Yesterday, as I walked along the footpath just over the railway bridge as you leave Burwell to go to Exning, I was listening to the high pitched short zeep contact calls of a pair of long-tailed tits. These lovely small birds can easily be picked out by their long tails, the subtle white/black stripe on their head and pale pinkish fronts.
Long-tailed tit’s nest hidden inside a bramble bush. Photo: Roger Bailey.
Long-tailed tits have staggeringly beautiful nests. Often sited in the middle of a bramble bush, their nests are ball shaped, with a small opening near the top. The outside is covered with lichen and spider’s webs, making them incredibly well camouflaged. Inside, they are lined with up to 2,000 feathers – the ultimate in cosiness.
Lichen for their nest’s exterior decoration (quite literally!) is plentifully available on the hedgerow’s branches. But I was wondering where these tiny birds manage to get so many feathers to line them. Yet once I started to look, I started seeing feathers all along the path. My guess is that one sparrowhawk kill of a pigeon results in a mass scattering of feathers, and in nature’s natural recycling process nothing goes to waste. A pigeon’s (or similar bird’s) downy feathers are designed to insulate its owner from the cold – and from the heat. Just what is needed as a bed for precious eggs or tiny chicks.
Branches of hedgerow shrubs are covered with lichen, providing camouflage material for birds’ nests.
Downy feathers are scooped up by small birds to feather their nests – literally!
Some time ago I had the privilege of travelling to Bangladesh. In the capital Dhaka I walked along Bicycle Street which was lined with shops, each specialising in different parts of a bicycle or rickshaw. I reckon the footpath I was walking along yesterday might be known as Nest Street by the local birds…
If you fancy a challenge, put yourselves in the shoes (well, the wings) of long-tailed tits and try spotting and counting the feathers you can see as you walk. Find out how far you have to walk before you have seen the 2,000 they need for one nest!
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At the beginning of the week we woke to white across the ground – it had snowed! The light fall of snow had gone by mid-morning. Yet our hedgerows still look as if they are dusted with snow. Hedgerows often have several different species of plant along their length. You can tell where there is blackthorn as at that point the hedge has dark branches covered with masses of white blossom. Blackthorns are unusual in that they flower before they grow their leaves and, as their name suggests, have dark trunks and branches. The result is that their white blossoms stand out, with no gentle green of leaves to soften the effect. They offer us and insects that depend on them the promise of spring.
Blackthorn is where it looks as if it has snowed, Castle Mound, Burwell
Blackthorn has masses of blossom
Have you stopped to look closer at blackthorns’ blossoms? I was rushing down Green Lane past a hedge covered with flowers, almost oblivious to its beauty because of its familiarity. I stopped for a moment and was overwhelmed by the masses of blossom and the hum of insects delighting in the nectar that they offer.
Blackthorn has vicious thorns
If you are not sure if you are looking at blackthorn, look along the branches and if it is blackthorn you will see vicious thorns – which are actually branches, adapted to protect its leaves from browsers, its fruits from those who would eat them.
Blackthorns offer beauty now. In the autumn they produce deep blue-purple sloes. For birds these provide a serious carbohydrate hit. For gin lovers, they are just what is needed to make homemade sloe gin, ready to provide inner warmth when the snow really comes.
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Celandines light up shady corners. Photo: Joan Lintott
At Stapleford Primary School we had a nature table. Fifty years on, I still remember my thrill when one spring I found celandine flowers under the shade of a hedge, along the snicket lane between our home and the school, picked one and with great pride presented it to my teacher to go on the table. I’ve always looked out for it since as a sign of spring.
These flowers are out now, all around Burwell, wherever there is a bit of a shady patch where wildflowers have been allowed to grow. ‘Celandine’ may come from the Greek ‘khelidon’ for Swallow, possibly as it is in flower at a similar time to the arrival of the first Swallows. I have yet to see a Swallow this year, I expect they will be arriving here soon…
Tuberous roots of celandine look like haemorrhoids(!), and were used to treat them, so the plant was called pilewort.
Less elegantly, celandines also have the name ‘pilewort’ as their tuberous roots, look like haemorrhoids. Just what you needed to know! As part of ‘signature medicine’ where what looked like something was used to treat it, these roots were used to make a poultice to treat piles. As my daughter’s science teacher once famously said after demonstrating an explosive experiment to her class, ‘don’t try this at home!’
Look at a celandine flower and you can see why celandines belong to the buttercup family of flowers. Like buttercups, they have golden yellow petals, that are each separate from one another, and lots of stamens and stigmas (at the top of the nobbly bits in the centre of the flower).
