Common darters in Broadview

After going into college for extra meetings today, I got out into the College's Broadview Gardens to look for insects and in particular for dragonflies around the ponds.

There were reasonable numbers of Common Darters, Sympetrum striolatum, generally, at least a dozen in Broadview Gardens as a whole, but particularly concentrated today on the large wildlife pond on the Western margin of the gardens. At one time I was able to count three ovipositing pairs and four other males all in the "hotspot" of a couple of square metres of water weed and marginal vegetation in a sheltered bay in full sun. I was able to sneak up through the vegetation to try to get some photographs as they flew low over the water or rested on the marginal plants.

This photo of a pair taken in flight is very blurry, but is here to show how the male in front looks very red indeed. This seems to be to be a darker red than the orangey red that the Common Darter is supposed to show, giving rise to the exciting possibility that these individuals are Ruddy Darters, Sympetrum sanguineum, rather than just Common Darters.

However this close up below, of another individual caught resting, perhaps after mating, shows a yellow stripe on the foreleg tibiae fairly clearly. Yellow striping on any of the legs is one of the diagnostic features of all the darter species found in the UK, except the Ruddy Darter that I am trying to find. As I can see these stripes on at least some of the photos of some of the redder individuals that I have seen today, regretfully I have to admit I can't claim to have seen any Ruddy Darters today, they must all be assumed to be Common Darters!

Another diagnostic feature is the pattern of black markings on the forehead or frons of the darters. In the Ruddy Darter, this should extend down the front of the face just in front of each eye in a sort of moustache pattern. As you can see from the picture below, as well as the one above, the black marking doesn't actually extend downwards in front of each eye, which is further confirmation that these insects are in fact just Common Darters.

Another feature of the Common Darter, as opposed to the Ruddy, are the clear yellow diagonal stripes on the side of the thorax, which I think are better seen in the picture below. I think you can see the front one fairly clearly, and just the start of the second one behind it;

And then there is the shape of the abdomen from overhead. In the Ruddy Darter there should be a distinct waist, centred around segment 4. Although there is some suggestion of this in the first of the two photos below, in the end I'd have to come down on the side that there isn't a distinct narrowing, so again the overall conclusion must be Common Darter, not Ruddy.

In the second picture the male claspers are holding a female by the back of the head - this pair are resting just by the side of the pond after a frenetic bout of egg-laying. The claspers appear to be bent at 90 degrees to the horizontal, and this is also suggested in the picture below, taken in flight over the egg-laying area.

The male holds the female by his rear claspers clamped to the back of her head after copulation and they both remained joined and working in partnership while she carries out the egg-laying now that the eggs are fertilised. The male at this stage flies nearly horizontally while the female's body is perhaps horizontal initially but perhaps later when egg-laying is about to start or when flying between indisividual eggs being lad, is inclined downwards by about 45 degrees.

At the point of egg-laying itself, both abdomens are often nearly vertical - it's a bit like a harrier jet landing by changing the angle of its engines and controlling the power output! But in the case of a dragonfly it all happens very quickly indeed, within less than a second, and the pair dip down in unison(?) until the tip of the female's abdomen touches the water surface and an egg is presumably released!

At this point you can often see that the female's abdomen may be wetted by a droplet of water held between the angle created by the tip of the abdomen and the vulvar scale. The shape of the female's vulvar scale itself differs between the different species. Luckily for me the shape in the picture but two above and in this female (below) is consistent with an identification of the Common Darter!

Getting away from the dragonflies, there were a few other bees and other insects about, mainly common carder bees, Bombus pascuorum.

I only saw one hoverfly, an Eristalis species with bright orange panels on the abdomen. Even so I think this may have been another individual of Eristalis tenax, but this time, exceptionally, I think I was looking at the pale form, in contrast to the dark almost black abdomens of the individuals I have generally seen in the area over the last month.

There seemed to be the possibility of a dark face stripe, with dark possibly hairy hind legs, which are the characteristics of Eristalis tenax. However none of these characters were particularly or sufficiently clear, and I certainly wouldn't rely on this identification, there are many other possibilities.

There were even some vertebrates and the autumn birds seem to be coming into play now. The moorhens, Gallinus chloropus, on Sandell Lake were obliging as usual - there were birds on the wildlife pond as well, but far more difficult to get good views of. This is an adult bird, although I only saw the one of the adult pair here today:

Meanwhile there was a juvenile, perhaps the only remaining one here, skulking in the reeds,

To finish off, a domestic cat, perhaps the one belonging to the financial director of the college, was having a good look around in this countryside environment, far away from his or her home territory.

