Alder leaf beetles

 Low Barns is Durham Wildlife Trust’s largest wetland reserve and the commonest trees there are alders, whose leaves are currently being consumed by a population explosion of these jewel-like, metallic-blue alder leaf beetles Agelastica alni.

Until quite recently, the alder leaf beetle was considered to be a rare species, in danger of extinction in Britain. Then, in 2004 it reappeared in north-west England and over the last twenty years it has become increasingly common in the north east. No one has really identified the reason for its success but it’s common in France, so perhaps it arrived with imported plants from continental Europe. The adult beetle and its larva partially defoliate alders but they recover every spring. The adult beetles fall with the alder foliage in autumn and survive winter in the leaf litter.

Twenty-plume moth and honeysuckle

 

Fragrant honeysuckle Lonicera periclymenum that grows in our garden hedge provides nectar for moths in summer ……

…. berries for birds in autumn …

…. and a breeding site for this exquisite little twenty-plume moth Alucita hexadactyla, which has wings composed of tiny plumes that resemble feathers. It lays its eggs in honeysuckle leaves and flower buds. Plume moths fly at dusk and are strongly attracted to lit windows; I found this one, with a wingspan of about a centimeter, settled on our living room wall.

The common name is a misnomer because each of the four wings has six plumes, so it should really be the twenty-four-plume moth, but the scientific name is accurate: hexadactyla means six fingers.

Crab spider lurking in a teasel seedhead

 Teasels Dipsacus fullonum are wild flowers that just keep giving. Bees love their flowers, goldfinches eat their seeds and the empty honeycomb seed heads survive for months, providing winter accommodation for tiny insects - but not without hazard.

This teasel seed head, at my local Low Barns nature reserve, had a predator lurking amongst its prickly seed chambers. It’s a tiny crab spider, waiting to intercept any small insect arrivals.

Crab spiders don’t spin silken webs, but often lurk in flowers with their front pair of legs held like crab claws, ready to grab unwary prey. Some species can change their colour to blend with their surroundings, making them very effective ambush predators. 

This one was tiny and they are notoriously difficult to identify, but I suspect it might be a female running crab spider, Philodromus dispar.