A key difference is that celandines have more petals than buttercups: buttercups have five petals, while celandines have between 7 and 12 petals. That each celandine flower may have a different number of petals shows that this is a species from early on in the evolutionary development of flowers – randomly, they are just ‘going for it’. Species that developed later have optimised their shape to maximise the efficiency of reproduction.
Celandine flowers (left) have 7-12 petals, buttercups have 5 petals. Otherwise, celandines are very similar to buttercups, with both having lots of stamens and stigmas.
Celandines have heart shaped glossy green leaves
Celandines can also be recognised by their distinctive glossy heart shaped leaves.
Celandines are celebrated in the poem below by John Clare, written in 1845.
On a Lane in Spring
A Little Lane, the brook runs close beside And spangles in the sunshine while the fish glide swiftly by And hedges leafing with the green spring tide From out their greenery the old birds fly And chirp and whistle in the morning sun The pilewort glitters ‘neath the pale blue sky The little robin has its nest begun And grass green linnets round the bushes fly – How Mild the Spring Comes in – the daisy buds Lift up their golden blossoms to the sky How lovely are the pingles and the woods Here a beetle runs—and there a fly Rests on the Arum leaf in bottle green And all the Spring in this Sweet lane is seen.
I was walking in Priory Wood and noticed mosses hugging the trunks at the bottom of each young tree. Going on hands and knees to look closer I felt I was entering a miniature rainforest, of minutely divided fronds and dripping with moisture.
Mosses create the look of a miniature rainforest in Priory Wood.
As a child I used to love visiting old houses or castle, with the sense they gave me of being in touch with history. Looking at the mosses in Priory Wood sends shivers down my spine as I realise I am looking at one of the very earliest plant forms to develop and so am seeing survivors from early evolutionary history, taking me back, as it were, millions of years.
St Mary’s church wall is covered with moss, at just the right height to appreciate their intricate design.
As the most primitive of land plants mosses have no roots, no flowers or fruits. They have no vessels (or vascular system) to carry fluid around their structure. Yet they are so well adapted they are immensely successful, occurring across the world and have approximately 22,000 different species. As I continued my walk I started to look out for mosses and I realised how many moss species can be seen growing on the tops of walls – and you can get a great view of them without getting damp knees from kneeling on wet ground! I suddenly aware how alive the church wall around St Mary’s is.
Moss species grow low in the form of cushions in exposed areas.
As I started writing this post, I looked out of my window and realised moss was right in front of my eyes – all over our garage roof. The moss on the roof is tightly compact in a form known as ‘cushions’. As mosses have no roots and no vascular system they are dependent on the moisture in the air. Where they are exposed, as on our garage roof, they need to stay tight and compact, in ‘cushions’, to reduce evaporation from their cells. Staying low down they are growing on what is called ‘the boundary edge’ between the ground and air. We know when we are in a windy place and lie down, it is much less blowy close to the ground. Mosses in exposed places lie low to keep out of the drying wind.
Mosses grow stems from the top of which their spores are launched into the wind.
However, a problem comes when mosses want to reproduce. Mosses have no seeds, but produce spores. These need to find a suitable new patch of bare ground on which to grow. They need to fly! Yet the moss is growing low down out of the wind. The solution: the moss grows stems from which to launch their spores into the more turbulent air above. The length of the stem depends on how out of reach that turbulent air is. In a forest the stems will be longer than those from moss growing on our exposed roof.
Leaves of mosses are single cells structures, so are translucent – and have no protection against air pollution
Mosses play a vital part in our ecosystem. Their leaves have to be wet for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide and so photosynthesis to be possible. They are therefore adapted to soak up and retain moisture for as long as possible. Their dampness creates a micro climate of humid air which benefits other plants and creatures that live in their vicinity. Mosses are also an indicator of air pollution. Their leaves are only a single cell thick and they don’t have the protective cuticles that so-called ‘higher’, more evolved, plants have. When sulphur dioxide or nitrous dioxide from car exhausts mixes with this water it turns to acid killing the leaves and so the plants.
Mosses have adapted to survive periods of drought. To demonstrate this, collect some moss fronds and gently dry them out, for example in the airing cupboard. Then put them on a plate with drops of water underneath. You will be able to watch the fronds revive, with renewed colour and shape.
