Insects Emerging Late in May
Tag Archives: exuviae
Pondlife and Mating Insects after Spring Rain
Since our Hawker Dragonflies (Migrant and Southern Hawkers) fly later in the year, we think this exuviae (cast skin) has survived the winter. It may have been hooked on to a plant just above the waterline, and only fallen into the pond with recent disturbance.
Sawflies look quite wasplike in their black and yellow, but have no narrow “waist” at the base of the abdomen – they’re pretty much the same width all the way along. All the waisted Hymenoptera evolved from Sawflies.
We’ve now seen three Roman Snails in different parts of the reserve, after none in the past few years, so either the weather has brought them out, or more likely someone released their pet snails when they no longer wanted them. As the name suggests, the species has been in Britain since the Romans, who introduced them for food. We’re happy to see this handsome species here, but all the same it does constitute an introduction to a nature reserve…
A day for signs (signboards and mimics)
It was a day for signs: we worked all morning digging two deep post-holes for a new welcome signboard beside the ramp path, telling stories as we dug down through dry soil, pebbles and then soft clayey subsoil. Eventually we were deep enough and level enough to pop the sign in, and with nothing more than the spoil, pebbles, and a spirit level and a bit of tamping, we had a fine new signboard up. As if by magic, the TV camera team from ChiswickBuzz arrived to film us holding up spades, a Green Cross banner (some sort of quality of service award), and asking us to cheer improbably, so we shouted 1-2-3 Hooray! and waved spades like idiots, and the camera crew looked happy and wandered off.
There were some bright black-and-yellow insects about pretending not very convincingly to be wasps, but their warning signs seem to work pretty well. After lunch we came back past the signboard to do a butterfly transect, and we nearly cheered as a visitor took a good look at the signboard. We joked that with an apostrophe missing, we’d have to dig the sign out and send it back for a refund.
On the transect we had good numbers of butterflies, but without so much sunshine it was without the masses of Gatekeepers of a fortnight ago. There were a pair of Commas, a Red Admiral, a Brimstone, and plenty of Small Whites, Speckled Woods, Holly Blues and Gatekeepers. A pair of (Migrant or Southern?) Hawkers scooted about from the hut to the ramp; down by the pond was an exuviae of something like a Broad-Bodied Chaser; a Common Darter sunbathed on the boardwalk, and a pair of Azure Blues wandered above the now happily full pond, laying eggs. The reserve echoed to the crash of demolition from the High Street.