All posts by Ian Alexander

I have been in love with nature as long as I can remember. Nature photography, birdwatching, lichens, fossils, orchids, mountains, insects, everything else. Conservation, gardening at home, community gardening. I've loved it all.
Art, Natural History

Tara louise hughes’s marvellous insect faces

The Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve this autumn has a new and wonderful nature trail: a series of insects’ faces by Tara Louise Hughes. Tara, when not studying art and illustration, has proven herself a capable conservation volunteer. Now, she has brightened up the reserve for children and adults with her painstakingly fire-etched close-up drawings of insects.

Her damselfly head is a study in miniature detail: the hundreds of pin-point eye-elements (ommatidia) in the insect’s large, forward-facing eyes; the precise distribution and length of the bristles on the top of the head and on the mouthparts; the accurately-observed antennae.

The Stag Beetle head is suitably fearsome, a study in armoured magnificence with interlocking chitin cases for head and thorax, and those extraordinary antler-like mandibles.

The Monarch Butterfly’s head couldn’t be more different: a study of a delicately furry head, a shy eye, and the tenderly coiled proboscis peeping out on the right.

With the Flesh Fly we’re certainly back in scary territory, the rows of stiffly corseted bristles announcing that this insect is ready for action.

The Buff-tailed Bumblebee, a mild and welcome presence in the reserve, and in gardens wherever there is a suitable supply of flowers. The furry insect seems shy under the artist’s gaze.

If not evil, the Red Wood Ant is definitely fierce and single-minded, as anyone who’s ever been bitten by one can testify. Tara’s fire-etching has brilliantly captured that take-no-prisoners energy with the insect’s smooth bullet head, businesslike antennae, and efficiently-hinged jaws. Take a careful look at those scorched textures at the top of its head.

Tara’s Tortoise Beetle shows the distinctly tortoise-like carapace from the underside, its knobbly texture skilfully burnt into the wood, the little head jutting out under the curved rim with the antennae cautiously feeling the outside world for possible danger.

Tara’s website is at https://taralouisehughes.medium.com/

Natural History

Giant polypore, Acton Green

This enormous wood-rotting (saprophytic) fungus, Meripilus giganteus, is a relatively soft bracket, and it grows very quickly. It is the fruiting body of the fungus; the rest of it consists of little feeding tubes (hyphae) in the dead wood of the treestump, which was a Hornbeam, a hardwood. The discs are attached to short stalks, and are concentrically patterned, with tiny scales over the top surface. The underside is a mass of holes or pores, hence the name; each one is the opening of a little tube where the spores grow. Millions of them fall out and blow away; presumably one or two will find a suitable treestump to grow on.

Natural History

Small china-mark moth … always by water

This pretty little moth looks white at first glance, but it isn’t, exactly. There’s a small black spot near the middle of the wing; a slightly checkered border; and a row of black marks with little blue spots near the outer edge of the hind wing. The caterpillars feed on duckweed, so the adults are always near water. This one was just by the boardwalk over the main pond at Gunnersbury Triangle.

Natural History

Dirty habits

Ah, a Comma butterfly on the path. Ew, but what’s it doing? Those are flies. Greenbottles. With red eyes. They’re buzzing around a sticky mess. Dog or Fox poo. And, yes, the Comma has its proboscis extended, it’s feeding. On the poo, by preference. No better than the flies!

Actually, quite a few species of butterfly are attracted to sticky messes on the ground; entomologists brew up their own concoctions with beer and treacle (and who knows what else) to attract Purple Emperors down from the tops of their Oak trees.

Somehow this all seems surprising, perhaps because we can’t quite believe that anything so beautifully dressed as a butterfly could have such dirty habits. But then again, being attractive and well-dressed doesn’t guarantee that humans are doing nice things, either.

Natural History

Insects (and Flowers) of Chalk Grassland at Aston Rowant

6-Spot Burnet Moth side view with proboscis nectaring on Marjoram, antennae iridescent blue. Extremely flighty on a really hot day!
6-Spot Burnet Moth on Marjoram, Red on Iridescent Green (like the related Forester Moth, which flies here earlier in the year)
6-Spot Burnet Moth on Marjoram, same insect, looking Red on Black. The brilliant conspicuous coloration is evidently aposematic, more or less honestly warning that the insects are toxic, containing cyanogenic glucosides. A recent article finds, however, that the most toxic burnet moths are not more aposematic, i.e. there is no quantitative relationship. (But wouldn’t the less toxic moths evolve to look like the most toxic ones, as it’s safer…)
Moulting Grasshopper
Hoverfly on St John’s Wort
A magnificently large Parasitic Wasp on Hogweed
Soldier Beetle on Hogweed
Pyrausta nigrata: a beautiful chocolate-brown Micro Moth of downland with a wavy wing bar, among the wild Thyme (that’s how small it is)
Common Blue butterfly on Self-Heal
Marbled White on Scabious
Dark Green Fritillary (with quaking-grass above). Not only rare, but very flighty! I was happy to get this long shot through the grass.

