Spring Peacock Basking on Warm Stone

The First Five

Many of us are familiar with that butterfly lifecycle diagram, the circle with arrows showing the four stages of development from egg to caterpillar to adult.  Perhaps you had to draw it in primary school.  It’s a lovely clear representation, but it doesn’t explain one key element: the cycle doesn’t start at the same time of year for every species.

In Britain, most butterfly species spend the winter as caterpillars, curled up at the base of their foodplant waiting for spring’s fresh new growth. The majority of the rest are either tiny eggs or camouflaged pupae all winter, trying not to become a mini snack for a hungry bird or mouse.

Just 5 of our resident 57 species of butterfly spend the winter as a fully formed adult.  Looking much like a dried leaf, they stay dormant (semi-hibernating) deep in hedges, wood piles or holes in trees, hidden in tussocks of old grass, or in garden sheds, barns and garages, sometimes in huddles of quite a large number, perhaps even with other species of butterfly or moth.  There they’ll stay until a spring day that’s warm enough to wake them, when spreading their wings they will head off in search of a mate.  The first eggs are usually laid in April and the cycle starts all over again.

We see all these 5 at Sun Rising.  Often the first is the Brimstone; it’s the males’ rich yellow colour that may be why butterflies are called butterflies.  However, this year it was the Peacock that emerged first, probably disturbed when we were moving bags of tree mulch. The other three are the Small Tortoiseshell, Comma and Red Admiral.  Often an adult emerging in spring is a little tatty.  You can see this Peacock, trying to warm itself on the stone track, has lost some of its wing colour.

Spring Peacock Basking on Warm Stone

Spring Peacock Basking on Warm Stone

The mild wet winter is not kind on butterflies, wherever they are in the cycle.  Just as for us humans, mild winters lead to more problems with pathogens, like bacteria and viruses.  For the five who overwinter as adults, the higher temperatures can also raise their metabolism, meaning they use more energy through the winter, emerging in a weaker state.  It is even more important to have those early nectar-full plants available for them to feed on.  If you find an adult who is clearly struggling, it may appreciate a little sugar water (dissolve sugar or honey in hot water, allow it to cool and then use a cotton pad that will soak up the solution and give the butterfly something to stand on).  After this very mild wet winter, let’s be sure to celebrate all the butterflies we see emerge!

Silver Birch Catkins in the Rain

Leafless and Full of Life

It’s easy at this time of year to ignore the trees at Sun Rising, instead focusing attention on the ground where snowdrops, daffodils and primroses are now in flower.  But for us, the trees are very much in focus.  For one reason, we are in the middle of mulching.  It may have been a frustratingly wet winter, but that means the trees will need extra care through their growing season – there are some areas where the soil has been so saturated that its structure and ecology is likely to have been compromised.

A band of marvellous volunteers have now mulched half, and another will do the other half of nearly 900 trees, these being both memorial trees and others we have planted around the site, including our long corridor hedge of around 265 at the northern boundary.  We only mulch trees up to 4 – 5 years old, the older ones having a better chance of finding moisture in the soil and competing with other plants.

We are also now completing our winter survey of young trees.  We check the tree guard and stake, removing any thick grasses that have been growing through the winter within that warm protection.  We’re all making sure that each young tree is still alive.

Silver Birch Catkins in the Rain

Silver Birch Catkins in the Rain

Learning how to identify trees when they are comfortably sleeping, leafless, through the winter, is not so much a skill as an ability that comes with time.  And it is an important ability, for each tree shows its winter health in different ways.  The buds of the hazel are round and pale green.  The small leaved lime are round and golden, the hawthorn red.  The cherries’ buds are pointed, and can be so tight it is hard to tell if they are thriving, but the vibrancy of the bark in a healthy tree is obvious: it’s a rich shining reddish brown.  The birch buds are also tight, and can be rather dull – but the first of the catkins, albeit in the rain, show signs of life and promise.

On another wet, grey and windy day, it’s certainly heartening to see them preparing for spring.

Evidence of Owls

This morning we were taking apart a small, wet, brown lump of organic matter.  That may sound rather unpleasant, except that we’re not talking about poop but a pellet.  Many bird species produce pellets; these are the elongated brown or grey balls coughed up that contain all the indigestible bits of their prey.  In pulling them apart we can find out just what the birds have been eating.

