residents found so far.  So the basins have been helpful for some species, and also of course to visiting birds, frogs and toads, but a bigger, better water habitat would be nice wouldn't it? Maybe a project for the Autumn.

Confused by Sawflies

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Up until the end of July the only sawflies I'd found were caterpillars, but I ended up in an identification mess when the first adults emerged, rather negligently putting them down as soldier flies.  Among other things the antennae of the sawflies look very different from those of soldier flies.  Having finally identified Rose Sawfly (Arge ochropus) and Berberis Sawfly (Arge berberidis) found among the insects on flowering fennel during mid-August, I went back and realised I'd had adult Large Rose Sawfly (Arge pagana) during July, perhaps hatched from the caterpillars I correctly identified back in early July.  Rose and Large Rose Sawflies look a bit similar, but the former has distinctive black & white "football socks" on its legs. 

Including #159 Lesser Willow Sawfly (larvae on willow tree) I only recorded four species of sawfly since June, which means as there are 600 species in UK, I should be able to find many more - even if it means waiting for next summer.

Australian Immigrant

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My first new moth for a while, a Light Brown Apple Moth (#317), is originally a native of Australia.  First found in UK in the 1930s it's now spread across much of England making a pest of itself in orchards and gardens.  Similarly, it's been accidentally introduced to New Zealand, New Caledonia, Hawaii and California.  In Australia the population is kept under control naturally by insect predators, especially parasitic wasps and flies, that eat the larvae.  However in other countries these predators are not present, so the moths can become a significant pest in orchards.  It's an interesting reversal of all the non-native plants and animals introduced (often deliberately) to Australia and New Zealand by European colonists, which now have to be controlled at great cost by local farmers and conservationists.  

#317 Light Brown Apple Moth

#317 Light Brown Apple Moth

Not a Moth, but a Caddisfly

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Found this insect back on 30 June, and thinking it was a moth spent ages trying to find it on www.ukmoths.org.uk and other websites.  All no avail. until a I was checking something else and realised it was not a moth at all, but a caddisfly.  The problem with caddisflies is that there seems to be very little information on the internet covering the 200 or so species found in the UK.  Normally caddisflies live near running water, but this one was resting up in shrubs in the garden during the daytime.  Plus, this one doesn't really have much in the way of distinguishing features.  Ironically the only one looking similar that I could find on the web was on another blog (http://northdownsandbeyond.blogspot.com/2010/09/stumped-by-caddis-fly.html), and the blogger there couldn't identify it either, but hopefully one of us will work it out one day...

A MicroEden mystery - caddisfly

A MicroEden mystery - caddisfly

Spider's Breakfast

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A busy morning for the local spiders.  The European Garden Spider (aka Cross Spider) in the tomato plants was having Marmalade Hoverfly for breakfast.  Meanwhile a Noble False Widow spider living in a gap in the wall was immobilising a Common Wasp that had got snared in its web.  The diversity of insects seems to be declining as summer progresses, but spiders and wasps are more and more apparent.  We even had a visit from a very impressive European Hornet yesterday - a first this summer - too much of a wimp to get a decent photo, I’m afraid.

Sorting out some Bees

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I'm finding bees pretty hard to identify, despite having a Falk's field guide to the Bees of GB & Ireland on loan.  Anyhow taking advantage of a wet Sunday, I think I made some progress with old photos from June & July.

In June the Wall Daisies had a lot of these small, orange-bellied solitary bees.  Looking at photos and the guide, I think they can be identified as Patchwork Leaf-cutter Bee (#181), thanks to the extent of orange towards the tail segments. 

The other bee also from June on White Bryony flowers also seems to be a solitary bee.  Based on the amount of hair on the body and leg colour I reckon  it's Yellow-legged Mining Bee (#309).

There's a few other microEden mysteries I need to solve, I'm glad to have worked at least some of them out.

Butterflies on Lavender

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It's colder today and the lavender is coming to an end, but here's a few snaps of butterflies that have been in the garden over the last couple of weeks.  One or two of Common Blue, Gatekeeper and Meadow Brown butterflies have been through on a more or less daily basis during early August.  Though there have been plenty of Large and Small Whites, often they've not stopped for the flowers, and I've had Comma and Red Admiral visiting a few times.  Other species which I might have expected, like Small Tortoiseshell, which I remember as being so common when I was a kid, seem very scarce - only seen 2-3 times this year.  And so far I didn't see a single Peacock or Painted Lady in the garden despite it seemingly being a good year for butterflies.  It's thought the decline of some of these butterfly species might be due to a parasitic fly (Sturmia bella) that has spread from the Continent in recent years.  We sent in some counts to Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count - be interested to see the outcome from their UK survey when it comes out.

Freeing the Pond Olive Mayfly

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Once again the brown wheelie bin for garden waste came up trumps with a new species for the backyard - this time my first mayfly, a Pond Olive (#301) with its lovely long tail streamers.  Mayflies are usually found by ponds and streams, so God knows how it got in my compost bin, as I'd only been pulling up some potato plants and a few weeds; certainly nothing from any pond.  Apparently it's a myth that mayflies only live for a day - even so, spending a large proportion of your life shut in a dark wheelie bin is a bit tragic.  I was happy to liberate it.

301 Pond Olive mayfly.jpg

A morning of birds

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A beautiful sunny, still and cool morning, starting to feel even a bit autumnal.  There were lots of birds around, especially in the neighbours' large birch trees at the foot of the garden.  Family groups of blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, greenfinches, blackbirds and house sparrows were more apparent than usual.  A singing willow warbler and a lesser whitethoat (new for the garden and species #313 for the microEden list) were not locals. They are migrant warblers slowly moving south & west, feeding up for the long migration to Africa as they go.  Families of swallows, house martins and swifts were overhead - the swifts will be gone any day now, heading South.  By 10.00 am the birds are almost silent - you'd never know they were there.

It seems a good time to mention the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and their Garden Birdwatch survey that collects data - weekly maximum counts - of the bird species in your garden.  You can also optionally record other wildlife like mammals, butterflies, etc.  This is great as everyone's records build up a very representative dataset of changes in bird populations in gardens across the UK.  The website it interesting.  Consider signing up - It's not too much of a commitment (https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/gbw)

 

 

The MicroEden backyard on an August morning

The MicroEden backyard on an August morning

Poisons in the Garden

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These two common plants that crop up as garden weeds are both very poisonous. 

The red berries of Lords & Ladies add some nice late-summer colour in shady areas of the garden, but there's a good reason why they don't get eaten by the birds - they're very poisonous.  Thankfully they are so unpleasant tasting that nobody would ever get to eat enough of them to have a dangerous dose.  

The white flowers, one of many different kinds of similar-looking umbellifer is called Fool's Parsley, as it looks superficially like parsley or chervil, but can be distinguished by the small spurs that hang down under the flowers and seed heads.  Like many other umbelliferae, such as hemlock, it's pretty poisonous; though apparently it was also used in the past as a medicine for children's stomach aches - hopefully only in small doses!

300 Species in my Backyard in 2 months

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More or less on the 2 month mark, I added a handful of species to achieve a total of 300 species in the microEden backyard.  The fennel seems to be the most attractive pollen source for flies, hoverflies and wasps,  The population of wasps is really taking off right now, with them all around us as soon as we sit outside for a meal.

The new species in the last couple of days include #297 common orange legionnaire fly, #298 pied hoverfly and #300 a solitary bee Ectemnius continuus.  The solitary bee is a predator, digging a nest hole in wood and taking flies, etc back for its larvae - it has strong looking legs, perhaps for all that digging.  On the fennel though it was more interested in the flowers than any of its fellow insects.