I rescued this motley crew of spiders from the brown garden waste bin at the weekend. I’m sure that the depot where they take all the garden waste must be a really great place to look for bugs! Lots of spiders this time of the year…
I usually clear away some of the nearby spiders webs when I put out the moth trap, but even so there’s often some that get caught and eaten. This Missing Sector Orb Spinner (Zygiella x-notata) has its home in the frame I often put the trap on, and regularly gets a meal of some kind. This species tends to live around houses, mostly outside, making a web that has a 2 sections missing the cross threads.
#362 Missing Sector Orb Spinner (Zygiella x-notata)
I found these four spiders around the garden today, so took a few photos. the pale one on the dogwood willow flower (top left) is I believe a new species, Philodromus albidus, based on its colouration and size.
I’d never realised how bristly flies can be. This black and orange Tachina fera caught sunning itself on the wall has some impressive bristles. This Tachanid fly is a parasitoid, it’s larvae eating moth caterpillars from the inside. I suppose the bristles are sensory organs, maybe to give some early warning if a spider is coming up close behind? The spider here is a new genus for the garden, Tetragnatha, but as quite often with spiders it’s hard to get down to an individual species as there are very similar species, which all vary considerably in colour. These are orb-weaver spiders that often stretch out lengthwise, with their long legs in front, to hide on plant stems.
The Golden Rod is in full flower, and as always is attracting a lot of insects. I can’t say I like the plant so much, but the flowers are really attractive to a big diversity of flies, hoverflies, bees and wasps. In this case though the new species is a Nursery Web Spider making its web up in the flowers. The female of these spiders carries the eggs around with her until they are ready to hatch, when she creates a web for the young spiders to stay in until they are ready to disperse.
The other insect is a solitary wasp of some sort. there are a whole lot of species of mason wasps and ground living wasps with this basic colouration, and identification is not easy.
Doing a bit of gardening at the weekend, I disturbed a couple of new species. Harpactia homburgi is a ground-living, nocturnal spider that hunts insects such as woodlice. This one’s elongated body I think indicates it’s a male. The small mirid bug is a member of the genus Psallus, the first I’ve recorded. There are a few similar looking species. P. varians prefers oak trees, where it feeds on sap, but also eat smaller insects.
Working at home due to Covid-19, it was good to add a new spider, Fleecy Jumping Spider (Pseudeuophrys lanigera, #569), found walking across my computer monitor. Maybe I introduced it inadvertently by bringing my computer equipment from work. This is a small, non-native species, first observed in UK in 1930, which has now spread over much of the country. It is found more or less exclusively in houses, finding the central heating to its liking.
Another indoor spider this month was Philodromus dispar (#581) , found crawling across the bathroom wall. This is a garden spider, that sometimes ventures into houses. Males, like this one are dark with pale legs and undersides; the females are brown and not so easy to identify.
The Silverfish (Lepisma saccharina) is another home dwelling species, living in damp places and coming out at night to feed on particles of food, etc. Not everyone would be happy to find one in the kitchen, but going downstairs for the glass of water in the night I found my first, notching up another species. The fact it took 2 years just shows how clean our house must be!
While the sun of last weekend did bring butterflies, insects and (maybe) a last barbecue of the summer, the weather is now turned wet and windy, and the leaves are starting to turn. Bird-wise the last 2 house martins were still over the house this morning, but Chiffchaffs joining the tit flock and the first Lesser Redpoll mean Autumn has arrived. On my Garden Birdwatch, which I’ve been doing for a couple of years now, I’ve had my first ever sparrow-less weeks, as the usually-resident House Sparrows have gone - presumably they will be back though, after a short stay-cation out in the hedgerows.
Other signs of Autumn moving on are the craneflies appearing in the house most evenings and spiders, like the European Garden Spider (or Cross Spider) and this this lovely False Widow found in my sons Wellington boot. Pruning back shrubs in the garden, this pair of earwigs needed re-housing, but in general, apart from spiders, insects are few; though there are still plenty of snails & slugs..
This is a cool but freaky-looking spider that’s caught itself a big meal. The White Crab Spider (Misumena vatia, #480) can change its colour depending on the flower it is on. It hides on the flower pouncing on any unsuspecting insect and grabbing it with its strong front legs. It may not be able to do blue - not that it seems to have mattered much in this case - but like a chameleon it can change its colour from white to yellow or green in order to blend in. In the US it is called the Golden Rod Spider as it’s commonly found, coloured yellow, on Golden Rod later in the summer when this in flower and covered in pollinating insects. It’s not such a common species in UK, only found in the South of England, so I’m happy to have found one in my garden.
#480 Flower Crab Spider (Misumena vatia)
A bit of a mixed bag around the garden today, with Chocolate Mining Bee (Andrena scotica, 459) adding to the medley of mining bees that are present at the moment. A few Amara ground. beetles were to be seen in the sunshine; this one appears like a Common Sun Beetle (Amara aenea). Next a couple of spiders. Zebra Spider (Salticus scenicus, #460) is usually a common enough species of jumping spider, but I didn’t find one last summer, so it was nice to catch this one in the sunshine by the front door. The not-so-long-legged harvestman is Phalangium opilio (#461); found while doing some gardening,
Tidying out the shed this weekend didn’t turn up as many bugs as I was expecting. The shed starts to be quite rotten, especially around the base, so there is a lot of entry points for all kinds of creature to crawl in through. In the event though, apart from a few spiders and hibernating mosquitoes, there wasn’t so much to keep me from my spring cleaning. The spiders were mostly Black Lace Weavers (Amaurobius ferox, #103); I’m not sure where the other big spiders present back in the Autumn were hiding themselves. The mosquitoes, which were plentiful, were Common House Mosquito / House Gnat (Culex pipiens, #332). Happily neither one of them bites people much.
Elsewhere I disturbed a couple of toads that were getting intimate in the log store and found these primroses (Primula vularis), which were new for the list (#422)
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.
Passionate about nature, based in Gloucestershire UK; this site is about creating a wildlife friendly family garden and exploring the diversity of animal & plant species that share it with us.
As a nature lover and wildlife gardener I started wondering about the biodiversity in my backyard and just how many species from plants to insects to birds to mammals might live in or visit it.
Much of the wildlife in my small, village garden has been present right under my nose for years without my really appreciating it, so on the way I am learning a lot about different species and how to make a wildlife-friendly environment for them; also getting engaged more in conservation activities around Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and the Cotswolds.
My garden species tally started from zero on June 1st 2018, the target was 1000 species, which I eventually hit in June 2024. But there’s still plenty to see and learn about.
I'm very interested in your comments & advice: whether it's about the blog, some help with identification or just how to make my own little Eden better for wildlife. So please leave a comment or drop me a line if you feel like it!
Graham Tompsett
microedenproject@gmail.com
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