Life on a Rudbeckia flower

Today I took a little walk in our garden. At this time of year, I think our garden looks really beautiful as many of the flowers are in full bloom.

Above you can see our pond, which we made around 3 years ago. It is designed in shelves, so that there are layers of deepness, allowing for different plant and animal life to thrive. In the middle, there is a sharp dip that is nearly a metre deep, where a lot of dead leaves have fallen from the bush above, making lots of lovely rotten plant material for things to feed upon. Around the edge of the pond we made a nice bog garden, full of things like water mint and figwort.
It is really amazing to think how unnatural the pond looked when we first made it, compared to how beautifully natural it looks now.

 Above you can see the figwort growing around our pond. We have figwort weevils (which live on this plant) in our garden, which are not that common in our area.

Another thing that amazes me is the amount of frogs that can be found in our garden since we made the pond. In a few minutes I can find around 15-20 small frogs and a few really big individuals.

Here's a frog that I found today. He was underneath a bit of wood that connects the tall grass around a wood stump to the bog garden and the pond. This is a favourite amongst the frogs, and I can usually guarantee that I will find at least 1 individual under the wood.

We now have 3 nestboxes in the garden, but non of them are in occupation this year. One is in a pine tree and is being used by a wood mouse to stash seeds, another seems to be entirely empty, and the third one is inhabited by a huge house spider. She has made her web around and inside the nestbox, connecting her silk to the fence and the pine tree. I don't think any birds would dare nest in there now! The spider looks about big enough to eat a little chick, though I doubt it would bother to take that kind of prey.

 Today I tried to identify some yellow flowers that grow in our garden. After a few minutes of research, I believe that they are some kind of Rudbeckia, but this particular species of it is somewhat unusual in not having a black or brown center, instead having a yellowish one.
What really interested me was the amount of life on this single plant. As I watched, I saw hoverflies and bees, pollen beetles, and an unusual spider, which immediately caught my eye, so I caught it to identify it.
 It turns out that this small spider, just a few minimetres in length, was a common crab spider, Xysticus cristatus. These spiders are so-named because sometimes then can be seen scuttling sideways like a crab. They are ambush predators which wait for prey to blunder near, and can take on insects much larger than themselves. They are generally found on the ground or on low vegetation (as is the case with the individual that I found). My spider was clearly taking advantage of all the pollinators visiting the flowers.
I tried to get a picture of the spider on a flower, but it escaped. However, I did manage to get some photos of the pollen beetles.

The species you can see above is Meligethes aenus. I am quite fond of these beetles, as they have an amusing habit of not only being attracted to yellow flowers, but a variety of other yellow things. I have seen this several times, when wearing yellow clothing (high visibility jackets are particularly enticing for them!), and finding myself with beetles landing all over me. I have heard that they are also quite attracted to tennis balls. They feed upon nectar and pollen, making them important pollinators for many plants - although bees are more well known, these little beetles play a fairly vital role for many species of plants.

To finish off, above is a picture that I took amongst the Rudbeckias. I quite like experimenting with angles in photography, so I took this quick picture on my tablet. The quality isn't great, but I like the angle and the way the light shines through the leaves, so that you can see the veins.

Until next time, keep on the wild side!

Beetles, bees, and wasps doing home expansions

Today I spent a little while in my garden to see what wildlife I could find. Our wildlife garden is really coming on now, and we have a beautiful pond. I'm rather proud of our garden, as though it is small, it is both nice to look at (at least in our eyes) and rich in wildlife.

Today I found a small solitary bee that I didn't recognise, so I got my FSC Guide to Bees of Britain out to try and find out what species it was. It turns out that it was a leaf-cutter bee, which we have found in our garden several times before. These bees cut discs out of leaves, which they use to make little cells for the larvae to grow up in, sticking the discs together with their saliva. On previous years we have found semi-circles cut out of leaves in our garden, the culprit being the leaf-cutter bee.
 
 Another insect that I found in our garden today was a small beetle called Lagria hirta. If you find one of these beetles, they may at first-glance appear mundane, but if you take a closer look at them then you will soon see how beautiful they are. They have a black thorax and head, with a brown-yellow abdomen, which is flecked with lovely, fuzzy hairs. In the sun, the hairs can look golden, making the beetle look like it is surrounded by a gold halo of light! That is what drew my attention to this beetle today. This species feeds on pollen and nectar as an adult, however, the burrowing larvae eat decaying matter. Lagria hirta is a common sight in our garden at this time of year.

