Tag Archives: London WIldlife Trust

Suddenly my office is full of entomologists

Posted on July 2, 2017 | Leave a comment

This is the third year that London Wildlife Trust have been able to fund a traineeship scheme in environmental conservation, and for two days in June they agree to be indoctrinated in entomology.

The theme is the familiar one — How to be a curious entomologist. In practice this means learning how to go out and find insects, look at them closely, then collect sample specimens for later identification. The simple act of making a small insect collection is fascinating, fun, and yet still scientifically worthwhile.

First find your insects, and this year’s habitat of choice is the Devonshire Road Nature Reserve in Lewisham. Unlike last year, when the monsoon came, the weather was perfect; comfortable for both insects and entomologists alike.

: The old get-in-there-with-them technique.

: Entomologists all over the place.

: Typical entomologist stoop over the net.

: Mating ringlets offer a good opportunity to observe insect behaviour

: Train travellers have not seen this level of net activity for some time.

: Everything is examined carefully.

: Apparently the beating tray can be also used as an umbrella if you are so inclined.

: What is that twit in the background doing? He’s posing, that’s what he’s doing. Posing!

Devonshire Road has a classroom, easily converted to a laboratory, and a walk in the woods can now settle down to take on a scientific air.

Suddenly my office is full of entomologists.

As usual everything looks amazing down the microscope, but the importance of an insect collection is not aesthetic, it is scientific, and many of the finds are unusual.

: Ant size differential — Leptothorax (left) and Myrmica

: One of the many Tephritis species on thistles.

: A Urophora — we had a good crop of picture-winged flies.

: The gothic gargoyle of Issus coleoptratus, Britain’s plumpest leaf-hopper.

: The elegant pubescent form of Lagria hirta, one of the darkling beetles.

: Mordellistena neuwaldeggiana, a nationally scarce skipping flower beetle.

: The Pinocchio weevil, Rhopalapion longirostre, the female, with her unfeasibly long nose.

After several years of running London Wildlife Trust trainee courses, and similar one-day events for all-comers, the Devonshire Road insect collection is starting to look good.

Work in progress. Many specimens have already been extracted, identified and incorporated into my and others’ reference collections.

For some of the back story to the workshops, go to this previous blog entry from the workshop at Beckenham Place Park in 2016, and the original workshops in 2012. There are links onwards to further workshop reports, links on making and curating insect collections and other entomological websites.

There will be more entomologists at Devonshire Road later in the year — 22 and 23 July. At the time of writing there are still places available on both days.

Open to all.

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Posted in General Stuff, Surveys

Tagged Devonshire Road Nature Reserve, How to be a curious entomologist, London WIldlife Trust, Wild Talent

A spider-eating fly is nearly as good as a man biting a dog

Posted on July 19, 2016 | Leave a comment

According to my in-depth research on Wikipedia just now, the man-bites-dog aphorism about news-worthy stories has been attributed to several media magnates and journalists. No dogs were bitten in the writing of this blog, but I suspect very many spiders were eaten by flies.

This is the fly that made the news.

The microcephalic hunchback that is Ogcodes pallipes.

Look at the dark-edged squama on that thing.

It’s a strange-looking creature, with the semi-official but not very politically correct English name ‘black-rimmed hunchback’. I’ve never come across a member of the bizarre spider parasitoid fly family Acroceridae before. They (three UK species) all appear to be widespread, across southern England at least, but they are very scarce, and records are few and scattered. Not having functional mouthparts means the adults are short-lived, probably only surviving for a few hours or days.

I’m left wondering why the small head? Perhaps it’s like a jumbo jet, the cockpit remains the same size no matter how much you enlarge the fuselage. In the case of the fly the body of the female (which this is) is simply an egg manufacturing and storage facility, with up to 4000 microscopic eggs being laid by a related non-British species. The tiny (0.3 mm) larvae actively seek out spiders to parasitize, and of course a fly that attacks spiders is definitely news-worthy.

And here is the news that it made:

I had my picture taken with the mayor too, but London Wildlife Trust wisely decided I was the least photogenic member of the cast and edited me out in favour of the hunchback.

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Tagged Braeburn Park, London WIldlife Trust, Ogcodes pallipes

Nice weather for water beetles — not

Posted on July 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

One of the delights of entomology is that you can always find insects — any place, any time of day, any time of year. They are so many and so diverse that you can find them everywhere. On Monday 20 June 2016 my thesis, however, was about to be sorely tested. At the height of the British summer (quite literally, since this was the day of the summer solstice this year), it was tanking down. And insects really don’t like the rain.

