Headstands

Azure Bluet (Coenagrion puella)

Right now, the new pond is serving as the garden's biggest pickup bar. There was a frenzy of activity a few days ago, with more than a dozen pairs of Azure Bluets (Coenagrion puella) sprinkled across the pond, egg-laying on the surface vegetation. At least a dozen other males restlessly patrolled the water's edge, waiting for passing females. Once he'd found a female, the male clamped onto her head using claspers located at the end of his abdomen. He continued to hold on – in effect standing on the female's head – while his sperm packet was transferred over to the female, while the eggs were fertilised, and while the female carefully positioned each egg on the underside of leaves and algal mats in the pond. Only when she was done egg-laying did he finally let her go.

The Azure Bluet is one of the most common damselflies over much of Europe, east to central Asia. In the UK, it's widespread throughout England, Wales and lowland Scotland. It generally prefers small, still ponds like ours, though it's also found along the edges of larger water bodies and small streams. Though the male is quite similar to several other species (including the Common Bluet) it can be distinguished by the black, square-bottomed "U" on its first abdominal segment and by the thin black "thorn" that extends into the blue on the side of its thorax. Azure Bluets fly primarily from May through July, though some are seen as early as April and others as late as September. Judging by the number of eggs laid, the pond will soon be swarming with damselfly larvae, which will feast on the Daphnia population and be feasted on by the Smooth Newts and various diving beetle and dragonfly larvae. It's one big jungle in there!

Pair in tandem

Ribwort

Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata)

Out in the pocket meadow and along the edges of the driveway, the Ribwort Plantains (Plantago lanceolata) are in full bloom. To me, it always looks like the central spikes are wearing frilly little ballerina tutus. The flowerheads sit atop long, thin stems which can be half a meter (20" or so) tall, though most – particularly in regularly mowed areas – are considerably shorter. These rise from a rosette of strongly ribbed, spear-shaped leaves, which are quite distinctive once you've learned what they look like. It's a common perennial plant in grassland  and meadows (including lawns and pastures), along field edges, on dunes, riverbanks, roadsides, tracks, and various other disturbed "waste places", on all but the most highly acidic soils. It blooms from April through August, and each flowerhead can produce upwards of 200 seeds, which remain in the heads. These provide an important food source for seed-eating birds in the winter. The plant also serves as the host for the larvae of several small species of moths, some of which we've recorded for the garden. Native to Eurasia, it's widespread right across the British Isles, and has been widely introduced (intentionally or otherwise) to much of the temperate world. As befits a widespread native, it has long been used for herbal teas and herbal remedies in Europe, used to staunch bleeding and to treat various digestive and skin disorders. Parts of the plant can also be used to make brown and gold dyes. I look forward to watching the local Eurasian Goldfinches and European Greenfinches riding the seedheads to the ground in order to nibble their contents later in the year.

Bluetail

Common Bluetail (Ischnura elegans)

Our new pond is certainly attracting lots of attention these days! When I checked it yesterday afternoon, I found a quartet of visiting odonates, including our regular male Broad-bodied Chaser, a couple of Large Red Damsels, three Azure Bluets, and this Common Bluetail (Ischnura elegans), which is a new one for the garden. This is one of Europe's most widespread and well-known damselflies, found right across the continent (and the British Isles), except for much of the Iberian Peninsula and northern Scandinavia. Elsewhere, its range stretches across Asia to Japan. The dark body with its sky blue "tail light" (as the Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe calls it) is distinctive among the UK's damselflies. Only the Scarce Blue-tailed Damsel shares this pattern, but its blue spot is one segment further down its abdomen. This is probably an immature male; though his eye spots and "tail light" are bright blue, the stripes on his thorax are still quite green. (You'll need to click on the picture to enlarge it enough to see that.) Females come in a variety of colours. They can be very like the males (though with a lilac-coloured rather than green thorax when they're immature), as well as brownish, pinkish or dull green. Like other damsels, they're regularly found around water. Common Bluetails, however, prefer standing water; they're regular at garden ponds and can tolerate polluted and nutrient-rich water sources. They fly from late April through late September, with a single generation per year. Hopefully, we'll be seeing them for a while now.

