I live on the Tyntesfield National Trust Estate and I am a keen naturalist, filmmaker and photographer. Through this blog, I hope to show a series of moments in the lives of the wildlife, big and small, that live here on the Estate with me.
A very special visitor this week. A Hummingbird hawk-moth. A summer visitor to the UK and only the second one I've ever seen in my life (and last time I was slightly drunk so could never be sure). This time, despite much over excited fumbling with my camera, I did manage to get a picture. This was taken in the 'Lady Garden' at Tyntesfield. Really.
Also sighted over Tyntesfield this week was a Red Kite, not by myself, but I've seen a picture and hope it's a sign of things to come.
This is a bit of a retro post as most of these pictures are from a couple of weeks ago (early June), but there are still stories to be told. First, above, is a splendid Cockchafer beetle I found legs up in the air outside my back door one morning. The evening air had been busy with the sound of their flight, the sound of disappointment, zzzzzd thud, zzzzzzzd thud. Apparently not masters of aerobatics, they are nonetheless one of my favourite summer sights and sounds.
Froglet in adult human hand (for scale)
FROGS
It was also time to release some of our tank reared froglets into the wild. You may have to zoom in to the pictures to see them, but to see them go was a proud moment.
Froglet released (centre frame on grass)
Froglet goes wild
Common Blue Damselfly
Female Common Blue Damselfly with damaged wings
Damselflies have been busy at the Kitchen Garden pond as shown in last weeks's post. The blue ones are males. These pictures show a female with a crooked body and damaged wings, below being 'buzzed' by an amorous male.
Female Common Blue Damselfly buzzed by blue male
Remarkably, over a week later I saw apparently the same animal on the same leaf stem still getting buzzed by males. I have some pictures I need to check to see if it is the same flightless individual, but tragically I saw her finally grabbed by a male and carried off. With the male unable to power them both in flight, they crash landed into the water. The male was able to fly off, the female was not so fortunate.
It's all been happening at the kitchen garden pond this week. Damselflies are already busy courting, in the pictures you can see the tip of the blue male's abdomen attached to the neck of the female, this is the prelude to mating.
In the video clip below you can see the two males having a brief chat whilst the females below do the same.
After watching the damsels for a while I became aware of something else in distress. A mature dragonfly nymph had crawled up the wall of the pond with a grotesque appendage...
Dragonfly nymph climbs out of the pond to escape attacker
Another dragonfly nymph had firmly attached himself to the escapee, his jaws clamped to where the wings should one day soon burst forth. I initially thought the 'victim' had been attacked as he or she prepared to leave the pond and moult, but eventually the attacker released his grip and both animals returned to the water. This said to me that, in this case, leaving the water was purely an act of avoiding predation.
Emperor Dragonfly nymph leaving the water
The same could not be said for this individual. As it hauled itself up the Iris stem, looking very likely to begin final metamorphosis at any moment, it came under attack from a completely unexpected source...
This frog is the first frog reportedly seen in this pond for over 25 years, vertical walls making it an unlikely home for anything without the power of flight. The frog took several leaps at the dragonfly nymph, proving ultimately unsuccessful as the pond's previous contender as resident top predator managed to climb out of reach.
Dragonfly nymph ready to emerge from its larval case
Initially I thought the exertion had been too much for the dragonfly. Several hours later the nymph still hung unchanged. I feared it had missed the moment and would die slowly in the tomb of its underwater skin, but the next morning I found an empty larval case and no dragonfly, so it must have made it to adulthood after all. No sign of the frog since, but I'm sure there's more than enough food to keep one solitary amphibian happy.
Detail of emerging adult
On my evening visit I did manage to catch one dragonfly mid moult, the video clip shows it pulling clear of the larval case and inflating the wings (sped up).
I had to go home before the wings were dry and skeleton hardened ready for adult life, but returning the next morning I was privileged to see and film another take off into the sky for the first time.
The Dragonflies are rising once again in the kitchen garden pond. In their aquatic stage they are voracious predators, a tadpole's worst nightmare... Luckily for the one's pictured below, they grew up in a tank in my garden and some are now departing as froglets.
In late May large dragonfly larvae could be found all around the perimeter of the kitchen garden pond at regular intervals of about a foot. I knew next to nothing about these creatures other than they were ferocious predators with impressive spring loaded jaws and that the majority of their life was spent underwater.
Phil the gardener told me they were Emperor Dragonflies, which I believe are Britain's largest species. For the next couple of weeks I visited the pond regularly hoping to witness their emergence from the pond and into the air.
newly emerged adult Emperor Dragonfly
I imagined this would happen over a short time on a single day as with ants, but I was to learn (to my convenience) that the hatching season was spread over a few weeks and that individuals could emerge at any time of day. I also learnt how hazardous this transition could be for the dragonflies. A fair number failed to successfully emerge from their larval cases, getting stuck at various stages of the process.
stuck
The weather was often brutal, but just as many attempted to make it out on bad days as good, only for many to be blown back into the water they had just come from. The most tragic conclusions were where the wings failed to unfold and inflate properly - a perfect adult dragonfly with useless wings, so near yet so far...
empty larval cases
That said, I was amazed by how many dragonflies did emerge successfully from such a relatively small pond, well over a hundred in my estimation (from counting the empty larval cases). On the day I managed to film the entire transformation it took approximately 1 hour for the adult to emerge from the case, about 30 minutes for the wings to inflate and around another 30 minutes for everything to harden before being ready to fly.
wings drying after emergence
This was a warm breezy day, I guess that the time taken can vary depending both on the weather conditions and the individual (apparently bigger larvae seemed to get it done quicker). By next year I should have read my Dragonfly book and know more.
adult Emperor Dragonfly
Now the mature larvae have gone, a new generation of previously unseen small larvae are now prowling proudly in the pond. Now there is less chance of them being eaten, they'll be the pond's top predators until their own time comes to find their wings.
