Hunting the elusive Bee orchid

Whilst doing the seed bomb workshop a couple of weeks ago I discovered a delightful fact – allegedly there are Bee Orchids growing on Tottenham Marshes about a mile and a half from my home, and they are due to start blooming right now. How could I resist such a lure? I’ve been neglecting the marshes lately, so I got on my bike and went to see what I could see.

What I saw, alas, was not Bee Orchids. It hardly mattered though, since I was out and about on the last glorious sunny day of this summer so far, and what I did find was rather wonderful in it’s own right.

Zooming down Coppermill Lane through a dense tunnel of rank vegetation, assaulted by the shrill voices of wrens and the scree of nestlings in every tall shrub I wondered why I don’t do this every day. When I got to the drainage ditches at Springfield marina the air was filled with zipping electric blue sparks of Enallagma Cyathigerum – the Common Blue Damselfly. I sat down beside the water and watched their nuptial dances, and was lucky enough to find these two in their extraordinary lovers embrace. If you view mating damselflies from the right angle their joined bodies make a perfect heart shape. Most bodies of water on a still sunny day will yield views of these lovely creatures right now in the UK, and they are well worth looking for. I also saw a glorious Libellula Depressa – or Broad-bodied Chaser, a male dragonfly with a body the colour of powdered and bottled summer skies. Naturally he teased me by flying from his territorial perch every time I got him into focus but I don’t go on these adventures just for photographic trophies and it’s just as well – I would have been deeply frustrated that day!

After half an hour of happy damselfly and tadpole watching I got back on the bike and rode along the River Lea navigation towpath. Shoals of small fish swarmed in the still water and mute swans fussed over their huge nests, and overhead swallows chattered. I was at Tottenham marshes at last.

It’s not much to look at, perhaps, to some people. A swathe of rank long vegetation sandwiched between a busy road, allotments and a canal and with pylons, gasometers, bus depots and factories looming at it’s edges, it’s not many peoples idea of a wildlife paradise. But it’s truly wild, and this liminal post industrial landscape is where the revolution starts, you mark my words. It’s places like these that are home to undiscovered beauty, the covert reclamation of land by all the other living things besides the human. Of course it’s managed to some extent, but the beauty of places like these is that things slip in under the radar – this kind of land is the sort that will suddenly sprout, unexpectedly, a beautiful flower from seeds or rhizomes that have slept in the earth for years.

The air was thick with the scent of elderflower and pollen tickled my eyes and dusted my feet. The voices of many warblers made one territorial claim after another, each responding to the last in a singing chain, a necklace of song. I wheeled the bike along and searched in vain through the long, tangled vegetation.

Was I sad that I didn’t find any Bee Orchids?  Not at all, not when so many other beautiful things crossed my path. The bee orchids got me out of the house and may have been my stated aim, but their coy refusal to show themselves led me to other secrets every bit as marvellous.

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Meet A Moth!

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to be in Durlston for the “Meet a Moth” morning,  a short educational event hosted by Durlston Country Park. We arrived at the visitor centre just in time to see Park Ranger Katie Black open the moth trap which had been set up the previous night. The trap contains a bright fluorescent light to attract the moths and a number of egg boxes for the moths to use as shelter once they are in there.  The moths are not harmed, and the Rangers get to record numbers and species of moth to be found in the area.

I didn’t do so well at photographing the beautiful smaller moths, plus I neglected to bring a notebook to record what I had learned, but there were one or two that were striking enough (and big enough!) to stick in my mind and record well on camera.

This incredibly handsome Arctia villica, or Cream Spot Tiger Moth got an admiring “oooooh” when revealed, and was obligingly docile while we admired it’s fine antennae and cream, buff, black and crimson markings.

This Spilosoma Lubricipeda, or White Ermine Moth was not quite so obliging, and upon examination it feigned death by falling onto the floor and refusing to move, a ruse commonly employed by this moth. After being gently retrieved it sat calmly enough for me to get a picture.  I think it looks like some grand character from a fairy tale, wrapped in a fur cloak.

This Phlogophora Meticulosa, or Angle Shades Moth is a handsome and cryptic beast, apparently they are extremely common but due to having such excellent camouflage it often goes unseen.

Now we come to the scene stealer of the day – a beast that drew disbelieving gasps when it came to light. Hyles Livornica, or the Striped Hawk Moth is a rare immigrant species, and with a wingspan of six to eight centemetres it is a big moth as well.

Hopefully the above picture of this moth perching on the warden’s hand gives you some sense of scale. She said that she couldn’t part her fingers, the moth’s grip was so strong.

We were lucky enough to observe it vibrate it’s wings in preperation for flight. While a butterfly will bask in sunshine, a nocturnal moth will use this technique to warm it’s body enough to fly – you can see how blurred it’s wings are in the picture. This close up view gives it quite an owlish aspect I think. When it finally took to the air it’s size was quite startling – I’d like to see the bat with the courage to take it on.

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Jewels in the dirt

A couple of weekends ago I was walking along a muddy, tyre churned track looking at nothing much other than where to put my feet first so as not to slip over, when a chunk of dirt began to move. An iridescent pebble with legs was struggling faintly in the sticky mud. I stooped over to find a dor beetle, relative of the scarabs of ancient Egypt looking feeble and disorientated, legs flailing ineffectively.

A few metres further along I found a whole clump of them, royal purple glinting on their backs as they floundered together in the watery mud. I looked up along the track and saw to my astonishment that the ground for quite a considerable distance was strewn with living jewels and glittering carcasses where previous walkers had ploughed through unnoticing.

These hapless creatures had chosen the soft earth of the track as an ideal hibernating ground, and dug themselves in. Now weekend walkers and off road motorbike riders were churning them up again in their thousands. I stood aghast as I watched these simple animals attempting to re-bury themselves in the very same place that they’d just been dug out from, essentially a busy weekend road. How many will be left by the end of winter? These things are a dime a dozen but still…

I’ve been flabbergasted by this spectacle ever since, and although I don’t subscribe to the old chestnut of natures kindness (spend under 30 seconds watching a hunting wasp or spider and you will lose your illusions pretty damn fast) the profligate wastefulness and apparent stupidity of the natural world often troubles my peace of mind. Those dor beetles would diligently re bury themselves in their chosen “ideal” hibernating ground until not a single one was left.

If those beetles learned nothing, they taught me something. The old adage “keep doing what you always did and you’ll keep getting what you always got” suddenly seems a bit more important than I ever imagined.

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