Lacewing fly winter guest

When we first moved into this old house, about 35 years ago, it had an interesting and diverse invertebrate fauna. There were gaps and draughts through the doors, windows and floors and I can recall a wide range of winter visitors in those days: devil's coach horse beetles, small tortoiseshell butterflies, ladybirds, woodlice, earwigs, several species of moth. But as we renovated the place and made it more energy-efficient it became harder for small animals to find their way in. Those that arrive these days mostly come in on our clothes or on plants brought in from the garden. That's probably how this lovely green lacewing arrived, back in the autumn. It woke up from its winter hibernation in January.

 

I think it's a green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea, which is really a group of almost identical cryptic species that can only be told apart by the sounds that they make. Courting lacewings communicate with each other by drumming with their feet on leaf surfaces, creating vibrational songs, and each cryptic species has its own distinctive song frequency. 

This individual is currently spending the winter behind a picture on the wall. When spring arrives I'll let it go in the garden - lacewing larvae are useful, very effective aphid predators.

A waxwing at last!

 It's thirteen years since we last saw a waxwing, when a whole flock turned up in our garden, feeding on crab apples. There have been numerous reports of these spectacular birds all over the north-east this winter, but  it was only yesterday that we finally found one, feeding on hawthorn berries near Willington in the Wear valley. I didn't have a proper camera with me, so these pictures were taken with an iPhone 7 SE. Luckily, the bird was very obliging and let me get with a few feet before it flew higher into the tree.

Great-spotted woodpecker and Sitka spruce

 Watched some interesting behaviour by a great spotted woodpecker recently. It arrived at a sallow carrying a Sitka spruce cone in its beak, then wedged it in a hole that it had already hacked with its beak, so it could use this as a vice to hold the cone while it pecked out the seeds. Sitka spruce is clearly a winter food source for this bird because there were scores of cones that it had discarded on the ground under its tree. The Sitka plantation nearby is carrying a very heavy cone crop this winter - enough seed to supply dozens of woodpeckers.

Mistle thrush

 Mistle thrushes tend to be wary birds, hard to approach closely. I photographed this one a couple of weeks ago at Stanhope in Weardale, managing to get within camera range because it was guarding a holly bush that was still loaded with berries. When they find a food source like this they'll defend it against all other thrushes and this one was reluctant to leave, even though it was clearly uncomfortable with my presence. I took a few pictures then left it to chase away a sneaky blackbird that had tried to plunder a few of the berries while the thrush's back was turned.

Nematodes: the most numerous animals on Earth

Nematodes, aka threadworms, aka roundworms are said to be the most numerous animals on Earth. Some are parasites but many are soil-dwellers living on decaying organic matter. A single hectare of  heathy soil will be home to many billions of them. One study found an estimated 90 thousand in a single rotting apple, another found three million in a square metre of fertile ground.

Most are tiny: these, found in a pile of well-rotted leaves in deciduous woodland, were less than a centimetre long when full extended. They play a crucial role, along with soil fungi, in recycling nutrients from decaying plants. 

Because they are translucent, you can see the food particles that they've ingested passing along their gut during digestion - visible in these pictures as a series of dark particles along the length of the animal.

Click here for more pictures revealing their microscopic structure.

Winter fragrance

In these cold, grey days after Christmas, in the depths of winter, any flower is welcome, although I do have some reservations about this one - winter heliotrope Petasites fragrans

 I planted a small cutting  in our front garden many years ago for nostalgic reasons, because it grew on a roadside near my home in Sussex when I was a child. Its creeping underground rhizomes have spread relentlessly outwards, defying attempts to dig it out because it regenerates rapidly from small rhizome fragments left behind. Fortunately, it's confined by two walls and a concrete path, which limits its opportunities from further escape, but I can see why people warn against introducing it into cultivated soil. 

It has become naturalised in many places throughout Britain, moved around in dumped garden soil, around waste tips or where it as been fly-tipped on roadsides.

On the plus side, winter heliotrope has a delightful fragrance, variously described as resembling vanilla, almonds or marzipan, so when it flowers in January I always keep a few inflorescences on the window ledge in a vase. 

It originates from the central Mediterranean region and North Africa and was  introduced into gardens here in 1806, then first recorded in the wild in Middlesex in 1835. My favourite naturalised population is on the edge of the sea cliffs near Noses Point at Seaham on the Durham coast where, on a bright winter's day, it looks wonderful with the North Sea as a backdrop.