Slow

Dark-lipped Snail (Cepaea nemoralis)

While weeding one of the flowerbeds yesterday, Mike spotted this little mollusc curled up in its house among the mosses. It's a Dark-lipped Snail (Cepaea nemoralis), one of the most widespread and best-known snails in western Europe. That dark lip around the opening in its shell gives it one of its common names. I say "one" because it has a remarkable number of common names: Grove Snail, Banded Snail, Brown-lipped Snail and Lemon Snail among them. Some of that variety comes from the polymorphism the snail exhibits. It comes in a wide array of colours, from very pale yellow through orange and pink to very dark brown, and can be patterned with bands (like this one) and/or one to five stripes that follow the shell's spiral. Scientists think the variety of colours is the result of several intersecting selection pressures. The snails are found in a wide range of habits from woodland and gardens (where darker snails are common) to dunes and grassland (where paler ones are). Some birds (particularly Song Thrushes), mammals, and even some other invertebrates will happily gobble up any snail they find, so looking like the surroundings – and not like every other snail, so that predators can't form a consistent search image – can help a snail to avoid being eaten. These little molluscs are plant eaters, but prefer dead and decaying material, particularly that of nettles and buttercups, so are seldom a problem in the garden. They'll certainly find plenty to eat here! They grow to a reasonably large size, reaching up to 25 mm (about an inch) across. Though reasonably common across most of the UK, they don't quite reach northern Scotland.

Fat dragonflies

Male Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa)

Our new pond has attracted a new couple – at least two Broad-bodied Chasers (Libellula depressa) that this week have spent long minutes perched on dead sticks that Mike positioned along the pond's edges. This is a distinctively "fat" dragonfly, easily identifiable by its short, broad abdomen. The male is blue while the female is golden-brown. Both have a row of yellow spots along the sides of the abdomen, and both have dark triangular marks at the base of their wings. According to the British Dragonfly Society, this species may be the first to colonize new ponds. It's typically found around ponds and small lakes, patrolling over the water's edge in swift flights and returning again and again to the same low perch (in our garden, that's the base of one of the sticks Mike put in). This is a common species in southern and central England and southern Wales. Elsewhere, it's one of the commonest dragonflies from Europe right across to central Asia. It flies from mostly from May through July, though it can be seen as early as April (in warmer years) and as late as September. We're hoping the female will decide to lay her eggs here, though the pond may not have enough vegetation yet to entice her to do so. If she likes the look of things, she'll hover over the pond, dipping her abdomen repeatedly into the water and dropping her eggs onto vegetation below the surface. There would certainly be plenty of pond life in there for her larvae to eat!

Female

Another longhorn

Green Long-horn (Adela reaumurella)

A week ago, I'd never heard of a long-horn moth. Saturday, I found the second species for the garden! This male Green Long-horn (Adela reaumurella) has even more outrageous antennae than the Meadow Long-horn did; it's like the Texas Longhorn of moths. Add the fact that those antennae are white and waving madly, and you have some pretty extreme eye-catchers. Like its cousin, this little moth is a day-flyer. It's a bit bigger at 7-9mm (up to 1/3 of an inch), and its antennae are a whopping three times its body length. (The female's are slightly shorter.) Its wings are a dark, metallic green, sometimes with a flash of gold near the leading edge. The body and legs are black, and very, very fuzzy. This male was dancing over the leaves of our New Zealand Broadleaf (Griselinia littoralis), chasing everything that passed (none of which were the appropriate females). Luckily, he's got another few weeks to look for some – their flight period is from April through June. It appears to be a bit of good luck that I spotted him; they're normally found in woodland, heathland, marshes, bogs and scrub. Courting Green Long-horns are typically attracted to oaks and hazels, neither of which we have in the garden. However, it's a common species across England and Wales, and I guess the local hedgerows might count as scrub. It's local in Scotland and a few scattered parts of Ireland. The larval food plant is unknown. Another new one for the list!

Smokin'

Common Fumitory (Fumaria officinalis)

Along one edge of our property, we have the remnants of a huge pile of woodchips left after a long row of Leylandii cypress trees were felled some years ago (before we lived here). When we rented the place, back before we stumped up the cash to buy it, our landlord repeatedly promised to remove said chips, but he never quite got around to it. As a result, this has remained one of the wilder corners of the garden, covered with a burgeoning jungle of thistles, nettles, dock plants, and a few scattered flowering gems. Among the latter is a sizeable colony of Common Fumitory (Fumaria officinalis), which is slowly expanding along a bank of nettle. It's a common annual weed of disturbed and cultivated ground across Britain, flowering from April to October. In fact, it's the most common fumitory in all of central and western Europe! It has also naturalised itself across parts of North America, escaping from garden plantings. Perhaps surprisingly, it's not a true British native; it's thought to have been brought to the islands by Neolithic settlers. It has been used as a medicinal plant since antiquity, used to treat everything from digestive issues and conjunctivitis to arthritis and skin blemishes. It's actually a member of the poppy family, despite its very different appearance. The name fumitory refers to the supposedly "smoky" appearance of either the flowers or the foliage, depending on which source you believe. Neither looks particularly smoky to me, but other species have greyer foliage and much paler flowers, so perhaps the group is named for them instead.

