Giant ichneumon egg laying

Today I was lucky enough to spot a female giant ichneumon, Rhyssa persuasoria, laying her egg on some hapless grub deep inside a pine log near Austford in Brede High Woods.

It is one of natures wonders how the insect manages to drill her ovipositor down through often quite hard wood to locate the host larva with great accuracy.  You can see in the picture how she has to curve her ovipositor up, then round in a circle to get it pointing directly downwards.

Having caught her in the act, it was not particularly difficult to photograph, but after a few shots she spotted me, gave me a glare and flew off at high speed.

I often wonder about the evolutionary history of creatures like this - is this really an easier way to survive than the innumerable alternatives, like eating mud, that other insects have evolved?

A beetle for Biodiversity Day 2010

Today, 22 May, is the International Day of Biodiversity.  In the spirit of such an event a group of us, under the auspices of Butterfly Conservation, went on a caterpillar foray in Brede High Woods.

The weather was glorious, but the adult butterflies rather few.  Despite enlightened management species like the grizzled skipper, the green hairstreak or the pearl-bordered fritillary no longer seem to be present.

However, there was a compensation.  In a waist high grove of aspen suckers we found several groups of the larvae of the ladybird-like leaf beetle Gonioctena decemnotata, a Nationally Notable (B) species normally found on aspen.

The remarkable thing was that each group of the black leaf-munching larvae was guarded nearby by an adult, presumably mother.

Such solicitousness for offspring is rare in the insect world and I would imagine a small vegetarian beetle would have minimal ability to drive off a hungry predator.  Does the red colour, I wonder, act as a sort of stop light and say "keep your distance."

The only other East Sussex record for this species I can find is from Bixley Wood a few miles from the Brede High Wood site.

Flies for fine wines

Yesterday we saw several small flies scooting about on a sticky film of fungus mixed, maybe, with sap on the  stump of a tree felled last year.

I went back today and was later able to identify the insects as one of the commoner fruit flies (Drosophila subobscura) below.

Usually they go for fermenting fruits and can be a pest in breweries and distilleries though, according to one account, they "transfer wild yeasts that give fine wines their bouquet."

These were not the only invertebrates active along this particular bank: a queen bumblebee droned by and a marmalade fly (Episyrphus balteatus) settled on a foxglove leaf.

There were more primroses and celandines out today as well as some less conspicuous early developers such as the dog's mercury (Mercurialis perennis) and swan's-neck thyme-moss (Mnium hornum) below.

 

The end of winter

This afternoon we walked in the warm sunshine for a couple of hours round the High Woods.  Very few flowers are out yet apart from the hazels, but we did see a primrose and a celandine.

 

On Brede High Heath young birch is being cut to make jumps for horse racing.  This will also help to keep the area fairly clear so that heather and other heathland species can flourish.

There is much evidence that the wild boar are moving westwards in the woods and we found several rootings including this one at Brede High Farm where the animal appeared to be digging up road stone - perhaps showing off to a potential mate.

With the brighter light and still no leaves on the trees, the lower plants show up well on the trunks where many species of moss, lichen, liverwort, algae and fungi can often be found happily growing together.

This picture shows the dilated scalewort (Frullania dilatata), a widespread liverwort that usually grows on tree trunks (like this one).

Large, rare longhorn beetle

I have just found out that my friend Dave Monk took a splendid photo of the Red Data Book 3 longhorn beetle Mesosa nebulosa in Brede High Woods last July.

This is the first record of this species in Sussex and it shows how important these woods are for invertebrates.

M. nebulosa does not visit flowers and often remains high in the canopy, so it is rarely recorded. The larvae bore into the cambium and later the sapwood of various trees.

Winter wonders

A short gallery of some of the things that are going on in the woods this winter showing there is still much to see

First, three plants that have appeared among the wood chip where a dense stand of Christmas trees, Norway spruce, was cleared in the autumn.

Young rosettes of heath groundsel (Senecio sylvaticus).

A broad bean or field bean (Vicia faba) seedling.

Fat hen (Chenopodium album) seedling.

The lying snow over the last few days has altered the landscape. Particularly telling in the Saturday sunshine were the silver birches in another area from which conifers have been recently removed.

Rather more visceral is the fungus jelly drops or purple jelly disc (Ascocoryne sarcoides) found growing on a long-dead fallen tree trunk. The orange bracket in the background is hairy stereum (Stereum hirsutum)

November surprises

On a very wet afternoon a friend and I walked around the recently cleared parts of Sedlescombe Heath south of the Wood Yard Entrance.

There is now a rich assortment of fungi along the rides and a particularly attractive find was a few dotted-stemmed bolete (Boletus erythropus) along the ride through Great Brook Wood.  Kew's checklist of British basidiomycota says it is usually associated with oaks, but known with other deciduous trees such as birch, sweet chestnut and beech and occasionally with conifers such as Scot's pine.  This very much fits the bill for the place where they were found.

We walked back by the plot south of the orchard cleared in August/September of a dense stand of Norway spruce.  It was very gratifying to see many seedlings of heath groundsel (Senecio sylvestris) and sheep's sorrel (Rumex acetosella) making a good showing on the bare ground.  We wondered if the seed had been there for years, or if it had blown in since the clearance.  The former I suspect.