A late night cock-tail in the living room

Caught this devil's coach horse beetle galloping across our living room carpet late last night. 

As befits a carnivore it has a formidable set of jaws.

Devil's coach horses are the largest of the staphylinid beetles in Britain, which as a group have wings that are intricately folded under very small wing cases (elytra). But their most distinctive feature is only revealed when you do something to threaten them .....

......... when they raise their abdominal segments in a threat display that's reminiscent of a scorpion.In older books they were often referred to as 'cock-tails'. Totally harmless, though.

A hay meadow going to seed

Monday's Guardian Country Diary is an account of a wonderful hay meadow at the eastern end of Hawthorn dene, a Durham Wildlife Trust nature reserve on the Durham coast. 

Most of the Pennine hay meadows are cut at around the third week of July, which allows the farmer to take a decent hay crop but also allows key meadow wild flowers - like hay rattle - to set seed. This meadow is managed entirely for its glorious native flora and so was still uncut when we visited in late August. There were still plenty of species in flower, including knapweed, meadowsweet, field scabious, devils bit scabious and hemp agrimony, but all the plants here were also producing masses of seed. 

This view was taken looking northwards .......

.......... this one is from the coast side, looking towards the wooded dene ...

.......... and this is the view to the south. In spring this field holds thousands of cowslips, together with early purple orchids and wood cranesbill. In summer meadow and bloody cranesbill are prominent. When I walked across here I counted about fifty species without even bending down to have a close look - I suspect that there are least twice as many here. 

Although it's cut very late, it still must be cut and a hay crop taken, because there is a constant rain of seeds in autumn from the wooded dene and without the mower it would soon become ash, sycamore and hawthorn shrub - last autumn's tree seedlings were already well established. 

Field scabious flowers produce these attractive hemispheres of bristly seeds after pollination

The late flowering hemp agrimony is a great attraction for butterflies like this comma.

Devil's bit scabious, one of the most attractive late summer wild flowers in this limestone grassland, and so called because the stumpy root looks like Old Nick himself has taken a bite out of it.

Although vast quantities of seed are produced by the plants here only a small minority germinate in any single year and become mature plants, simply because there is so much competition in a dense sward with so many species. The best germination sites are mole hills like this, which provide a perfect vacant seed bed for any seed fortunate enough to land on them. Every hay meadow needs mole hills.

Heather as far as the eye can see

A few pictures of the heather moorland above Blanchland in Northumberland looking fabulous this morning. Surprised to see peacock butterflies nectaring out on the heather.

Painted lady

This was the first painted lady butterfly that I've seen here in the North East this year. I saw one last year but didn't manage to get a photo - this one was more obliging.

It was nectaring mainly on knapweed and thistles, on the hill to the north of Blanchland in Northumberland.

It's a long time now since we've had a full-scale painted lady invasion here. I think the last one was in 2009, when they arrived in late spring and produced a second generation, so that by early September there were hundreds of them - so many that it was reported in the national press.

Underneath the arches

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary concerns a remarkable haven of biodiversity underneath these three bridges that span the Ouseburn in Newcastle.

The nearest carries the East Coast mainline railway, the middle one carries the Tyne and Wear Metro tracks and the distant brick arches are the Byker viaduct that carries the main road. Below and beyond that lies the wonderful Ouseburn City Farm, which you can read about here.

The triangle of land where the arches converge is a nature reserve and community orchard, and includes ...

...... this pond and boardwork, where school parties can come to pond dip. It's seething with life, including these .........

....... common darter dragonflies that fluttered all around us. But the star of the show on this visit was this .....

.... exquisite holly blue butterfly.






















From a distance it looked like a little piece of silvery litter in the mud on the edge of the pond, where it was 'puddling' - sucking up mineral-laden liquid that is essential for its reproductive success.
















Holly blues have been recorded here in the past but this is the first that I've seen. It's near the northern limit of its distribution here.

There's woodland where the Byker bridge passes under the Metro bridge ....

..... and grassland under the mainline railway arches.

Purple loosestrife near the pond .....

....... a Phragmites reed bed......

... agrimony, with its hooked fruits ......

great hairy willow herb .........

..... teasels.....

.... wild parsnip ....

.... meadow browns on field scabious ... 

.... together with skippers.

A crucible of biodiversity in an area which was once one of the most heavily industrialised parts of Newcastle.

Common cow-wheat

I hadn't realised what an attractive little flower common cow-wheat Melampyrum pratense is until I took these pictures, .... especially ........

.... from this angle, with those frilly edges at the entrance to the tubular corolla.

These plants were flowering in woodland on the north bank of the river Tees at Barnard Castle earlier this week. Cow-wheat is partially parasitic in the roots of a variety of woodland plants, although it always seems to be most abundant when its growing on bilberry, as it was here.

All the spring flowers are just a distant memory and there are few species in bloom in woodland but common cow-wheat is an exception and is at its best right now. This bumblebee was taking full advantage, collecting pollen and nectar.

Home is a hole in the wall

I found this little ruby-tail wasp exploring a crevice in a south-facing house wall near Durham yesterday.

First in had a look inside to check that there was nothing menacing lurking ....

......... then it turned around and reversed in...

........ surveying passers-by .....

..... and occasionally coming out into the sunshine .....

.... to soak up some warmth and display its wonderfully iridescent colours, like a living Faberge jewel 

For more on the intriguing habits of ruby-tail wasps, click here