We hope you’re enjoying the new issue of Nature’s Home, currently reaching homes across the UK. It’s packed full of things to see and do this season - here’s just a small selection of creatures to look out for in the coming weeks.
Winter waders at their summery best
Catch a dunlin in its summer plumage. (Photo: Mike Langman, rspb-images.com)
Early-returning Arctic waders are still in their breeding finery when they first arrive. Take a look at grey plovers, knots, godwits, turnstones or dunlins this month - they are stunning.
As an example, a bar-tailed godwit looks like a different bird in summer; its head and front flame with chestnut orange, fading to speckled buff later in the year. Turnstones love harbours, sea walls and jetties - look out for their coppery summer plumage and the habit that gives them their name - turning over stones to find morsels beneath.
When: Head to the coast in the next few weeks; bright summer plumage will start to fade in the months ahead.
Where: These shoreline birds haunt our coasts, feeding on rocky shores, muddy harbours or estuarial shallows. For reserves, try RSPB Blackfoft Sands, RSPB Snettisham, RSPB Newport Wetlands or RSPB Langstone Harbour.
Find a hornet hoverfly
The large but harmless Volucella zonaria disguises itself as a hornet - but those big ‘fly eyes’ give it away. (Illustration: Chris Shields, rspb-images.com)
Our two biggest hoverflies may take you by surprise this summer, perching on flowers or buzzing past. Both the hornet hoverfly and lesser hornet hoverfly are great hornet mimics, hence their common names.
These pollinating hoverflies only colonised the UK during the 1940s. At 2cm long the honey overlay looks beefy and dangerous, but this is a ploy to deter predators; it’s completely harmless. Not only that, but its larvae thrive in active wasps’ nests without getting stung, and repays its hosts by cleaning up their debris and rubbish inside the nest.
When: Peaking in August, lingering until October.
Where: Woodland, parkland and gardens in London and the South of England. Now spreading north into Midlands and as far as Cheshire.
Listen out for bush crickets
Great green bush crickets are noisy at night. (Photo: Ben Andrew, rspb-images.com)
Bush-crickets are much easier to hear than to see. Getting a view of one in the vegetation is not easy, but start by following the sound (stridulation) to see where it takes you.
Crickets stridulate by rubbing their wings together, unlike grasshoppers which use one leg as a ‘violin bow’ to rub against their wings.
They’re noisiest at night or dusk; tread carefully to see if you can creep up on one with a torch. Great green bush crickets are our largest; speckled bush crickets are arguably our most widespread; or see if you can track down a dark bush or Roesel's bush-cricket this August. Click here for a species guide.
When: Crickets are coming to maturity in August, having hatched in May or June. If the good weather continues into autumn, so will they.
Where: Dry vegetation, grasses and hedgerows are a great place to start - and there’s plenty of those around at the moment! But crickets can turn up anywhere; inside your tent, among your picnic, on park benches, windowsills and all sorts of foliage, so keep an eye out.
Enjoy a painted lady
Vanessa cardui, the painted lady, can travel long distances, and is found across the world. (Photo: Chris Gomersall, rspb-images.com)
Painted ladies are an enigmatic butterfly species in the UK, arriving in huge numbers some summers, with hardly any in others!
They come here to lay their eggs. Thistles are their preferred nursery, but nettles and mallows also feature in their early life cycle, and caterpillars will pupate among these plants until they emerge as adults in August. Come autumn, they’ll flutter all the way to northern Africa in autumn rather than hibernate here; though some won’t make it.
Will it be a painted lady August? See how many you can find in the coming weeks.
When: August is peak painted lady time; they may linger until October if the weather’s OK.
Where: These butterflies drink nectar from sunlit flowers (which sounds a very enviable lifestyle to me!)… so just follow the bees and keep your eyes out!
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