Eating outside at dusk, enjoying the warmth of the evening, we heard a rustling coming from low down in our hedge. Too loud to be a blackbird, too quiet to be anything huge. we held our breath in hope. The rustling moved closer towards where we were sitting. “There it is,” we whispered to each other in delight as a snuffling nose, followed by a round body of prickles emerged out of the garden border onto our grass. The hedgehog, which may have been Mr rather than Mrs Tiggywinkle – it was the stories of Mrs Tiggywinkle that I read as a child and so I continue to think of all hedgehogs as female – snuffled towards us on her (his) little short legs.
Mrs Tiggywinkle looking for food under the bird feeder
Snuffling is the only term possible to use for this creature’s movements, for without doubt it is lead by its nose. Terribly short sighted, it was unaware of us and took no notice even when we briefly turned on a torch to see it better. Encouraged by this, Ian took a photo.
Hedgehog hole cut in hope back in spring. Clearly our hedgehog can read!
The hedgehog’s interest continued to be focussed on finding edibles under our bird feeder. After around ten minutes, it lifted up its body on its four short legs and scuttled across the lawn. Guess what? It followed the fence along that side of the garden and made its way through the hedgehog hole we had cut for its use. Bingo!
For four consecutive nights now, this lovely little wild mammal has followed the same pattern, appearing nearly on the dot of 7.45pm, finding what it can in our garden, then moving on to our neighbours. I was going to headline this post saying we had had ‘a prickly evening visitor’. Evening would be correct, prickly certainly so. But not a visitor. We are as much visitors on this creature’s land as it is on ours. Just as Beatrix Potter named the hedgehog in her story ‘Mrs Tiggywinkle’, and so I think of all hedgehogs as Mrs, so too if I call this creature a ‘visitor’ I continue the myth that this land is ours, when I believe it belongs to all who in any way live, or move across, on, under or over it.
Now is a great time to see hedgehogs as they feed up ready for winter hibernation. Leave dead leaves under hedges; when pruning, put some piles in corners to encourage insects, and you increase your chances of being visited. Put a saucer of water out. You can buy hedgehog food. (Never put out milk, it is bad for them.) Cut a hole in the bottom of your fence, so their world stays as large as they need. Then go out at dusk and listen for rustlings. I’d love to know if you see one.
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Spiders’ webs come into view at this time of year, strung between grasses, dead flower heads, or washing lines; improbable distances joined by fine threads, linked to form carefully designed webs, visible only when caught by early morning dew or frost. Have you watched fishermen preparing their nets before leaving harbour? Imagine spider webs as fishing nets, carefully crafted to maximise their catch… for that is what they are. Thinking this, I realise outside my front door, there is a major harvesting operation going on.
Female wasp spider with prey, she has trapped in a cocoon of silk
Wasp spiders are great spiders to spot. We have many species of spiders in the UK, and they are often difficult to identify, beyond knowing, by virtue of their 8 legs, that they are a spider. However, wasp spiders can be both easily spotted, and identified, thanks to their bright yellow and black stripes and unique (for the UK) web design. This species of spider are fairly new to the UK, the first being seen in Rye in 1922, but are now fairly common across the south of England.
Wasp spider webs have a zigzag of white threads from the centre. The fuzzy bundle at the top of the zigzag is prey that was deceived by the light from these threads and trapped.
Wasp spiders’ colouring is to protect themselves from potential predators by deceiving predators into thinking they have a wasp like sting. As well as looking out for the bright black and yellow body of the female, also look for the zigzag white threads in the web, which is unique to this species in the UK. The purpose of these threads is debated; it is possible they reflect UV light and so attract the attention of flies, bees and moths, who are drawn in, mistakenly thinking that the light comes from flowers.
Grasshoppers are wasp spiders idea of dinner
Wasp spiders’ favourite food is grasshoppers, so to find these spiders, look in grassland that has not yet been cut so still has plenty of grasshoppers. As I watched the spider that prompted this post, a grasshopper bounced into her web. She whipped across and rapidly wrapped the unfortunate creature with silk she exuded from her body so it could not escape. Her dinner sorted!
Males often have a hard time in the spider world and this is certainly so for male wasp spiders. Male wasp spiders are much smaller than the females, and are inconspicuous brown creatures. When they try to mate with a female they take their life in their hands: a female is quite capable of eating them alive as they are mating! So a male hangs about on the edge of a web, trying to pick the moment when a female is mature, as then her jaws are soft, and he has a chance of surviving her bite – many don’t make it… (Thanks to Buglife for this information!)