Crows cough up pellets too: we found mystery parcels of beetle wings and cherry pips on top of some stones at Sun Rising in the summer. We know our kestrel is a successful hunter too, as we often find pellets around the Longhouse entrance.  However, these don’t contain bones because the kestrel tears its meal to pieces before swallowing the fleshy parts. Owls swallow the whole creature, and occasionally we find a regurgitated pellet around the nature reserve. The pellet we dissected this morning contained plenty of fur, bones and teeth.  Have a look at the photograph below.

Bones, Jaws and Teeth in an Owl Pellet

Bones, Jaws and Teeth in an Owl Pellet

By soaking it in water for a few minutes, it is easy to pull it apart.  Using gloves and tweezers, the little bones begin to appear. If you’re lucky you might find a whole skull but with a hand lens you can identify jaws, teeth, legs, hips and vertebrae. Our pellet contained rodent remains – most likely field vole – but it could have been frog, insect or bird remains.

You can find out more using these links:
https://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/sitemap/galleries/pellet-analysis/
https://www.mammal.org.uk/searching-for-shrews/owl-pellet-dissection/

If you find an owl pellet at Sun Rising, do let us know.  It is all valuable data adding to our ecological records.  And even if it can be weeks or more between sightings of a barn owl at Sun Rising, pellets are another source of evidence that they are using the nature reserve.

Rosehips in Raindrops at Sun Rising

Time Falling Through

With amazement I realise that it is almost six months since my last blog post.  For those who value this short missive from the heart of Sun Rising, those who perhaps live too far away to visit, or who are less mobile, I know that my words and photographs can be a quiet voice from a place where a much loved family member is laid to rest.  I do sincerely apologise for my silence.

The reason for it is simple: this past summer, my father died.  And since then, time has been falling through my life.

Rosehips in Raindrops at Sun Rising

Rosehips in Raindrops at Sun Rising

During the weeks or months around someone’s death, the mind is very often filled with a fog.  It allows us to stumble on, perhaps even managing to accomplish a good deal of the necessary arrangements and bureaucracy, while at the same time entirely forgetting important tasks, perhaps losing key tracts of conversations, small moments or long stretches of the day slipping away.  It’s bewildering.  Maybe the fog is nature’s way of softening the world for us, when otherwise it would feel just too unbearably harsh.

Slowly, as the months pass, years moving by, the fog appears to clear.  But this is just another sneaky way that nature works, for I suspect I have now become accustomed to the fog’s density.  While in many ways I feel as if I have come through the worst of the grief, I am functioning, getting on with life and work as if I were ‘back to normal’, I am equally aware that there are still great open fields in my mind, upon which the mist lingers, and into which I get lost.  From the outside it may seem that I am fine, but my experience is of moments falling away.  Time slips – like a pebble into a ravine, a snowflake into a stream, a fine glass shattering on a stone floor, the memory of my dad’s warm hand in my own.

It has been my intention to write a blog for months, but that intention has slid from me again and again.  Now, with a little more clarity returning, I determine to return to sharing words and photographs here.  Please forgive me for explaining (or expressing) something of my own grief, but I suspect many of my readers will have had, or a still managing, just the same.  As human beings, and especially human beings who have loved, we stand together in this soft bewilderment of loss, quietly.

Gelechia scotinella moth at Sun Rising

The Thicket Groundling

For many, moths are fairly irrelevant at best and a bit of a nuisance at worst. They flutter about our heads, seemingly blind, and leave holes in our jumpers.  Moths, however, are extremely important to all naturalists, and indeed to those who love nature and are concerned about the changes in the climate and our environment.  As with nearly every form of non-human life on this beautiful planet, their numbers have been drastically falling.  Where their population or diversity rises, the information is important: it is an indicator of what is really going on.

It is for this reason that we are so hugely grateful that Alan Prior continues to run regular moth nights at Sun Rising, letting us have all the invaluable data.  It shows moth populations generally increasing as the nature reserve develops and grows, and each year new moth species are added to the list.

This week, in Alan’s words, “one tiny little moth proved a big surprise”.  A Gelechia scotinella showed up.  Commonly known as the Thicket Groundling moth, this is its first appearance at Sun Rising, and only the second site in Warwickshire where it has been seen.