So, overall, a very interesting morning visit, with my uncertainty over whether I'm seeing any Ruddy Darters, fairly convincingly put to bed, although not entirely eliminated, particularly with some of those egg-laying pairs which were very highly coloured!

Whetsted gravel pits

Walked with Peter and Pickle down to the gravel pits and on the Westernmost one we saw 8 black-headed gulls, 6+ little grebes, 4 great crested grebes, 30+ coots, 10+ mallard, 2 pochard, 1 lapwing and 5 mute swans.

On the easterly pit there were 70+ Black-headed Gulls, 3 Herring Gulls, 2+ Great Crested Grebes, 15+ Common Coots, 7-8 Gadwall, 5+ Mallard, 1+ Moorhen, 6 Canada Geese and 6+ Mute Swans.

A couple of hawker dragonflies were also whizzing about, but far too quickly to identify.

We also went East along the river as far as Oak Weir Lock, and then South into the scrub around the private gravel pit.

In flower were Bristly Oxtongue, Picris echioides, Hawkweed Oxtongue, Picris hieracioides, White Deadnettle, Lamium album, and Common Toadflax, Linaria vulgaris.

Too dark for photos again I'm afraid.

Clearhedges at dusk

An interesting day, starting with a bag and flag event at 7 a.m. to highlight the issue of dog fouling in the village, and then teaching in the morning and the afternoon. For the morning session I was able to take Monty into the class, as a model animal, while we considered the characteristics of living things!

Sadly it was too dark to take photographs as we walked around Clearhedges, having finished teaching for the day at five. Its such a peaceful place with its combination of open areas completely surrounded by quiet woods, yet giving more distant views out onto the neighbouring hills and slopes with their small fields, shaws, orchards and oast houses. The whole landscape is so utterly civilised, rich and settled. The neighbouring fields sown to winter cereals are very well established now, compared to the pictures taken only a month ago, and the coppiced areas are also going to be very good next spring I think.

I was particularly impressed by the numbers of Prickly Sowthistle, Sonchus asper, in the oil seed rape stubble of the central Clearhedges field. Despite its size of anything up to a metre and its robust spiky and thistle-like appearance its actually only an annual plant! Perhaps I'll get a chance to look more closely at the botanical characteristics of this species and its three relatives on another occasion.

Haysden Country Park

The walk today was around the very busy Haysden Country Park on the outskirts of Tonbridge. The site was really chosen because its quite close to Tonbridge station, our next port of call, actually to pick Olive up, returning from her trip during the week to see Nain in North Wales.

The park is very well used, by dog-walkers, cyclists, and also couples and families just out to enjoy the sunshine. Its a very pleasant environment, very good for wildlife as well as having many attractions for the public.

Its also good for watersports as these canoists are demonstrating:

And its got some high quality wooden statues and totems:

As we got into the park, I noticed that the water level in the shallows was really quite low, as you might expect from the very limited rainfall over the past few months.

It didn't stop an intrepid boater paddling his way through the vegetation, towards the Shallows Bridge - although I don't know whether he got much further than that!

There are still a reasonable number of flowers still about, better than many places in the area. This was the last of the common toadflax, Linaria vulgaris

and here are a few of the remaining Comfrey flowers, Symphytum, growing by the river. They could either be Common Comfrey, Symphytum officinale or perhaps more likely the introduced hybrid Russian Comfrey, Symphytum x uplandicum. The styles are particularly persistent in the flowers as the corolla is shed in this genus:

This is the Himalayan Balsam or Policeman's helmet, Impatiens glandulifera, a plant introduced by the Victorians, but now escaped into the countryside and dominating many river banks across the country. As the young leaves and seed pods are edible, this might turn out to be its Achilles heel!

These are the green seed pods getting ready to spontaneously burst open and spread their seeds metres away from the parent plant,

By the high bank of the shallows, there is a patch of new shrub planting probably from last autumn/winter and the "weeds" have taken advantage of the soil disturbance to grow in the opened up patch during the last season, thus giving rise to a patch of Hawkweed Oxtongue, Picris hieracioides. These are clearly in full flower this week - both species of Oxtongue do flower late, certainly into October, as also seen at Cliffe Pools yesterday.

Again you can see the orangey discolouration of the underside of the outer florets, also seen in the Bristly Oxtongue. It may be that this colouration is found more on the younger capitula, as you can sometimes see on the unfolding inflorescences, on the right in these pictures. The insect on the flower on the left might be a solitary bee or a solitary wasp - I can't get any further than that!