Longhorn moth

Meadow Long-horn (Cauchas rufimitrella)

While poking around in the garden yesterday afternoon, I spotted several small insects with huge long antennae flitting around above one of the flowerbeds. It took a while before I finally found one that settled long enough for me to get a look, let alone a photograph. Eventually, though, I found a few on some Field Forget-me-not. Unfortunately, they never really sat still, which is why the photo above is ever-so-slightly blurry. It turns out they're tiny day-flying moths, known as Meadow Long-horns (Cauchas rufimitrella). Measuring less than 6 mm (i.e. topping out at less than 1/4-inch), they'd be easy to overlook if it wasn't for those eye-catching antennae. Those are more than twice the length of the moth's forewing! The forewing itself is a flashy, metallic greenish-gold, and the moth's fuzzy black head often (as above) shows a patch of red or purple on the nape. Adults fly in May and June, particularly on sunny days, in areas of damp grassland (like our garden after all the recent rains) and moss. According to the Field Guide to the Micromoths of Great Britain and Ireland, they're local across much of England and Wales, and even scarcer in Scotland and Ireland. The larval food plants are Garlic Mustard and Cuckooflower, both of which we have in the garden, so it's a little surprising we haven't seen these moths before. It's another new one for the list!

14 spots

Fourteen-spot Ladybird (Propylea quattuordecimpunctata)

Right now, our garden is crawling with ladybirds. Most are the ubiquitous Seven-spot Ladybirds, but every now and then we find something different – like this one. This small beetle is a Fourteen-spot Ladybird (Propylea quattuordecimpunctata). Though it's black and yellow like the Twentytwo-spot Ladybird, it has distinctively square spots, which sometimes merge to form a checked pattern. The bold colours warn potential predators that they'll get a nasty-tasting, bitter mouthful. It's a small insect, measuring only 4-5 mm (less than 1/4-inch) in length. Despite that, it's a fierce predator, both as a larva and as an adult, gobbling up aphids as fast as it can find them. It also eats other small insects, as well as the eggs of various beetles, moths and butterflies. It's the most common black and yellow ladybird in the UK, and is widespread in England and Wales (less so in Scotland and Northern Ireland) in grassland, woodland and gardens. Elsewhere, it's found across Europe, North Africa and most of Asia, as far north as the Arctic Circle. We're just starting to see them now, months after we spotted our first Seven-spots. That's because this species has a much longer hibernation period (smart cookies!), only emerging in May to breed. Females lay some 400 eggs in batches of up to 15. These hatch within 12 days, and the larvae quickly develop after that. Adults are typically seen from May to August – a much shorter time than Seven-spots. By September, they're into hibernation, ready to snooze away the winter.

Speedwell redux

Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys)

This is certainly the right time of year to think about studying speedwells! We have a plethora of them blooming in the garden at the moment, including hundreds of little Germander Speedwell plants (Veronica chamaedrys) sprinkled among the grasses in the pocket meadow. The bright blue flowers appear from March through August, and are widespread throughout the UK. That white centre to the bloom is distinctive, and gives the plant some of its other common names, including Cat's-eye and Bird's-eye. The flower is bigger than those of the other speedwells I've profiled so far (Thyme-leaved Speedwell and Ivy-leaved Speedwell), measuring a whopping 9-10 cm across (about half an inch). They grow in spikes, like the one visible behind the central flower in the picture above, with the blossoms slowly fading to purple as they age. The plants are perennial, growing in grassland (including lawns), woodland and along roadsides. They were long considered to be a good luck charm for travelers – said to help you "speed well" – possibly because they formed large clumps along the grassy edges of highways and byways. The Irish even sewed them into clothes, reputedly to protect against accidents! The flowers are important sources of nectar for solitary bees, so are certainly welcome in our garden.

How could we even dream of mowing this?!