Try working out how many different species of spider there are in a patch of garden or land near you. Our attention is often drawn to spider webs, not so often to the spiders who make them. When you see a web, often a spider is not immediately visible. Start taking a look around the edge of webs and you will see all sorts of different spider species, of different sizes and shapes, often with intricate markings.
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Large bindweed’s white trumpets cover a hedge at Scotred Close
Bindweed or convolvulus is dreaded by gardeners. Its coiling grasping stems throttle and smother less aggressive plants. Plants of this genus have long roots. A tiny section of root left in the soil regrows vigorously. Alongside bindweed the RHS gardening website offers such gardeners’ nightmares as ‘couch grass, ground elder and Japanese knotgrass’ as ‘others you might like to read about’. Yet walking round the village I have been admiring the huge white trumpets of the larger species. If I had been walking along a Mediterranean lane I know I would be enjoying, rather than shuddering at their presence.
Field bindweed has small, white, pink or candy floss pink and white stripedflowers.
In this area we have 3 species of bindweed: field, hedge and large. (By the coast you also have sea bindweed.) Field bindweed has small white, pinkish or candy floss pink and white trumpet shaped flowers. Field bindweed often creeps along the ground and so is one of the few flowers which survive when our pavements’ verges are cut.
Large bindweed covers a hedge, Green Lane, Burwell
Hedge and large bindweed are very similar, with large white trumpet shaped flowers. These two species can be told apart by the difference in their flower bases. Large bindweed has huge overlapping brown-purplish bracteoles – leaf-like structures – at the base of the flowers, which almost hide the much smaller pale green sepals. The bracteoles of hedge bindweed don’t overlap, so the flowers’ sepals can be seen.
Large bindweed, left, has overlapping bracteoles that nearly hide the flower’s light green sepals. Hedge bindweed, right, has bracteoles that do not overlap, so more of the flower’s light green sepals can be seen.
I mentioned that large bindweed, with its huge white trumpets made me feel like I was in the Mediterranean, I now discover I am not mistaken: large bindweed is in fact a Mediterranean plant that was brought to this country. This often happened as people started travelling: they brought back seeds or cuttings of plants they liked; as with large bindweed, the more vigorous escaped from their gardens or estates into the countryside.
Last time I wrote of how plants have evolved, with buttercups being early in the evolutionary stage with separate petals, and multiple female and male parts. Bindweed is an evolutionary stage further on. Looking closely, it is possible to see where what would have been 5 separate petals have fused, creating the funnel shape. (You could think there were 10 petals, 5 of the lines are creases remaining from where the flower folded in bud.)
A hoverfly is funnelled, literally, towards the nectar, having to pass the fused female stigma (white) and five purple male anthers en route.
Instead of the open flower of a buttercup, now insects have to enter a funnel to reach the nectar at the base of the plant. So the plant need not have so many female and male parts, as the chance of any one insect pollinating each is increased. Instead of the multiple male anthers of buttercups, convolvulus have just five. By looking at such a common – and unwanted(!) – flower, we can see the brilliance of evolution in front of our eyes.
Small tortoiseshell having a drink of nectar.
To return to butterflies, from the post the one before last. The Big Butterfly count is on from now until Sunday 9 August. To take part, we are asked to choose a spot to watch and count and record the butterflies we see in a 15 minute period and enter this information on Butterfly Conservation’s website. A downloadable poster is provided to help with ID. I hope the description of the Big Five butterflies in my recent post helps too. Our results give Butterfly Conservation important information about how our butterflies are doing. As well as assisting conservation of butterflies, watching a local patch, whether in your garden or elsewhere, gives a good insight into how many insects are dependent on the nectar flowers provide. I will be unpopular for saying this – especially in my own family – but bindweed helps with this too!
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Back in April I wrote about bulbous buttercups, that at the time were flowering along the paths and grassy areas of Burwell. At the time I said there are three common species of buttercup found around the village and I frustrated some of you by not describing the other two species. So I will make up for my error now, with my apologies. Bulbous buttercups are finished flowering now, the other two species – creeping buttercups and meadow buttercups – are flowering well – creeping buttercups too well for allotment holders, where they are constantly creeping off the paths into the vegetable growing patches!
Bulbous buttercups’ sepals fold downwards
First a quick reminder about Bulbous buttercups. You may remember these are easily told from the other two species of buttercup as their sepals – petal-like structures under the petals – fold downwards towards their stems. Sepals are usually not as showy as a flowers’ petals – which are often brightly coloured to attract pollinating insects – but they play an important protecting role, often sheltering the petals when the flower is in bud or during rain.