This is therefore one of the most likely hotspots in the Park for hoverflies, and sure enough on my first approach I found a Helophilus species nectaring. This genus is more usually found feeding on the honeydew on leaves, although it does get onto flowers, for example in gardens. The leaf nectar resource is nearly exhausted this late in the year, so they do seem to be even more likely to turn to the nectar or pollen to be directly found in flowers.

This species seems most likely to be Helophilus pendulus, a species that I don't think I've seen before, although the genus is a bit difficult. I have seen some other Helophilus specimens that I have tentatively ascribed to Helophilus hybridus. However this one has got a good black central face stripe, a good black bar towards (but not quite reaching) the rear of tergite two and across the full width of the tergite. Fairly conclusively only the distal third of the hind tibia are black, which should be characteristic of the species. I think its a female, but I can't be sure in this genus.

This picture is a bit blurry at the face end, but shows the abdominal and wing patterns up quite clearly. The outer cross vein points outwards rather than cutting back and veins R2/R3 are nicely separated where they reach the wing margin, not fused into one outer "stalk". The smaller buff patches are rather variably separated from the main orange ones according to the books, but appear quite reliable in many photos of the species on the web.

This picture is a bit better on the central black face-stripe and the limitation of black on the hind tibia to a maximum of one third of the distal end of the limb, which separates it from the most closely related species. Another feature is the yellow at the distal end of the hind femur, thus joining the yellow at the proximal end of the tibia.

This picture appears to suggest that the insect is sucking from the stigmas or anthers, rather than going deep into the florets for nectar. Its also a very good shot indeed of the wing vein pattern.

Then a Sphaerophoria scripta male turned up briefly

and finally a very dark drone fly, Eristalis tenax,

On the Impatiens glandulifera down on the peaty island in the river, the bees were still active, exploring the complex geography of the hooded flowers.

A little later on, by the Stony Lock, several dragonflies were scooting around in the clearing overhead. I got a glimpse of one of them and thought it was possibly a migrant hawker, but it was only a very brief glimpse and its so easy to make a mistake with these.

Then on the way out I checked the Hawkweed Oxtongue again and spotted the dark variant of Eristalis tenax one last time, getting a good photo of its hairy dark hind legs.

and in a rather blurry close-up, the double dark stripe of hairs running diagonally across its compound eye!

Cliffe Pools

Spread our wings a little today, and headed to the Thames Esturary and the RSPB reserve at Cliffe Pools. This is proper Dickens Country, the North Kent marshes and its industrial heritage in full measure.

As soon as we got out onto the path I noticed that the Bristly Oxtongue, Picris echioides, actually wasn't - and it turned out to be that species' fairly close relative, the Hawkweed Oxtongue, Picris hieracioides. This is a species likely to be native to the British Isles, relatively common in the South East but rarer elsewhere, at least according to Stace. It has been introduced widely to other parts of the world such as North America, Australia and New Zealand.

This is a plant I haven't been aware of seeing around before, but that could be because its a relatively late flowerer - I'll have to check back on some of the other areas of disturbed or marginal ground where I've seen the very common echioides, to see whether there is some hieracioides mixed amongst it! They did seem to be well intermixed at Cliffe, with hieracioides being by far the commoner seen there today. Oddly enough it turns out that hieracioides is thought to be native, while echioides may be a quite successful introduced species from Southern Europe.

I am fairly sure I've got the identification right - however in all the descriptions I look at there are no textual references to the quite often seen orangey outside of the outer floret ligules.

Meadows North Access Trail path

Its strange how sometimes you set out with an aim in mind, and that may or not work out, but something else turns up instead of, or in addition to, the original aim, that perhaps turns up trumps in the most unexpected of ways.

This was not a particularly nice day, in contrast to the rest of the month to come, and when we set out towards the pond in meadows North I had little expectation of seeing much - and my expectations were fulfilled!

So no results, and no photos from the pond itself, but on the way back I saw the wall lettuce in its rosette form - obvious when you know where it is growing, to look out for these which grow late in the year from seed germinated earlier this year, after the previous year's rosettes have shot up their flowering spikes this year and gone to seed, that seed then germinating the following year - I think!

I also found just one insect during the day, a really nice shield bug that I hadn't seen before - that makes THREE shield bugs I have identified this year - WOW!