 Above you can see the L. hirta that I caught. Sorry about the poor quality of the image, I was using my tablet, which does not have a very good camera.

By Hectonichus - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26612206

Above you can see a much better image that I found on the Internet.

I also took a look in the shed today to take a peek at the wasp nest (see here). I knew that it would probably get bigger with time, but not so quickly! It is now at least half as big again, so the wasps must have been hard at work expanding their home. I'd love to know where they get all the wood pulp to make their nest with - there is a rotting log at the back of the garden, perhaps they are getting it from there? Though, on further research it seems that they don't even need the wood to be rotting to collect it - they can simply scrape it off of wooden fences. In that case, they could be getting wood from the shed, the fence, the trees, and/or the log.

The mammal pelvis from my previous blog post is still a mystery. A few people on Twitter have retweeted my question, so hopefully it'll get around and someone will be able to give me an answer. Someone also suggested taking the bone to the local vets to see if they can identify it for me. Anyway, fingers crossed that soon I'll be able to find out who the owner of this pelvis was.

Until next time, keep on the wild side!

Mystery bones

 Yesterday, my mum found a bone round the back of the place where she works, and knowing that I'd be interested in it, brought it home. Today, I've been having a good look at this bone, and trying to identify it.
First of all, this is a pelvic bone, or rather, it is half of the lower section of the pelvis. Here's a different version of the first image, with labels.

The hole is called the obturator foramen, and the place labelled acetabulum is the socket where the leg would attach.
It is great to be able to study an animal pelvis, but what I am most interested in is what sort of creature this bone came from. I would love to know the sex of this animal, how old it was, what sort of life it led, and how it died - but those would be more difficult to find out. Therefore I must satisfy myself with finding out the species which owned this pelvis.

My first thought was fox, so I did some research and looked at some images on the Internet. As far as I could tell from the pictures I saw, the pelvis was about the right shape, but the size was all wrong. I looked at some images of a fox pelvis being held up against a tape measure, and of people holding the bone in their hands. I worked out that the average length of this part of the fox pelvis is around 4 centimetres long. However, my bone was 9 centimetres long! So, although I may be wrong, I have for now ruled out fox.

If a fox pelvis was too small, then the same must be said for many other British mammals, so my thoughts turned to deer. I thought that perhaps the pelvis could have belonged to a baby deer. However, from my research it looks like a deer pelvis would be the wrong shape. There would be a more pronounced ridge (which I am having trouble finding the name for, I believe it may be called the ischiatic spine) leading away from the ischiatic tuberosity, if it was a deer. However, my pelvis does not have a very pronounced ridge, though I suppose it could be because it was from a young deer which had not developed properly yet. I'm not sure, but I think that I can cross deer of of the list.

So, that's fox and deer ruled out, I think. What does that leave? I am certain that this pelvis belongs to a mammal, but what mammal other than those already mentioned have a pelvis like this? I am thinking perhaps a dog, but I am uncertain. Really, I am not sure enough to say that it definitely isn't a fox or a deer - who knows, I might be surprised.
For now, this mystery is unsolved. I asked around on Twitter earlier on today, but I haven't yet had any replies. I will post a new update soon, to continue the story of the mystery pelvis.


However, the pelvis isn't the only unusual bone I'm going to be talking (well, writing) about today. While researching about the mystery pelvis, I decided to try and identify another bone that I have found.

My mum and I found this last year while rockpooling in Filey. In fact, we actually found this bone in a rockpool. We puzzled over it for a little while, and at one point we thought that it might be a seahorse bone. However, we soon disregarded this, and after that this bone was left forgotten in my curiosity cabinet for another year.
Today, I finally remembered it, and decided to try and identify it. This 6 centimetre long bone was not so easy to place as the previous one I talked about. Before, it was obvious that it was a pelvis, but this time, what kind of bone it was alluded us. However, I quickly discovered what it was after a few minutes of searching. Strangely enough, it is actually a part of the hip! However, this was not immediately clear because this small part does not include the the acetabulums (where the leg bone would fit in).
This bone, it turns out, belongs to a bird, probably some kind of seabird given that we found it in a rockpool. Birds have a very strange, elongated pelvis, topped with a part known as the synsacrum - which was what we had found.

