A Smaller World, but Limitless

Everyone’s world seems to have got smaller, we cannot travel around as we were used to doing, favourite places are denied to us. We have our homes and with luck a view of some sort, many will have a garden and how many of us will be appreciating this anew, not a chore to look after but haven. Then there is the daily walk, it may only be a mile or two but I’ll bet, like me, you will be seeing with new eyes what has been there all along, but previously overlooked.

It reminds me of childhood, in those days my world was the garden and a distance from home I could easily walk or later cycle. If you have a car you don’t really get to know your local area as you drive through it, only on foot do you see the details and appreciate the lay of the land.

What you soon begin to see is that this smaller world is still full of more things than you could know in a lifetime, the more detail you see the more there is to find. Lots of birdwatchers, confined to home have been scanning the skies and suddenly seeing bird flying over that they never imagined. I suspect Hampshire will see as many osprey reported this spring as in any year, despite almost nobody getting out to the “Hotspots” for this species. A remarkable feature has been the realisation that there are common scoter migrating overland night after night, if you go and stand in your garden you have a fair chance of hearing some flying over, eventually. I would add I would avoid standing in my garden, which has been a stubbornly scoter-free area! Who would have thought that you could get a sea duck on your garden bird list even if you live an hour or more drive from the sea.

A garden will have wildlife, you may need to look for it a bit but it will be there. The other day I noticed several tiny moths flying in the sunshine around my front door, they were a micro most called Esperia sulphurella, they were often landing on the wall of the house, so I went to get my camera. Just as I was lining up my shot, having got as close as I could I saw that several other pairs of eyes had also spotted the same target.

zebra spider with Esperia sulphurella

I later realised that several of these zebra jumping spiders were patrolling the wall and more than one had caught the same prey as they warmed on the brickwork.

The sunshine has had lots of insects warming themselves on suitable surfaces, I have some large Echiums growing the garden and they seem especially popular with sunning solitary bees and ladybirds, such as this 7-spot ladybird.

7-spot ladybird on Echium leaf.

The sun has meant that I have had the camera out, trying to get shots of some of the trickier species, the hoverers and the darters of this world, where a sharp picture is as much about luck as technique. I have been trying to get a flight shot of a bee-fly for ages, it requires a very fast shutter speed, actually faster than I can manage with my camera, and if I open the aperture the depth of field gets very small, still it can produce a result of sorts from time to time.

dark-bordered bee-fly, Bombylius major

I wonder if, when we are let out into the wider world again, we will see it with new eyes, perhaps seeing the myriad little pictures that go to make up the big picture, and appreciating all of it the more.

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30 Days Wild – Day 27 – On the Marsh

The majority of my day was spent at one of our occasional staff meetings, a chance to catch up with what other members of staff have been doing, learn about the projects and discuss future direction. Despite their undoubted value, it is often difficult to be sat indoors on a fine day, although on such a warm day being in the shade was not that unwelcome.

After the meeting I went down to as saltmarsh site beside Southampton Water to try to assist with a research project looking at the worrying rates of change along the eroding outer edged of the marshes. Large sections of The Solent coast has a margin of saltmarsh, this narrow strip of habitat has a whole suite of specialised species that live nowhere else. Unfortunately sea level rise and the lack of space for these habitats to migrate inland is meaning they are disappearing as they get squeezed out of existence.

The saltmarsh along Southampton Water is very diverse with lots of the characteristic species of these habitats. The outer edges have banks of shells known as cherniers which can smother the vegetation, if they kill leaving bare mud this can get more easily eroded although it can be recolonised by plants such as glasswort.

glasswort colonising mud on the chernier edge

The lack of freshwater makes a saltmarsh somewhat similar to a very arid area and some of the adaptations are similar, for example fleshy and glaucous leaves.

sea purslane growing through the chernier bank

Inland from the shell banks the marshes are very flat, but still have variety in the form of creeks and subtle changes in elevation. These are enough to offer a variety of slightly different niches. In shorter areas sea-spurrey  can be common and its starry flowers are popular with the insects that also live out on the marshes.

sea-spurrey flower

The higher areas of long-established marshes can have large areas of sea-lavender are very popular with insects and produce large swathes of colour.

sea-lavender in flower

Returning home I had time for a quick look at the meadow.

What’s in My Meadow Today?

There were several small skipper and a meadow brown or two in what is now a very dry meadow. Most of the grasses are brown or yellow, but the deeper rooted perennial herbs are still green and many in full flower. Wandering over the vegetation I found a 7-spot ladybird. This used to be our commonest larger ladybird, before the arrival of the harlequin ladybird from SE Asia, via the horticultural trade.

7-spot ladybird