Invader

Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis)

It was there, lurking under the shoe rack, when I went out to the porch to put my trainers on. An invader. A wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet another example of humans just not leaving well enough alone. This is a Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) and it's one species I wish we didn't have in our garden. It's an Asian species that was brought to Europe (and the United States) as a biological agent: a supposedly "biologically friendly" way to control unwanted insect species. Except that it turns out to be very biologically UNfriendly. This large and voracious species has been munching its way across Europe and North America for decades now, outcompeting local ladybird species (and other insects as well) for food. And unlike our native ladybirds, it will happily switch to the eggs and larvae of butterflies, moths, and local ladybirds if aphid prey is scarce. It's a reproduction machine, churning out young from spring right through autumn, which allows it to expand its populations very quickly. Since arriving on the islands in 2004 (when it made its own way across the English Channel), the Harlequin Ladybird has spread across much of the country and is now considered a serious threat to some UK insect populations. Did we squash it after taking its picture? No we didn't. But we probably should have.

Zebras

Common Zebra Spider (Salticus scenicus)

Heading out to the recycling bucket yesterday, I spotted this little hitchhiker catching a ride as I swung the door open. It's a jumping spider called Salticus scenicus, or Common Zebra Spider, and it's found across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere. This one is a female; she has paler legs than a male would have (yellow-brown with darker rings at the joints rather than all dark) and smaller chelicerae (the jaws and fangs just visible in between her front legs). Though she may look rather large and scary in the picture, in real life she's pretty tiny, measuring a mere quarter-inch long.

These spiders tend to hunt from vertical surfaces (like doors). Rather than spinning a web, they leap on their prey, sometimes from a fair distance away. While they generally hunt spiders and insects even smaller than themselves, they have reportedly been recorded taking prey up to three times their own body length!

Two-fer

Common Daisy (Bellis perennis) with unidentified aphid

Now that the pace of spring is beginning to quicken, we're adding new species to the lists "at the rate of knots", which is a British expression for very rapidly indeed! Sometimes, we can even add multiples at once. I took a photo earlier this month of a Common Daisy growing in a corner of the driveway, only to spot the associated aphid once I'd downloaded the picture to my computer. The daisy was an easy one to identify; it's ubiquitous here—self-seeded into nearly every flowerbed, scattered throughout the lawn, springing up through the gravel driveway, etc. It's a flower I've always associated with England, but it's widespread across all of Europe too. Apparently, the word daisy is a corruption of "day's eye", a name presumably given to the flower because it folds itself closed at night. (Chaucer called it "eye of the day" in his prologue to The Legend of Good Women.)

I tried my hand at identifying the aphid too, but I'm quickly learning that we're going to have to become experts at a whole lot of things to keep this project moving forward. (Or, alternatively, we're going to have to find a whole lot of experts who can help us out.) According to this website, there are more than 500 genera of aphids worldwide, a bewildering number of which live in Europe. I'm guessing that with better photos, we may be able to come up with an ID though; those long legs and long antennae suggest perhaps a member of the genus Acyrthosiphon or Amphorophora.

Sweet! Violets...

Right now, it's hard to even think of cutting the lawn — not that we do that very often anyway. But the hundreds of Sweet Violet flowers carpeting the ground will have to die back before I can bring myself to cut their little heads off! The light, sweet odor of the flowers is pervasive in the garden (at least it is when the strong winds we've been having for days isn't blowing the scent to Amsterdam), making it feel like spring is really well on the way. The bumblebees are loving the bounty too, lurching from flower to flower. I'll have to try to get a picture or two so we can add them to the insect list; I'm pretty sure they're all Buff-tailed Bumblebees I've seen so far.

Sweet Violets are native here in Britain, as well as across much of Europe and Asia. And they're widely introduced in North America and Australia now as well, thanks to their beauty and hardiness. As you'd expect with a long-established plant, it's been widely used in herbal medicine since the Middle Ages, and is well-tied to some ancient legends. Supposedly, violets were among the blooms Persephone was gathering when the Greek god Hades abducted her, and the flower was a symbol of ancient Athens as well. It's nice to have a little tie between our garden and that lovely country!

Mini suns

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara)

I took this picture of blooming Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) way back on February 21, and it's still blooming today. It's managed to plant itself in a flower border right below the dining room window, where its cheery flowers look like so many tiny suns. Clearly, given its early and extended presence, it's an important nectar plant for any early-emerging bee, butterfly or moth in the area, so we're happy to have it around. It's also a host plant for the larvae of two moth species — Gothic and Small Angle Shades — both of which we caught in our moth trap last summer. References say Coltsfoot spreads by both seeds and rhizomes; I'm guessing this one is seed-spread, since we have no others in the garden. There's a sizable colony on some rough ground a few hundred yards from here, so perhaps the seeds have blown over (or been carried in the plumage of some rummaging bird) from there. As with many plants native to Europe, this species has long been used in herbal medicines. However, it contains numerous alkaloids, some of which can cause severe liver problems, so consuming any part of it is probably best avoided.

In other garden news, we have Common Blackbirds nest-building in a dense bush not far from the house, so that's a sixth bird species confirmed to have nested here!