 By Renegade Lisp - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11174395

Above you can see a synsacrum of an unidentified bird. Now compare it to my bone:

 As you can see, my specimen is only a part of the synsacrum - normally it would have other bits on the sides, as you can see from the other image.

The synsacrum is used to make the pelvis more rigid, allowing it to withstand the rigours of flight. The holes that you can see in the picture above are presumably to make the bone lighter, a necessity for a flying animal.

So there you have it, 2 mystery bones, one identified, one still unknown. Keep an eye out for further updates on the mystery pelvis.

Until next time, keep on the wild side!

A spider in the house!

Usually my blog entries are about my wildlife adventures outdoors, but today I needn't look any further than my kitchen to find wildlife!

Today I found a spider hanging just above the doorway in my kitchen. I immediately thought it was interesting, because it had very long legs and a small, elongated body, different from the house spiders that we usually get. I caught the spider in a tub, and further examination and research confirmed my suspicions: this was a cellar spider.
The name, cellar spider, isn't always used, so in this case it makes more sense to refer to the species by its scientific name, Pholcus phalangioides. I had seen this spider several times before in our house, but it was only this time and one other time that I knew that it was a Pholcus (until then I had never heard of them). This time, I did some further research into the species.

Pholcus was not originally native to the UK. Instead, it lived only in warmer regions, but now that most homes in Britain are well-heated, they have been able to spread to the UK. They cannot survive outdoors, so are instead restricted to our houses.
This species feeds on mosquitos, woodlice, and other small invertebrates that it can catch in our homes. However, it will often eat other spiders, of both its own species and of other species, if it can catch them.

This species is a sort of dull brown-yellow colour, and its legs are quite translucent - so much so that apparently you can see blood cells moving around inside them under a microscope. I did look at my specimen under a microscope, but alas, I didn't see any blood cells. My microscope was clearly not powerful enough.

 This species is sometimes called the daddy longlegs - a name also used for harvestmen (a close relative of spiders), as well as craneflies. This can be quite confusing, as all 3 have very long legs, and are superficially similar (except that craneflies have wings). To avoid confusion, I prefer to not use the daddy longlegs name for any of them.

There's an urban legend that Pholcus has some of the most potent venom of any spider in the world, but its fangs are not strong enough to pierce human skin, so we are safe. However, neither of these are true. In actual fact, their venom is not very potent at all, though their fangs can pierce human skin. However, don't be afraid! They are not dangerous, though you must be careful not to allow the bite to become infected, and it causes only a very mild burning sensation which dulls in a few seconds.

All in all, what a fascinating little creature!

Until next time, keep on the wild side!

A wasp nest in the shed - some people's nightmare, but my dream!

Yesterday my dad found something unusual in our shed - a wasp's nest. It was in a torn bag full of sheets of acoustic insulation, strangely enough, and they had chosen to create their nest attached to one of these sheets.

As you can see from the picture, the wasps have built their nest attached to one of the pieces of acoustic insulation, as well as attached to the top of the bag. However, the nest has been tore apart, so you can see most of it on the sheets, and a bit on the bag. Later we put the 2 pieces back together again, and the next day (today) they had repaired the nest! It looked like there had never been any damage at all.
The little white things in the nest that you can see are wasp larvae, and they will be cared for by the workers until they become an adult wasp.

The queen wasp will build her nest out of chewed up wood, forming a pulp which she spits out. As it hardens, the wood pulp hardens into a papery substance in layers (as you can see in the picture). She will then create pentagonal 'cells', and she will lay a single egg in each, which will develop into a larva.

After finding it, we put the nest and the acoustic insulation it was attached to back in the shed. We checked back on them today, and as I said earlier, the nest was fully repaired. I wanted to identify the species of wasp, so I spent quite some time sat at the entrance of the shed, trying to catch the insects. I did not want to further disturb the nest by catching a wasp from there (nor was I overly keen on the idea of being chased by an angry swarm of wasps), so I caught one leaving the nest. After that, I could get to work identifying it.