When I started the ‘Curious Entomologist‘ workshops my title was partly inspired by Simon Barnes’s book How to be a bad birdwatcher. His credo was similarly based on the notion that if you look out of the kitchen window on a winter’s day you will see no mammals, reptiles or amphibians — but you will see birds. You can always find birds; and you can always find pleasure in them. This is even more true of insects. You might have to look a bit harder, a little closer perhaps, but they are always there, and they can always be found.

This, then, was to be my pompously grand claim when offering a two-day class to some London Wildlife trainees; “Let’s go and find some insects” I said, as we peered through the rain splattered classroom windows, off into the sodden undergrowth of Devonshire Road Nature Reserve. No-one seemed very enthusiastic. Nevertheless, we trudged off into the deluge.

I hate to tell you, but you’re holding that beating tray upside down.

We caught one butterfly; sort of.

The plan behind the workshop was to introduce the environmental management trainees to some of the basics of entomology — how to use nets, beating trays, collecting tubes, hand lenses and microscope. How to find insects, if necessary how to deal with sample specimens collected for identification, and how to mount, label and store them for later examination, or for forwarding to someone else to look at. We were struggling at the ‘find’ stage, though.

Previous LWT events at the reserve were alive with insects — butterflies and bees flying past our ears, and the sweep nets thronging with small fry to look at back in the make-shift laboratory. Today I was going to be happy finding a few watery woodlice and some damp springtails. If this were an environmental survey, I’d have taken one look out of the kitchen window and immediately rescheduled. Insects really, really, do not like rain — even water beetles. Entomologists aren’t that fond of it either really.

Back in the classroom I was given the butterfly bucket of tea to try and revive me.

Despite our meagre findings, microscope work is still very rewarding — everything, but everything is revealed as a miniature marvel of colour or form.

We’d found a few waterlogged grass bugs, a couple of speckled bush-cricket nymphs, bedraggled dung flies, some centipedes, and those woodlice. OK that was enough to be getting on with I suppose, and there was a fair bit of interest as we examined them under the stereoscopes. Then there was this.

Gymnosoma rotundatum, nationally rare (red data book) shield-bug parasitoid.

This scarce southern fly had occurred on the site before (2007), but to have one turn up in the net of the proverbial tyro was a gift. It proved there was an ongoing colony here, in what is one of its most northerly and most urban localities. This is exactly the thing to demonstrate how beginners can find unusual and scarce things, but that they are usually small, need to be collected and need to be preserved so that an expert can spot them. A very positive end to the day.

Thankfully day two was brighter and, more importantly, drier. Now we could get stuck in.

: Top tip here folks, using acetone-free nail varnish remover instead of killing fluid.

: Collaboration and competition in equal measure.

: Actual short-sleave weather.

: Ringlets moved into this part of South London about 20 years ago.

: A bright shirt always brightens up the day too.

: The lesser stag beetle, Dorcus, handsome, and always a pleasing find.

Two more unusual finds confirmed that you do not need the accustomed eye of the hardened bugman to find scarce insects:

Female of Eucera longicornis. A more obviously long-horned male turned up further down the railway line, at Hither Green, in 2008. Good to know there are established colonies in this area.

A tiny weevil, Acalles misellus; not necessarily scarce, but secretive, and new to me. A 'dead hedge' species, declining in an age when dead hedges are

A tiny weevil, Acalles misellus; not necessarily scarce, but secretive, and new to me. A ‘dead hedge’ species, declining in an era when dead hedges are no longer a common boundary construction.

So we ended on a high — the trainees enthused that unusual and weird bugs loitered in every hedge bottom and me that we could, after all, find insects no matter the weather.

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Posted in General Stuff, Surveys

Tagged Devonshire Road Nature Reserve, London WIldlife Trust, rain, training

Not a powerpoint presentation in sight

Posted on June 12, 2016 | Leave a comment

Last Friday saw me at London Wildlife Trust’s newest reserve at Woodberry Wetlands, off the Seven Sisters Road in North London, giving a workshop grandly entitled: Identifying butterflies, moths and invertebrates. So just all insects then.

Like other conservation organizations, London Wildlife Trust can get great exposure, and some extra funding, by offering events like this to a fee-paying public. But just how to pitch the vast and complex world of entomology to 10 strangers with little or no expert knowledge of the natural world? My dilemma was compounded by the fact that I’d be getting there by public transport, travelling through central London in the rush hour, and trekking from Manor House Tube on foot.

