A week ago we posted about a Garden Tiger Moth laying eggs in the garden, click HERE. This occurred on the 30th July 2022.

Well it didn’t take long for the eggs to hatch, so whatever happened to the mother in the end, she achieved what she came to do. The video below was taken on 11th August 2022. With dozens of larvae feeding on the Green Alkenet leaf where they hatched.

The white eggs are empty (and some are being eaten by their previous occupants / siblings) and the grey we believe are about to hatch, with the gold coloured ones a little further behind in development.

The caterpillars are shown below in close up and we feel look pretty cool, but will change considerably as they mature through several phases where they will shed their skin to accommodate their increase in size.

By the end of day 2 most of the caterpillars had moved to the top surface of the leaf, we think because the more hairy undersides were too difficult to munch on. The damage to the ‘Birth’ leaf was already considerable at this point, as shown below.

We have plenty more Green Alkanet in the garden, but none near this particular plant, which is located rather precariously next to the path.

We were starting to think we may have to relocate some or all of these guys to alternative food plants, until early on day 3 (13th August 2022) we noted that many had dropped from the now nearly stripped birth leaf onto a totally different species, bindweed and began happily munching away. We note that Butterfly Conservations website does point out the larva can feed on a wide variety of plants. So our next concern is the knapweed and oxeye daisy plants we grew on from seed / plugs right next to these guys isn’t totally munched away.

You may note that some of the above leaves are littered with black pellets as shown below. In the age old tradition of biologists trying to avoid calling poop ‘poop’ these black dots (of poop) are known as Frass and have dropped from the birth leaf above.

We’ll have to keep an eye on their progress, make sure we can do as much for them as possible, whilst also protecting the native wildflowers we have grown from seed.

DC:

Always nice to record another bee species, although this time we can only get it down to one of two species. Lassioglossum calceatum and Lassioglossum albipes are very difficult to tell apart and a good view of the lower face is required, more specifically the labrum. The fabulous UK Bees, Wasps and Ants group on Facebook were able to confirm we had it down to these two possible species but confirmed from the video below we would not be able to identify to species level. Regardless, it is one more potential species to the garden species list and has been listed as Lassioglossum calceatum or albipes, recorded on 1st August 2022. Hopefully next time we can get a better look and get it down to species.

DC: 12/08/2022

New garden species, sort of…. well not really! We have seen these guys before, normally out of the corner of our eyes and certainly before we got anywhere near a camera. But this time we were finally, after years of hoping, in the right place at the right time to film one of these amazing migrants moths.

So good people of Brislington and Bristol, be on the look out as more may be about. August is known to be a good month to see them…

Hummingbird Hawk-moths can travel from as far as North Africa, which is pretty impressive and there seems to be some suggestion they can survive in the South West of England over winter in mild years (See Reference material number 12 HERE). At least one Wildlife Trust has recorded them breeding in recent years on their reserves, where larvae are usually found on species of Bedstraw.

So, what are they doing in the Wildlife Garden, well actually nothing more than visiting, stopping off briefly at the Buddleia for a energy top-up. We don’t have any Ladies Bedstraw or Hedge Bedstraw growing in the garden, although the former was part of the seed mix we put down in the spring. Cleavers is in the same genus and we have plenty of that but have found no records online to suggest it is used as a larval food plant.

Who knows though, with climate change and more frequent warm summers, perhaps we will see more and more of these amazing moths as time goes by.

DC – 10/08/2022

One of our primary aims is not simply to encourage wildlife to visit the garden, but to provide opportunities for species to complete their life cycles. Last year we recorded the larvae of Arctia caja, commonly known as the Garden Tiger Moth, with no sign of the adults. As kids we would often see the adult moth, but sadly these days their numbers are much reduced, although its still unusual to go a whole summer without seeing one or two, especially at this time of year.

The best part of wildlife gardening is the relaxing observation, just sitting there waiting for something to come to you. And that’s exactly what happened on the 30th July 2022 when looking down from a garden chair we noticed the upside down form of a Garden Tiger, slowly laying her eggs on the underside of a small Green Alkanet plant next to our concrete path. We got some video of this without we hope disturbing her too much.