After some time (and a brief excitement where I thought that it was a rare species), I identified it as a common wasp. I had been focusing too much on abdomen markings, which can be very variable, when the main identifying features where thoraxic markings and the size. My specimen had an anchor-shaped markings on its clypeus (above the mandibles), and elongated yellow markings on the metatonum. Further more, it had a triangular yellow spot on its episternum, a spot on the propodeum, and further yellow markings on the pronotum. All these were features of the common wasp, Vespula vulgaris. Somewhat disappointing after getting all excited about a rare species! However, it is still an amazing animal, and it was time well spent, because now I know the best ways to identify wasp species.

Until next time, keep on the wild side!

Siphunculi, weevils that look like bird poo, and sparring aphids - oh my!

You may remember me talking about the brownfield sight which we nickamed Kinder, and I first talked about here. In that post I also explained how the area would be developed upon soon. Well, recently, despite our best efforts, areas of Kinder have been destroyed. One of the largest parts is now fenced off and is being built upon, but there are still some brownfield left on Kinder.

Today we took our first visit to the site (or at least what is left in it) in a while. Despite the construction going on nearby, this part of Kinder is still going strong, and we found a variety of invertebrates. We saw several meadow browns and unidentified blue butterflies, as well as loads of bees and hoverflies.

 Insect hunting on Kinderland!

I took a good look at some aphids under my field lens, and was surprised by how strange they look! They have a pair of tubes on their abdomen called cornicles or siphunculi. From these they can exude a fluid to defend themselves from predators called cornicle wax. Aphids come in a variety of different colours, and the majority of the ones that I found were the classic 'greenfly' type. However, there were also some brown-coloured ones, and I saw one of these having what looked like a fight with a green aphid. They reared up and pushed against each other with their front pair of legs for a few seconds, before the green one was pushed down and the brown species crawled onto its back! The purpose of this fight (if it was indeed a fight) is unclear, as as soon as the brown aphid had got on top of the other, it just walked away.

 Wild strawberries on Kinder.

I found 2 caterpillars, which I later identified as six-spot burnet moth caterpillars (Zygaena filipendulae).

Six-spot burnets are day-flying moths, with distinctive black colouration with red dots, and they can be seen on warm, sunny days from June to August. The caterpillars feed on clover and bird's foot trefoil.

 I think that this is an immature female blue-tailed damselfly, but if anyone thinks that it isn't, then please do let me know.

I also caught several lesser marsh grasshoppers (Chorthippus albomarginatus). They were only very small, and I caught 5 of them. Previously, this species was mostly found in boggy habitats, in sandunes, or somewhere near water. However, in recent years they have been expanding their range to drier areas. Now many of the grasshoppers that I find in local areas are lesser marsh.

We also found some figwort weevils (Cionus scrophulariae), which are very interesting little beetles. The adults are small and mottled, looking like a little piece of bird poo or soil, and the larvae look like small slugs. They are fairly common in the south of Britain, but in this area they are uncommon. We also have figwort weevils in our garden, though we have only found 1 so far this year.

 Pictures above: figwort weevils

Overall, it was a great day. It can't get better than being out in a meadow with a pooter, sweep net, and lots of tubs!

Identifying grasshoppers with the help of my books and field lens!

Until next time, keep on the wild side!

Hermit crabs, sea slugs, and mystery eggs!

One of my favourite habitats is the shoreline, and in particular rockpools. I think that they are a very special place, not only because of the animals that live there, but also because it is where children can connect with nature. Since most children nowadays very rarely get the opportunity to do this, a trip to the beach is about as connected to nature that they get, as they paddle about in the rockpools looking for crabs.

 A previous rockpooling trip at Bridlington.

As a lover of rockpools and rockpooling, whenever I visit the beach, I don't make sand castles and throw balls about - instead, I'm knee-deep in the water, usually trying desperately to catch some kind of aquatic animal. This is exactly what I was doing yesterday (8 May 2016), and I'm happy to say that I had one of the most succesful and rewarding rockpooling trips that I have ever had.

My Mum and I went to Filey, a seaside town in North Yorkshire. The Filey Brigg, a thin strip of land riddled with rockpools, is one of my favourite places to go on a day-out, and it has plenty of wildlife to be found there.