Actually, that more or less sorted it — travel light. So in the spirit of less is more I was able to follow my usual path of avoiding powerpoint presentations and concentrated on waving my arms about, then waving a net.

There was arm and net waving from the very beginning.

One of the delights of entomology is that anyone can study insects with a minimum of equipment, and with immediate success. We were armed with rudimentary sweep nets and beating trays and an assortment of plastic tubes and bottles. As usual, it was all very Heath-Robinson.

Just look at the childish glee on that face, and yet I've seen it all before.

Just look at the childish glee on that face, and yet I’m the one who’s seen it all before.

This, then, was my message, delivered with a smirk and an exuberant shirt: the only equipment you need is your eyes. We went off with no expectations and no prior knowledge of the site to see what would turn up, and to try and fit that into how insects are classified, how we might tell them apart, and how even a beginner can contribute through the multifarious tendrils of citizen science.

Woodberry being a lake, almost the first insect we found was the water ladybird, Anisoticta novemdecimpunctata, and the record was uploaded to the UK Ladybird Survey within minutes. Job done. This was shortly followed by the smaller Coccidula scutellata, another reed-bed ladybird.

During our circuit of the reservoir we found plenty to occupy us, and a list of species has been supplied to the trust. We finished off back at the classroom where I quickly set a couple of flies to have a look at under the microscope.

All you need is a basic (and cheap) stereomicroscope with low power, nothing fancy.

I’ve already come up with my own short list of introductory identification guides, it might need a bit of updating occasionally. This is the one that stands out at the top:

Full of superb pictures and concise clear text, you can see how much wear my copy has had.

Full of superb pictures and concise clear text, you can see how much wear my paperback copy has had.

All in all, an enjoyable day for me, to be able to chat about and demonstrate even quite common insects to an enthusiastic party. More in the future I hope. Thanks to Penny Dixie, a volunteer at the reserve, for taking so many photos. Here is another selection:

: Tree bumble, Bombus hypnorum

: Fave longhorn of the day, wasp beetle, Clytus arietis

: Mayfly dun, a flying larva, of sorts.

: Are they hanging on my every word? Or dazzled by the shirt?

: More net waving.

: More hand waving.

: Vigour is everything with the net sweep.

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Tagged arm waving, London WIldlife Trust, net waving, teaching, Woodberry Wetlands, workshop

More curious entomologists

Posted on July 22, 2015 | 3 comments

Following on from the earlier how to be a curious entomologist workshops covering basic entomological techniques, London Wildlife Trust asked me, in June, to take some of their trainees through a brief introduction to finding insects, making a collection and using identification guides.

There was a time when collecting insects was a common hobby amongst anyone who lived in the countryside. But since far fewer people now live outside cities, and with a certain uneasiness about killing wildlife, what I once took to be an easy introduction to studying nature is now an alien, potentially suspicious, activity carried out by oddball eccentrics. In one of my previous blogs I’ve argued why collecting insects is still vitally important, here’s the link. These workshops, run erratically and piecemeal as sponsor organizations approach me, are all part my effort, as a fully paid-up eccentric, to start normalizing entomology again.

First set up your laboratory.

Over the years I’ve accumulated half a dozen simple stereomicroscopes. Starting at about x10 magnification, these were perfect for learning how to set beetles, gluing them onto offcuts of white card. Some came with their own in-built lights, for the others I had a selection of cheap desktop lights. All set.

Next head out into Devonshire Road Nature Reserve in Lewisham. The combination of small classroom space and wildlife site was perfect.

I’ve also accumulated a selection of nets and beating trays. It was glorious weather, so finding the insects was easy. Entomologists are so thin on the ground, that I still marvel when I see anyone else using a net. Here were six others. A gaggle?

The old climb-in-with-them technique of collecting flies.

Lots of interesting things turned up, including the scarce flower beetle Mordellochroa abdominalis, ringlets applenty, lesser stag beetles Dorcus parallelipipedus, the recently arrived hollyhock weevil, Rhopalapion longirostre, and this scarce picture-winged fly, Acinia corniculata.

Acinia corniculata.

This is listed as an endangered species, red data book category 1, and I first found it only about 250 metres away at the Honor Oak Covered Reservoir about 15 years ago. It lays its eggs in the flower heads of knapweed, a common enough plant, but obviously needs something more. It may be turning up more regularly now, but is still scarce. Two specimens found close together in a thick bundle of knapweed showed that there was a breeding colony here.

Back in the makeshift laboratory there was carding, pinning and setting.