And here we see her, job done and proud mum…

We’ve read nothing to suggest that the female moth cannot survive for some time after laying her eggs, but she soon left her clutch and we managed to catch her departing. She didn’t get very far, walking in a disorientated way as seen on the clip below, ending up clutching a bittercress plant beneath a garden chair.

We checked later that day and well before it became dark we couldn’t find any trace of her, hopefully she managed to fly off undetected. A week later and her eggs appear to be all present, a change in colour from fresh green to sepia/brown. Hopefully this is natural and not a result of the ongoing hot and dry weather we have been experiencing.

We will try and keep an eye on the eggs, hopefully see the first instar of the larval development before the full size caterpillar forms.

DC 06/08/2022

A bit of a surprise recording this one. Our third sawfly species confirmed so far in the garden and a bit of an oddity. It’s only been recorded in the country since around 2002, and it has already spread over much of England and Wales. It is heavily associated (as it’s name would suggest) with certain Barberry species, however it’s larvae are also associated with Mahonia species.

The area is not really known for Barberry, although we have noted a small patch of Mountain Grape (Mahonia aquifolium) down in our local nature reserve, we have no idea how this non-native got there in the first place, likely a garden escapee. We did pop down the reserve to see if we could spot any of their brightly coloured larvae on its foliage but we found nothing.

The little guy below just plopped itself down on a Oxeye Daisy leaf for a rest, clearly to tired to worry about our fussing around it.

You can see from its damaged wing that this fella has been through the wars a little, but was still capable of strong flight and soon was on its way. The yellow tip to the abdomen we believe is characteristic of this species. Either way we’ve not seen anything quite like this in the garden to date, so its a nice addition to the list.

DC – 04/08/2022

It’s useful to visit other places and in particular other gardens to see what species are about in different locations and this is just what we did when recently we stayed at a converted barn in Devon.

This was very much a rural garden, on a much larger scale than typically found in an urban area such as Bristol and of course has much greater connectivity to the wider countryside. In total, and without trying very hard, we recorded 65 different species of plant, a mix of native and non-natives.

We also recorded numerous animal species. Click HERE to see what we found whilst away during what was a very warm week in July.

DC – 31/07/2022

Sometimes its easy to be jealous. This beauty was not recorded in our garden, but instead was found by our neighbour in hers. This is the Eyed Hawkmoth, a species we have never recorded in our garden so not on our species list (yet!).

It’s called the Eyed Hawkmoth due to the pattern on its hind wings resembling eyes, unfortunately we couldn’t persuade this fella to show us its colours.

Thankfully it is still a rather common species so hopefully one will visit us of its own accord at some point.

DC 26/06/2022

Apart from having one heck of a Latin name, the female of the wasp species Gasteruption jaculator has what must be one of the longest ovipositors relative to it’s size. These guys are often overlooked but relatively regular visitors to the garden.

If you happen to have a bee hotel and even luckier to have one that bees actually use, then you may see these ladies hanging about. The long ovipositor is pushed into the larval cells of solitary wasps and bees, where they will develop out of harms way chomping on the grub within. We’ve never seen this for ourselves and it would be interesting to see how strong the ovipositor is, as most of these cells seem hardened and it looks so fragile.

It’s a long way to the top of the food chain and G. jaculator is nowhere near the summit. They too run the gauntlet that is the struggle to survive long enough to pass on those all important genes. In the rather grizzly video below, which took place on our hazel tree, we see a struggle between a cucumber spider, in this case we think Araniella opisthographa, and a male G.jaculator (note the lack of ovipositor).

At some stage we can only assume the spider made a successful venom bite and from then on there really only was going to be one winner in this struggle.

DC 18/06/2022

Finally, we have a garden record for the largest hoverfly found in Great Britain. We’d been wondering when it would show up as it’s not at all rare in the South of England.

At first, admittedly without glasses on, we thought this was a Hornet (another species we are stilling waiting to record) and at first felt a little gutted when we spotted it was a fly rather than a wasp. But once we realised what species of hoverfly it was we were well chuffed. These guys are known to be mimics of Hornets so that made us feel a little better as well.

DC 11/06/2022

Our March 2022 garden calendar update is now on the Wildlife Garden website. An unusually sunny March, although it seems a long time ago now with the wet start to April. Lots of inverts making an early appearance this year. Be interesting to know what wildlife others have seen in the Brislington area this March. Click HERE to see what was about.

DC 06/04/2022