Our first finds in the upper to middle shore were the usual common molluscs and crustaceans - common periwinkles (Littorina littorea), common muscles (Mytilus edulis), and acorn barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides), amongst others. After that, I found several beadlet anemones (Actinia equina) - one of which was attached to the shell of a periwinkle! I have never seen this sort of behaviour in beadlet anemones before, and on further research on the Internet, I could find no other account of such a thing. Some anemones are known to hitch a lift on hermit crabs, but beadlet anemones, as far as I am aware, do not practice similar behaviour. After placing the periwinkle and its hitch-hiker in a plastic tub, the anemone later seemed to be peeling off of the shell, with only a small portion of it still clinging on.

 As we further explored the middle shore, my Mum had picked up a handful of dog whelks, and was bringing them over for me to look at, when she suddenly let out a rather amusing little 'ooh!' of surprise. On closer inspection, it turned out that the shells were no longer inhabited by dog whelks. They had new tenants: common hermit crabs (Pagurus bernhardus). This discovery came as a bit of a surprise to us, for we have searched long and hard for hermit crabs on Filey Brigg, and we have never been succesful. I now think that we simply had never looked far enough down the shore, as when you start to enter the middle shore, the finds start to become more rewarding.

When my Mum and I returned to the rockpool where she had found the hermit crabs, we soon saw that the empty shells litttered around on the bottom were not quite as empty as we had supposed. As we watched, antennae and claws poked out, and the shells started to crawl about. After years of looking for hermit crabs at Filey, within an hour of beginning rockpooling, we had found 20 or so individuals - and by the end of the day, we had seen well over 50.

We also found 3 chitons, probably grey chitons (Lepidochitona cinerea). These fascinating molluscs have segmented shells which protect their soft body, and they can be found clinging to rocks where they scrape away algae using their radula. Interestingly, they also have organs called 'ocelli' in their shell. These are their equivalent of eyes, and they have a retina and lens, capable of telling the difference between light and dark. These ocelli are not visible as they are small and embedded in the shell.

While searching for more hermit crabs, we discovered a grey sea slug (Aeolidia papillosa). These common sea slugs are covered in what look like small, stubby tentacles, called cerata. This particular species feeds almost entirely on sea anemones, and it is capable of storing the stinging cells of its prey in its cerata. This re-used defence mechanism is used to keep it safe from predators.

Our next find was a small edible sea urchin (Echinus esculentus), which can be pink, purple, or green. The individual that we found was green, and not fully grown, as it was just a few centimetres wide. This species is so-named because it is edible - its gonads are eaten in some parts of the world.

Other rockpoolers had passed on some of their finds for us to look at before they were released. One man had quite a collection of fish, including a large butterfish, Pholis gunnelllus, ("Baby conger eel." he incorrectly told us) and a pair of long-spined sea scorpions, Tauralis bubalis (these he believed were monkfish, while his 2 young daughters were stroking the fish, unaware that these were not monkfish, but sea scorpions, which carry 4 spines on their back, capable of causing a minor but painful injury . . .). Sea scorpions are unusual fish, with bulbous eyes, a spiny, bony head, and extendable mouths capable of swallowing prey much larger than themselves. 

Another man had a small 5-bearded rockling (Ciliata mustela), a fish that can grow up to 25 cm long, and has 5 whiskers on its face, which allow it to sense prey. He didn't seem to care how many sensory whiskers it had, nor exactly how it found its prey, despite my best efforts to explain how fascinating it was. His only interest was, "Can I cook it and eat it?".

Another creature that a person gave us to look at was a sea hare (Aplysia punctata). These unusual sea slugs are named after their rhinophores (small tentacles on their head area), which resemble the ears of a hare. The sides of their body curve up, meeting above their back, which I always think makes them look like the wings of a swan. Interestingly, when faced with danger, they can release a bright purple cloud of sulphuric acid in an attempt to deter a would-be predator.

We also found some unusual eggs in the rockpools. Bright green jelly-like blobs that my Mum found turned out to be the eggs of the green leaf worm (Eulalia viridis). However, the other eggs that we have found proved more difficult to identify. They were in spiralling, tube-shaped sacks made of a jelly-like substance, containing many tiny peachy-white orbs, which we believe were eggs. On further research, I think that these were the egg sacks of the grey sea slug (Aeolidia papillosa), an adult specimen of which we had found earlier, and I have already mentioned previously in this post.

Overall, it was a great day out - not only fun, but educational too. I hope to return to Filey Brigg soon to continue our exploration . . .

Until next time, keep on the wild side!