This is Pentatoma rufipes, that might be called the red-legged shield bug. ID features include the overall red legs with the chequered sidebars on the side of the abdomen. The antennae are reddish at the base (just visibly in one of the pictures) with two darker sections at the tips. The tip of the prothorax is orangey-red like the legs, which contrasts obviously with the sidebars. The wings just show light at the very tip of the abdomen. The "horns" at the shoulders are quite obvious and pointed.

This poor thing has lost a complete left rear leg and part of its left antenna.

Overlooking my efforts was the Hadlow Tower, wrapped in blue and waiting for the kind attentions of the restorers.

Whetsted gravel pits

Today, on the hottest October day ever recorded in Britain, I took Monty over the Medway at East Lock and on the circular walk through the Whetsted Gravel pits.

The fields on the way to East Lock have been thoroughly cultivated - the Oil Seed Rape seedlings I saw last week have been cultivated in, so were presumably an unwanted volunteer crop.

As we look back up the hill towards the higher terraces you can see the lighter colour of the soil on the dryer land with less organic matter. Only half of this higher field has been cultivated!

Ditches cleared out, fairly destitute of apparent life. Canoists in the Medway and the canoe flume and fish staircase of the lock bypass sluice.

Ivy on the pill-box attracting bees, wasps Sphaerophoria scripta (actually the first time I've seen it on ivy).
Also Eristalis tenax, the so called drone fly from its resemblance to drone bees, with its hairy black legs held low to mimic the bees - its incredibly effective! This is a species that I've not seen much if at all during high summer, but I have noticed since the start of September, replacing the now vanished Eristalis pertenax!

E. tenax has a dark form which I seem to have come across several times in the past few weeks, with the abdominal patches very black as opposed to the normal orange as seen here, but the real characteristics in all this species' colour forms are the obviously hairy dark hind legs, particularly the tibiae.

At the first gravel pit I was photographing the hawker dragonflies as a young chap was splashing around frightening the waterfowl with some very loud and boisterous games with his three dogs. I hope he isn't going to make a habit of it - but then the weather won't always be like this! As there was so much racket I let Monty go for an extended swim in the smaller shallow gravel pit extension.

Migrant hawkers trawling for females along the bank. weaving in and out of the sedges, only one female seen, at least half a dozen males.

Male Common Darter

One possibly two Common Blue damselfly

As I got out onto the causeway leading to the the first gravel pit I saw a Small Copper butterfly, Lycaena phlaeas, just resting I think, and not nectaring, on a closed inflorescence of Bristly Oxtongue. The wings of this adult were a bit chewed up, indicating it has been around for a little while. This will be one of the third and last generation of adults to fly this year. As on previous occasions I just saw the one butterfly today, and this is quite normal for a visitor to a site where these insects occur. It should be the representative of a small colony that lives here or nearby,or perhaps it is a wanderer.

Little is known of their ability to move and establish new colonies elsewhere, but they certainly do move about. The last one I saw was on the Bourneside Meadow beside the River Bourne, and I suspected that there was a colony established there. Could there therefore be two colonies in the parish boundary, or perhaps even more if I look harder? The only other place I've seen them this year that I can remember is at Queendown Warren on the Kent Wildlife Trust Butterfly Study Day, but they are said to be quite a common butterfly.

Swans, coots, greylag geese, two little Grebes, Podiceps whistling away, reminding me of the first time I ever heard that sound, on the lakes in the magical surroundings of the Momela Game Reserve. I thought then it was one of the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard as it echoed off the surrounding hills. I keep on wanting to hear it in the UK but hardly ever do, so it was lovely to listen to the piping whistles today.

Two lapwings flew over

More hawkers, but impossible to confirm them to species as it was now nearly five and the light was already going.

Two herons went over the second gravel pit.

Gulls mainly black-headed, at least one herring gull, at least one lesser black-backed, Mute swans, Canada Geese, my first shoveller of the autumn, at least one gadwall, several great crested grebes, more coot, at least one moorhen, a group of jackdaws on the bank and a couple of jays. Two late cygnets still brown.

One female Common Darter sunning itself on a wooden post, this species is commonly seen like this, do ther members of the genus do it, several probable males, all just as you leave the pit and get into the Ash shaw.
Plenty of motor boats tied up by the side of the river and camping for the weekend - looked pretty idyllic!
There was a hot air balloon trip up above Golden Green - not so many of these seen this summer as there used to be in previous years, which is perhaps a sign of the international financial depression. So, it was really nice to see this one!