Creeping buttercups form a carpet at Burwell allotments.
Creeping buttercupsRanunculus repens are well named for those who regard them as a menace. Their leaves form thick mats, crowding out other vegetation and as their name implies, they creep – by sending out runners that then root. In this way they quickly and literally, gain ground. They tend to flower low to the ground and their leaves are less intricately edged than the other two buttercups and often have pale blotches.
Meadow buttercups dancing at Pauline’s Swamp
Meadow buttercups are the ballerinas of the three. They stand tall, have elaborately cut leaves and grow where habitat is at its finest for wildlife. I’ve seen a few in Priory Wood and at Burwell Castle; they are rampant at Pauline’s Swamp.
Leaves of creeping buttercup (left) and meadow buttercup
In evolutionary terms, buttercups are one of the oldest flowers. You can tell this by their simple form: they have petals that are separate to each other and multiple male stamens, which circle the inner female stigmas. To be fertilised pollen from a stamen needs to transfer to a stigma, where it travels down a thin tube to the ovary below. The stamens and stigmas on any one flower are fertile at different times to avoid self-fertilisation. Buttercups have a simple strategy for reproduction. The wide open flower aims to attract insects to land. The presence of multiple sexual organs increases the chances of an insect picking up pollen from the anthers, or transferring pollen to the stigmas.
Viper’s-bugloss flowers are evolved to maximise the chances of fertilisation of their seed by visiting insects.
As flowers evolve, their strategy becomes more developed. Petals fuse, creating funnels to draw pollinating insects in. As the strategy for drawing in the insects right into the flower improves, the numbers of stamens and stigmas can reduce, – so reducing the energy costs for the plant. The beautiful bluey-purple tall viper’s-bugloss is in flower now. Look at how clever this species’ flower is. As a bee lands on a lower petal attracted by the prospect of a drink of nectar, the other petals bend and the male stamens brush round the bee, to ensure the bee picks up pollen to carry to and fertilise the next viper’s bugloss flower it visits. To reach the nectar, the bee has to put its head right into the flower. Any pollen it is carrying from another flower has ample chance of being brushed off onto this flower’s female stigmas. The ova in the heart of the flower is fertilised and a seed is formed.
I found learning I could have an idea of a flower species’ place in the evolutionary process just by looking at its structure a revelation. Have a look at all the plants in flower now and see how much they have adapted to attract insects in, to save themselves costly energy and be as effective as possible at reproducing. We are looking at the result of millions of years of development – and also know, when we look at buttercups, we are going back to the very earliest times. In french they are called bouton d’or, buttons of gold. Indeed they are.
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Peacock butterflies have just emerges from chrysalises, so are at their most stunning now
Five distinctive butterflies are fairly commonly seen in flight now around Burwell, most freshly emerged from their chrysalises? The colours of their wings are at their deepest, not yet faded by exposure to sunbeams; their exquisitely scalloped wings not yet tattered from getting caught on vegetation, or having to dodge hungry predators. I’ve been making myself look at these butterflies as if I had never seen one before – and wonder how I could have taken such beautiful, delicate, yet strong creatures for granted.
I find knowing which species they are helps me to ‘see’ and appreciate them. I use clues and invented links to help me learn and remember their names. Do you do the same? So Peacocks (photo above, that I wrote about in the last blog), are instantly recognisable for their breath-taking purple ‘eyes’ on their wings. Peacock birds after which they are named have eyes on their elaborate feathers, making this butterfly’s name straightforward to remember.
Red admirals with their smart black wing tips with officers ‘pips’on their shoulders
Red admirals have black, white and red/orange patterns. I read they were originally known as red admirables – and admirable is what they are. Taking the modern version of their name – admiral – I like to think of the white on the edge of their wings as the stripes a navy officer has on the shoulders of their uniform.
Small Tortoiseshells are a favourite of mine, recognisable by the delicate scalloping of the bottom edge of their wing, edged with bluey-green like the translucent inside of a shell. These butterflies’ delicateness is an illusion – the males soon end up in a twirling, spiralling fight if another comes near their territory.
Small tortoiseshell, with wings edged with blue, like the inside of a shell.
Inside of a shell
When most butterflies shut their wings they become difficult to see, looking like a piece of browny bark, leaf or lichen blown onto a flower. However, comma butterflies are named for the grammar inscribed on their dull wing undersides: a white comma-like mark standing out clearly against the dark of the wing. Commas’ wings are deeply scalloped, their edges almost like exaggerated commas themselves. As a comma opens its wings, its rich copper colours can be seen.
