Smoking trees

I gave a talk to the East Grinstead RSPB Local Group this week (about my day job setting up nature reserves), but as always found a little time to talk about gardening for wildlife too.

In the interval, a Mr and Mrs Bishop came up to me with a question about some insects that they'd seen in their garden behaving like Starlings, wondering what they were.

They knew that they weren't Winter Gnats, which I blogged about a few weeks ago here, the ones that bounce about loosely like marionettes.

No, these were a dense ball of insects, hanging in the wind off the tip of trees, pulsing and swirling like distant flocks of Starlings.

Immediately it reminded me of something I'd seen in April 2009 at Thorney in West Sussex - here's one of my photos from then:

A still photo doesn't do it justice, but it was as if this tree and several others in the area were smoking.

To my shame back then I didn't investigate it any further and put it down as 'just midges', presumably males doing a mating dance. But Mr and Mrs Bishop's question prompted me to do a bit more research.

My best guess is that both their and my smoking trees are Chronomids, the non-biting midges (rather than the little blighters you get in Scotland!). Their larvae are the little bloodworms you might see in muddy ponds. There are several species, but if anyone can shed more light, I'd be grateful.

Now Chironomids can be on the wing in any month, but I'm still surprised by Mr and Mrs Bishop's January date. But then again perhaps that is yet another signal of what an amazingly mild winter we have had down here. Until now! Have you see the forecast for the next week? Winter's a-coming!