9 hours ago
Wild Things: Birds enjoy an insect boom
Wild Things columnist Eric Brown is buzzing with enthusiasm about the varied insects to be found during a record sunny spring and the benefits to birds relying on them for food.
While it awaits a verdict on its future, Crossness Nature Reserve has come alive with a little sunshine particularly encouraging insects out into the open.
Lesser emperor dragonflies are being regularly reported by observers at the Belvedere-based reserve under threat from industrial development.
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Plenty of common butterflies like holly blue are around, too, plus three marbled whites seen in the Sea Wall Field area. The beautiful ruby-tailed wasp also seen on the reserve is a solitary cuckoo wasp with a dubious habitat of laying its eggs in the nests of other solitary wasp and bee species, particularly mason bees. When the eggs hatch the larvae eat the larvae of the host species in order to develop.
Bird interest includes sedge warblers making use of the plentiful reeds with one observed feeding a fledgling. A slow worm was also discovered as Bexley Borough's top reserve maintains its reputation for biodiversity.
Insects are busy at Chislehurst Common, too. A gaudy hoverfly known as xanthgogramma pedissequum showed up . It has no official common English name, but it is easy to see from the picture why it is known as 'superb dayglower' across Europe.
Also around are speckled wood butterflies and orange-tailed mining bees, andrena haemorrhoa, with their brilliant orange thoraxes.
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Mining bees are solitary bees. They do not form colonies, but live independently, tunnelling into the ground where they make a nest. The glade at the common, with areas of bare earth, is an ideal site.
They collect pollen for young to feed on, and are important pollinators.
Broad-bodied chaser dragonflies and hairy shieldbugs are among many other insect species to be found on Chislehurst Common. If you are nearby, why not make time for a walk around to see how many insect and bird species you can find ?
From my house I have seen many large flying insects. This is good news for the local swifts I first spotted returning from Africa on May 1, six days earlier than my first "house" sighting of 2024. I've even seen one catching an insect and passing it to another swift on the wing. My largest swift count so far at one time has been five and I was delighted to also spot a group of five house martins in the same airspace. Previously I've been lucky to see just a couple of house martins all summer. On one memorable day I saw swifts, house martins and a swallow all pass my window. Maybe an increase in insects has been responsible for luring these birds in the sunniest spring on record. Certainly I expect to hear soon of an increase in butterfly numbers after last year's dismally wet spring hit their numbers.
