Visiting Royalty

Like all responsible people, unless key workers of course, I have mostly been at home, looking for wildlife in the garden and keeping lists of all the birds that visit or fly over. I even saw my first hedgehog in the garden last night. I have found the odd dropping before so knew they visited occasionally, but last night I was out with the bat detector and there was one snuffling around the mini-meadow.

Last year I caught a female emperor moth in the trap and collected some of the eggs she laid, I reared the caterpillars and now the moths are emerging. The first one out was a female. In this species the females emerge and then wait until they attract a male to mate with, the males fly in sunshine and can come in from hundreds of metres away drawn in by the female’s pheromones. So I decided to put the freshly emerged female in the garden and see who came to call. The answer on the first afternoon was nobody, but yesterday that changed, the male flew in fluttered around to locate exactly where she was and then mated.

Emperor moth pair, the brighter male in front

The males do not generally fly at night and rest up to wait for the sunshine. The females after emerging and mating wait until dark and then fly off to lay their eggs, although they usually lay a few at the mating site first. This is presumably a good way to ensure dispersal and maximise the chance of a new generation surviving.

So far my lockdown bird list for the garden stands at 46 species, not bad and I have several usually regular species that have gone unaccountably absent, so I feel 50 is well in reach. Highlight so far has been a roding woodcock over the garden and two red kite which flew low overhead the other day. The  last not a rare site for many these days, but still quite unusual in my part of the county.

Today I am going to take part in the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) survey of garden plants, they are seeking all records of native or naturalised species found in gardens, including ones you have established yourself (so long as you tell them you did so). You can find details on their website, it should show how important gardens are fro wild plants and so, by extension insects and much more.

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