Hitchin Wildlife

Hitchin Wildlife September 2021 The September wildlife spotting season was quieter than summer, but still some lovely finds from the Hitchin area. Maisie's Meadow & Jazz's Orchard (near The 3 Moorhens) , on the left a Two Spot Ladybird, quite a rarity in Herts but they keep popping up here, and on the right a Cream Spot Ladybird, these both love to eat aphids. The Two Spot Ladybirds are sometimes black with red dots, somewhat confusing.    Two more, on the left the rather small but lovely 22 Spot Ladybird which feeds on mildew and on the right a 10 Spot Ladybird which has very variable colouring making them tricky to identify,... this one (like a lot of so-called 10 Spot Ladybirds) does not have 10 spots... A final pair of ladybirds, in this case both Harlequins, in fact these are two photos of the very same beetle. On the left is the ladybird just emerged from its pupal stage and is less than a day old and on the right after 2 more days the colours have changed dramaticall

 Charlton Area Wildlife September 2021 The start of autumn and wildlife is starting to be less obvious than in the summer...  However it is a good time of year to check the edges of fields for specialist flowers (aka arable weeds) left behind after the harvest, they tend to be very small and best appreciated on hands and knees: look along a field edges and corners for places which have escaped the farmer's spray. There is a colony of Chiltern Gentian to be found, these are a really unusual plant to find around Hitchin, needing chalky soil. In the UK this plant is only found only in Buckinghamshire (their county flower) and Hertfordshire (plus a very few in Wiltshire). It is difficult to catch the flowers properly open but here is a spike about to open... Other arable weeds spotted include Sharp Leaved Fluellen (left) and Dwarf Spurge (right)...   ...and there were easier to see things too, this particular Poppy took my fancy... Comma and Red Admiral butterflies were taking advantag

 Cemetery Work Party September 2021 The Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) work party volunteers meet every Friday to help maintain the cemetery and their focus is to work in the older part of the cemetery and help achieve the goals laid out in the cemetery's "Greenspace Action Plan", exciting stuff! Fridays usually start with litter picking, not so exciting, but makes a real difference. Then it is on to other work, here Veronica is maintaining the "cloud" topiary... The addition of an Ice Plant immediately attracted hoverflies...  Purple Toadflax plants allows the dramatic caterpillar of the Toadflax Brocade moth to have a feast... Pruning a Viburnum bush has exposed previously hidden memorials and also provides a planting opportunity underneath.    More planting areas are being created around the perimeter...   ...much to the interest of an inquisitive Robin who was happy to take advantage of the spade handle... Keeping the cemetery well maintained provides

 Cemetery Sightings September 2021 I do enjoy looking for insects and the start of Autumn still has plenty to see, for instance this lovely Common Carder Bumblebee I saw on Field Scabious. Common Carders are one of the most plentiful Bumblebees but seem to escape people's notice. The Ivy Bees (a September specialist) were present in large numbers everywhere the Ivy Flowers caught the sunlight, but I also spotted one on a white Yarrow flower too. They are almost as big as a Honey Bee and it can be difficult to tell them apart especially as they generally don't stay still, but look for slightly brighter orange stripes. There are often Common Wasps on Ivy too, but they are more yellow.    There were a number of shield bugs which I found in the cemetery: always a favourite of mine as they tend to be a little larger and have better markings than some insects I know. Firstly here are two Common Green Shieldbugs, the one on the left is a juvenile which is in its "goth" teena

 Maisie’s Meadow & Jazz’s Orchard There is a small triangular field near near the Three Moorhens pub, Hitchin which is a happy place for me as I like to search the area for signs of mini-beast activity. I'm sure the field looks unprepossessing to most people, bordered by a noisy road but is a 1.5 acre patch on the edge of Hitchin which has proved a good place for me to learn about butterflies, bees, etc.  The field is associated with Hitchin Priory hotel, but is cut off from their grounds by a footpath and bounded by roads on the other two sides, thus the land appears to have no commercial value and has been neglected.   The site is light soil with a line of mature trees to the east (mostly Common Limes and Horse Chestnut), a line of scrub to the north including Hawthorn and Dogwood, and open and very sandy to the south, making it a sunny site. There is an informal east-west footpath used by many a dog-walker which divides the site into two. In 2018 a neighbour, with per