There were also Small Whites, Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers, Small Skippers, and possibly Chalkhill Blues about.

A magnificently short, gnarly Beech getting a good toe-hold on the Chalk
Well this probably is a Chiltern Gentian, the flowers are large, and showier than the Autumn Gentian; pinker than the camera has made it look, too

Natural History

Plague of Ragwort in Richmond Park

Ragwort by the thousand … and as yet hardly any Cinnabar Moth caterpillars. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Ragwort is not just a common weed, but a curious one. It used to be a Notifiable Weed to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (more Ag. than Fish., probably). This was because it gave livestock that incautiously ate it, fresh or in hay, a violent stomach upset and sometimes caused death. So, farmers were obliged to report it and destroy it.

Why so dangerous? It contains Cardiac Glycosides, yup, chemicals that interfere with heart rhythms. Presumably natural selection has favoured this as animals end up not eating too much of the plant, which favours its survival. That includes cows and most insects.

However, a few beasties can tolerate the poison; and the Cinnabar Moth is one such. Actually, it goes a step further — it benefits from the stuff. Its caterpillars are large, conspicuous, and slow-moving; they’re also striped brilliant orange and black, warning coloration. That says “eat me, you’ll regret it”, and it’s an honest signal; any bird that tries it will indeed be violently sick, at least, and won’t try eating larvae that look like that again. Ever.

However however, one bird can tolerate the poisonous caterpillars: the Cuckoo. It arrives and feasts on the conspicuous and presumably delicious, nutritious larvae which nobody else will touch with a bargepole and rubber gloves.

Even more however, there’s a catch. The caterpillars are Very Hungry (this is a literary reference). They munch through the Ragwort like there’s no tomorrow, until it’s all gone. Then they pupate, turn into beautiful cinnabar-red and grey adults, lay eggs, and die. The Ragwort is already dead, obviously. And Cuckoos and everyone else who comes alone the next year won’t find a Ragwort plant or a Cinnabar moth for love nor money.

Then, gradually, a few surviving seeds grow into Ragwort plants. There are no Cinnabar caterpillars to do the damage on them. They go forth and multiply, as the bible has it. After a year or two there are Ragwort to the Left, Ragwort to the Right, and Ragwort all around. The man at the Min. of Ag. and Fish (or whatever it’s now called) spends all day answering phone calls about Ragwort (only he doesn’t, he’s got fed up of doing it by now). The few Cinnabar caterpillars have food in plenty and they breed like rabbits. Well, like Cinnabar moths. And the cycle goes round again.

So there you have it. Plague of Ragwort? Don’t tell the Ministry, but do wonder at the power of Nature.

Ringlet Butterfly

P.S. It was a lovely day for butterflies, too, with Small Coppers nectaring on Ragwort flowers; Ringlets by the Pen Ponds; Small Heaths knocking seven bells out of each other; and (Cabbage) Whites and Red Admirals about too. Grasshoppers skipped about; a Lizard ran across a path into the grass. A big flock of Canada Geese, with a few Greylags, grazed peacefully. Ants rebuilt their flooded-out nests.

Natural History

Muntjac Deer in Gunnersbury Triangle

Plenty of Muntjac Prints on the path near the Mud Sofa (if you know the reserve)

Well, quite the summer surprise: after all these years, none of us had ever seen or heard of a deer in the little urban reserve. But this weekend a visitor shyly checked with the warden whether they could have seen a deer; and a volunteer met the Muntjac, though they didn’t have a camera. Today, the deer had left some fine prints — indeed, trails — in the soft earth on various sections of path. The small size of the prints, and the pointed, cloven hoofs, leave no doubt whatsoever which species made them.

We’re preparing a Nature Trail with little wooden boards for children to find. So Muntjac prints can feature among the other mammal (and maybe bird) footprints that we see on the reserve.