Queen Ants

Queen ant nest building

Did not have to go far this morning to find a bit of natural history action. In fact these pictures were taken two paces from my front door. Over the last couple of days we have hot and humid weather here. These are the classic conditions for ants to swarm in mating flights. Two days ago the air was full of flying ants. Mating flight now over the queens are looking to set up home. One has decided that my brick pavier drive would be ideal and has started digging down between the bricks. Probably a good choice, the bricks will provide protection and absorb heat that will be released overnight to keep the developing ants warm. At the moment she is on her own, but is full of fertilised eggs. Once she has formed a chamber she will lay eggs and look after the grubs. When they grow up they will be the worker ants that will expand the nest and look after her every need. These could be her last few days in the sun before she becomes an underground egg laying machine.

Burnet Moth Invasion!

Six Spot Burnet Moth (Zygaena filipendulae)

The grassland on top of the coal tips has come alive with Burnet moths. I sort of expected this as the number of cocoons stuck to grass blades was impressive earlier this year. Was not quite ready for that many. I counted 100 in an area of about 5m by 5m. Large numbers flying and a lot more breeding. Seems they mate as soon as they emerge as many couples are right next to empty cocoons. Burnet moths are a stunning example of our daytime flying moths. The handsome blue black wing with a hint of oily irredesence, covered with red splodges that looks like a child's finger painting. They are strong fliers and capable of a fair turn of speed. Even better, from a photographers perspective, they are easy to approach. Perhaps they are made brave as they contain cyanide that they picked up as caterpillars off their food plant, Birds foot trefoil. Those distinctivly moth like antenna are worth a look as well.

Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)

The butterflies are doing well. Numbers of Graylings and Small Heaths are up and I finally managed to get a photograph of a Meadow Brown. The Meadow Brown is easily one of our most common butterflies but tricky to photograph. Even on overcast days the Meadow Brown is seriously active, in the sun it never seems to stop! This one was far to interested was in feeding on the bramble flower to be disturbed by me.

Dragonflies on the Coal Tips....

Keeled Skimmer (Orthetrum coerulescens)

Managed to find three of our larger Dragonflies up on the Coal Tips. The most spectacular the Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator) was only seen in passing - it shot past revealing its distinctive drooping abdomen. This is one of our largest dragonflies and it would have been nice to get shot. However it did not favour me with a return flight.
I got a lot luckier with my next spot, it was a Keeled Skimmer. A pair of these rather attractive blue dragonflies were hawking up and down over a boggy stretch of path. By the look of it this area is always wet, it has reeds and sphagnum moss. I suspect that this is an area where water draining through the coal waste emerges. Not that these dragonflies cared. I watched them for some time before taking a couple of shots and leaving. This was not a breeding pair, they both seemed to be males.

Up on the top of the Coal Tip I met up with one of our most charismatic larger dragonflies the Goldringed. This black and yellow stripped  insect defends a defined territory, this makes it easier photograph. Within its territory it will maintain certain prominent positions that it uses as perches. This Goldring was hunting and showing off the flying skills that these insects are renowned for. While I was their it hovered, changed direction at 90 degree angles, accelerated and decelerated hard, and flew backwards. I was also checked out as a perch, being a stationary high point. Much as I would have been honoured it would have made photography tricky! Eventually the dragonfly made a kill and returned to a gorse bush perch to have a munch. I tracked his perch down by sound - you could hear him crunching, what turned out to be a wasp. By the time I had crept up close most of the wasp was history, however the dragonfly hung around and allowed me to get really close. Fantastic creature!

Common Goldring (Cordulegaster boltonii)

Butterflies on the Lady Windsor Spoil heap...

Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus)

I have been up to the old coal waste heaps again, and it is magic! Such a mosaic of habitats, and hot - like an oven. Standing on the very top a rich grassland shot through with yellow of birdsfoot triefoil and hawkweed rolls away from you. The paths are black with coal waste and shimmer with heat haze, it smells sweet. The only sounds the skylarks and enough grasshoppers to form an orchestra every square meter. In amongst all this are our sun worshipping butterflies.

Our first character is the Small Heath, which is indeed small, it has a 4cm wingspan. It is an easy one to spot in flight. It looks like a little tan orange fleck throwing itself over the grass tussocks. It never seems to make a lot of height and lands every meter or so. On landing it lines itself up side on to the sun, it tilts its wings like a solar panel to get optimum heat gain, then it is off again tumbling over the meadow. The Small Heath is having mixed fortunes at the moment as it losing habitat due to "improvement" of old meadows. This particular South Wales colony is doing fine, several hundred I'd estimate.

Grayling (Hipparchia semele)

Next up is an interesting and much larger butterfly, the Grayling. Interesting because in the UK it has a coastal distribution, this colony is at least 30 miles inland. The colony is not large and seems to be collected around a small patch at one end of the site. Plenty of suitable habitat around suggesting it is a fairly new colony. This butterfly is a strong flyer and another ground rester. When it lands, like the Small Heath, it sits side on to the sun. Does not bother with the wing tilting however. On landing the tan eye spot on the bottom of the front wings is clearly visible, this is displayed for a second or two, and then folded behind the rear wings. At this point it vanishes, if you look away and then look back it can take several seconds to relocate it. The reason for this is the stunningly cryptic markings on the underside of the rear wings. I noticed that they also liked the fence posts so I staked one out and within short order had some photographs. They are easy to approach once landed as their camouflage will only work if they stay very still. If you do push your luck, you get a warning, the eye spot reappears. It may not be the most colourful of butterflies but it must have the best textured pattern.

Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris)

Last but least only by size is the Small Skipper. This little character is always a delight. It flies with the most rapid wing beat of any British butterfly and is always busy - it loves Birdsfoot triefoil. When it does rest you can see its odd almost biplane approach to wings that gives it a distinctive look and unique flight. Large numbers of these were shooting around at high speed, nothing wrong with their numbers!

I also saw a lot of Meadow Browns but completely failed to get photographs. Meadow Browns can fly in much cooler conditions than most butterflies. They seemed to be using the heat as an excuse to never stop. A couple of Small Tortoiseshells were also seen, but have spoken about these in a previous entry. Next time we will look at dragonflies, yes I have ended my dragonfly drought!

Up on the Coal spoil heaps.

6 Spot Burnet Moth Caterpillar

Birdsfoot Trefoil, the food plant

Went out this morning to further explore the top of the coal spoil heaps from the Lady Windsor mine. The grassland on top is stunning, nutrient poor and full of flowers. It was the Burnet moth cocoons that were really noticeable (Zygaena filipendulae). I counted 40 in a single meter square! Also a lot of Burnet catapillars around but I only saw a single adult flying around. It is hardly surprising that this moth is doing so well up here as its food plant, Birdsfoot Trefoil, is everywhere. I even managed to get a picture of one of the caterpillars making a silken cocoon. They don't have it all their own way however as one of the caterpillars clearly had little red mites on it. I have seen these mites on adult common blue butterflies before, I'm not sure if they are the same species.

Burnet moth caterpillar making a cocoon