The comma has a white comma like mark on the lower underside of its wing. As a comma opens its wings, its rich orangey-copper colour can be seen.
A painted lady feeding on sedum
Painted lady’s make up the set. Their black and white wing tips have similarities with red admirals, however, painted ladys have more complex orangey-brown patterning, with black blobs and blotches across the main body of their wings. If I get confused, I think of an artist having fun painting this complex patterning. You may think of something better!
Painted ladys are migrant butterflies. If you see one that is faded, with its wing edges tatty, you will know you are seeing one that has flown here from North Africa, its colours bleached by the sun, its wings frayed after flying so many miles. Once these butterflies arrive from North Africa, they lay their eggs on nettles, mallows (see earlier post) and thistles. These hatch into caterpillars, which in turn form chrysalises, suspended in a tent of leaves. If you see a fresh looking painted lady, you will know it has recently emerged from a chrysalis here. When the autumn comes, many of these will complete the migration cycle, flying to North Africa for the winter. Approximately every ten years we have a ‘painted lady year’ when vast numbers of painted ladys arrive. The most recent was in 2009. I was lucky enough to see them come: I was out early one morning surveying birds near Wimpole and wave after wave of painted lady butterflies flew across the field I was in, travelling north.
The Big Five: on safari ‘the big five’ are known as the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhinoceros. A well-known challenge is to try to see all five. Only the very lucky manage to do so on one trip. How about going on a local ‘safari’, taking on a Butterfly Big Five challenge: to see a peacock, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, comma and painted lady in a week. In their own way, these butterflies are just as remarkable as the creatures that make up the better known Big Five!
Many thanks to Sue Pennell for making this post possible – all the beautiful photos of butterflies in this post are hers.
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Large clumps of nettles in sunny spots provide home to lots of wildlife at Spring Close.
The caterpillars of peacock butterflies – surely one of our most stunning butterflies – can be easily spotted on one of the sunny clumps of nettles at Spring Close now! Tipped off by Caroline, I went looking for them on the clumps of nettles that edge the spring. Soon at about chest height, I saw a wriggling mass of velvety black bodies happily chumping on the leaves and flowers of a large clump of nettles.
Peacock caterpillars feed en masse on nettles.
I watched as they crawled under and over each other, or reached out, waving their outstretched bodies in search of the next bit of nettle to grab onto to find another juicy bite to eat. It is possible to see them well with the naked eye, but next time I will take a magnifying glass to appreciate even better the intricacy of their colour, their punk like spikes and munching mandibles.
Peacock caterpillars with their spiky hairdo, designed to scare predators away.
Female adult peacocks take up to two hours to lay clumps of hundreds of eggs on the underside of nettle leaves. After two weeks, these eggs hatch into these voracious caterpillars. They need to eat fast as at this stage they are particularly vulnerable to predators. Once the caterpillars have sufficiently stuffed themselves, they disperse to form a chrysalis, which hangs downwards from a silken pad. Extraordinarily, the colour of the chrysalis varies according to its location, to maximise its camouflage and so its chances of survival.
Peacock butterflies – one of nature’s greatest masterpieces – will be visiting our gardens and lanes soon. Photo: Sue Pennell.
After around two weeks a magnificent peacock butterfly emerges. Soon we will see these butterflies in their fresh plumage, flying round our gardens, feeding on nectar rich flowers. Come September they will find a place to hibernate, tucking themselves away in a sheltered corner, until next March when they will emerge, feed up, lay their eggs and then die.
In the human world nettle patches often are regarded as a sign an area is neglected. In the non-human world such patches are home – providing cradle and food – to lots of creatures. When we do ‘a bit of tidying up’, the home for any one of the stages of the incredible process that results in the emergence of stunning peacock butterflies, is so easily and unwittingly destroyed.
Nettle leaves covered in peacock caterpillar frass – or poo.
Now to the fun bit – the poo! The nettle leaves under the mass of wriggling peacock caterpillars mass were covered in frass, the polite word for insect poo. I suggest pointing this out to get the interest of any child – which includes us adults, or me at least! Peacock caterpillars happen to be easy to spot. However, often caterpillars and larvae are very well camouflaged. Looking out for and spotting frass then becomes key to knowing they are present, and so being able to find them.
Thanks to Richard Lewington’s brilliant ‘Pocket Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland’ (BWP) for information on peacock butterflies’ lifecycle.
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Nature to look out for in Burwell 