Gelechia scotinella moth at Sun Rising

Gelechia scotinella moth at Sun Rising (photo: Martin Kennard)

The Thicket Groundling likes mature hedgerows, particularly uncut blackthorn, the caterpillars feeding on blackthorn flowers.  That’s where Sun Rising is of value.  Blackthorn blossoms in early spring, flowering on last year’s wood.  If a hedgerow containing blackthorn is cut back hard over the autumn or winter, as most are, there will be very few if any flowers.  At Sun Rising, we ensure there are long stretches of uncut blackthorn, providing food for the early invertebrates and joy to visitors.  You aren’t likely to see the Thicket Groundling moth on a walk around Sun Rising, though – its wingspan is only 10-12 mm.  A tiny, but most welcome creature!

 

Brimstone Caterpillar on Alder Buckthorn

The Problem with Butterflies

The Brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) is one of our most distinctive butterflies.  Although the females are a pale leaf-like green, the males are a bright yellow.  They are often one of the first to be seen in the spring, having overwintered in hibernation, coming out on warm days bringing the hope of sunshine that is to come.

There are two trees that Brimstones use for laying their eggs: the Buckthorn and the Alder Buckthorn.  Buckthorns can be pretty wild, thorny, tatty-looking shrubs, but the Alder Buckthorn is a beautiful small tree or shrub.  Coming into leaf fairly late in the spring, it has a dark grey bark, delicate leaves and an abundance of green berries that turn purple in the autumn.

In order to support the Brimstone, we have been planting Alder Buckthorn around Sun Rising, and offering it to families as a memorial tree.  It has been wonderful to see these trees as they get going.  In some areas (such as along the southern boundary) they are really thriving, reaching some 8 – 10 feet tall.

But this year, for the first year, we’ve found some of the Alder Buckthorn completely stripped of leaves.  Who’s the culprit?!

Brimstone Caterpillar on Alder Buckthorn

Brimstone Caterpillar on Alder Buckthorn

Brimstone caterpillars, of course!  The Brimstone can’t have evolved to strip their host tree so completely that the tree dies.  That wouldn’t make sense in terms of the evolution and sustainability of both the butterfly and the tree.  We are imagining that the Alder Buckthorn will now reclothe itself with a fresh covering of leaves.  We are holding our breath to see what happens …

Managing areas of nature can be so very complicated!

UPDATE: Within a week of the trees being defoliated by the caterpillars, there are fresh new leaves coming through with health and vigour.  Some of the smaller trees which had been almost completely stripped look as fresh as they would do at the beginning of June.  Now the Brimstone population is high enough for us to see them using these Alder Buckthorn, we’ll need to get used to this period of about a week in late June, and look forward to the re-leafing in July!

 

Migrant Hoverfly on Dog Rose

A Perfect Enthusiasm

The word enthusiasm is derived from ancient Greek, and is all about being inspired by (a) god.  Sitting on a bench at Sun Rising on a gentle English summer’s day, looking out over the wildflower meadow, with its dancing bees and butterflies, the skylarks singing, the swallows swooping, I see before me what can only be described as sacred.  Whatever our understanding of god (or God), this beauty is a part of it.

But when it comes to the tiny details that make up that beauty, it is the hoverflies that most fill me with awe.  If there were indeed a god who designed nature, I suspect hoverflies would have been one of their favourite tasks.

As part of Insect Week, today is our day to focus on these little buzzing, zooming, flitting, dancing, hovering creatures.  They are part of the family of Diptera, the True Flies, but are often mistaken for small wasps or bees.  In fact, they are not only fascinating but completely harmless.  As pollinators, they are also a valuable part of any ecosystem.  While we don’t often see their larva, it is equally useful – feeding on decaying matter or aphids.

Migrant Hoverfly on Dog Rose

Migrant Hoverfly on Dog Rose

I’m clearly a long way down the line of naturalists who have been a little bit obsessed with hoverflies.  Steven Falk has a marvellous Flickr account with photographs that help identification.  Mostly the scientific names are used for the various species, but there are some marvellous common names too: we have the Marmalade, the Footballer, the White-footed, the Pied and many more.  They can be black and yellow, black and white, or soft toffee and russet colours, in all kinds of stripes.

There are over 270 species in Britain, and I’m only just beginning to learn how to identify each one.  But sitting quietly within nature, a hoverfly will often come up close, as if filled with curiosity, investigating what this human observer is.  Some are braver or more curious than others, but each seems to me to be an individual, exploring what I am.  Aware that, from their perspective, I must be very large and very slow, their interest only fills me with yet more wonder.

White-tailed Bumblebee on Common Knapweed

Furry Sky Tigers

The tag line for Insect Week is ‘The little things that run the world’ – which is a deliciously simple descriptive phrase that appears to encapsulate the unimaginably vast.  The importance of insects can’t be overstated.  They are crucial for our survival.  Yet because they seem to be everywhere, we take them for granted.  We even revile many of them as creepy or dirty.

One of the most attractive of the insects is, of course, the bumblebee.  They are the beautiful furry tiger of the insect world!  As such, we started our Insect Week by looking at which species of bumblebee we have at Sun Rising.  We aren’t experts, so we may well be missing or misidentifying species, but we think we found four today: Common Carder Bee, the White-tailed Bumblebee, the Red-tailed Bumblebee, the Buff-tailed Bumblebee.  We may have seen a Tree Bumblebee too, which would make five.  Adding Wasps and Bees in more generally, we also saw a Common Wasp and a good handful of Honeybees.

White-tailed Bumblebee on Common Knapweed

White-tailed Bumblebee on Common Knapweed

There are around 270 species of bee in the UK, and 24 species of bumblebee.  This photograph here shows the White-tailed feeding on a Common Knapweed.  You can see the delicate seedheads of Quaking Grass all around.  There were a good number of these bees in the wildflower meadows and around the Roundhouse, being fairly common around the UK and Europe, feeding from spring through until autumn.

To get involved in Insect Week, check the Royal Entomological Society’s website here: https://www.insectweek.org/

Muddled Dragonflies (and Insect Week)

Dragonflies are often considered to be water creatures, and there is validity in this idea: they start out as aquatic. The females lay their eggs on pond vegetation; or, more accurately, some insert the eggs into the leaves and stems of plants on and around bodies of water, while others lay them in a jelly on the water surface.

Emerging as tiny tadpoles, they grow into larva (known as nymphs) which may stay in the water for some months, or even years, before transforming into the flying dragonflies and damselflies we know.

One of the most beautiful dragonflies of this area is the Emperor, which lays its eggs on the water surface.  Searching for open water, they are attracted by the sparkling of sunshine on the water’s surface, and this is when we are most likely to see them during the summer months, dancing over ponds and lakes, looking for a partner with whom they can mate, where the eggs can then be laid.

Emperor Dragonfly over Shining Car Roof

Emperor Dragonfly over Shining Car Roof

The trouble is, sunshine on a shiny car roof can, to a dragonfly, look very like water.  So it is that it’s often possible to find dragonflies dancing over car parks on hot and sunny days!  Except, in a car park, there is nowhere to lay eggs.  It’s just another way that humankind are confusing the non-human world …

Next week, 19 – 23 June, is national Insect Week.  Do explore the website which is enormously interesting: Insect Week.  We will be running daily posts on Instagram, exploring different aspects of the insect world each day.  Do find us and follow us here: @sunrisingnaturalburial.

Bluetit at the Birdfeeder, Wild Cherry Behind

Making a Difference

Yesterday was a beautiful day – a sharp north-easterly wind softened with sunshine, the bright green of newly leafing trees, the white flowers of cherries, the yellow carpet of cowslips, golden studs of dandelions, the snow-white of blackthorn blossom along the uncut hedgerows, all adding to the joy that is an English spring.

And with it, every member of our small team here at Sun Rising seemed to come up to me beaming with exclamations about having seen their ‘first peacock butterfly’, ‘first orange-tip’ or ‘three brimstones’. With International Earth Day tomorrow, 22 April, my aim was to present here the first Sun Rising butterfly photograph of the year, but the wind was too high, and today the rain came in, just to remind us that this beautiful greenery needs regular watering.

My favourite picture of yesterday is this one: a small bundle of feathers that is a bluetit, flying through the wind to the birdfeeder, with such determination and courage, the wild cherry blossom blown sideways, the blue skies above, only confirming the context as spring.

Bluetit at the Birdfeeder, Wild Cherry Behind

Bluetit at the Birdfeeder, Wild Cherry Behind

The purpose of Earth Day is to raise awareness of the natural world and the crisis we are now in, and most positively to remind us that we can all contribute to the solution. At Sun Rising we are doing our best to make a difference. We have many new plans to improve specific habitats for birds and butterflies this year, taking another step with the creation of more wildflower meadow.  But it’s easy to forget that the simple things are important too: putting out seed for the birds like this bluetit, now feeding chicks in a nest somewhere along the hedge.  We can all do that, and in doing so we can literally save lives, little bluetit lives.  What a wonderful thought on a rainy day.