Long live the Wood Wasp

Well the wasp reign of terror is at an end - the clear skies and cooler nights of the last couple of weeks have done their work and silenced the roaming worker wasps that had been plaguing our garden. However it's not all tragedy for buzzing types...

A couple of days ago I was down the road in Berrio Bridge, stood with a friend of mine discussing how yet another passing car had managed to smash a hole into the side of the 500 year old tudor bridge that spans the Lynher at that point, when a huge insect flew out for under the disturbed granite blocks and buzzed menacingly around our heads. It was very large, much bigger than a hornet, with vivid orange wings, abdomen and legs. It landed right next to me on the bridge and it's inch long ovipositor (egg laying gadget) was there for all to see. No doubting whatsoever, this was a Giant Wood Wasp (Urocerus gigas) or Horntail -a dramatic looking guy who would scare the life out of you as soon as look at you, but in reality is totally harmless. Doesn't even have a sting. In fact he's not even a wasp but actually a variety of sawfly.

But still, he looks good. What do you reckon? Click here

The Lodger

Seems we may have an uninvited guest hiding somewhere in the house. Got up the other morning, followed my usual breakfast routine - cups of tea, baby's milk bottle(for the baby obviously), dog biscuits(for me), toast...hmm.

That's when I noticed it - a large hole in the bread bag, with a corresponding hole in the last slice of bread, plus crumbs and chewed pieces of cellophane all across the worktop. Obviously the work of a rodent of some description, far too neat and tidy for a rat, so had to have been a little house mouse. Kept a vigil but no sign of him in the last day or two however, so I'm thinking of scattering some flour across various likely approach routes in the kitchen to see if I can get some footprints to record. A humane trap then seems the likely way to go. Just hope for micey's sake he doesn't encounter the dog before me.

A house mouse, yesterday.

Reign of the Wasps

As the title of this post suggests wasps numbers around these parts are way higher than for many a year. One of our apple trees is literally Wasp City UK at the moment, with hundreds of the little critters buzzing and chomping their way through our nice braeburns. Any apples that fall on the ground are soon covered in with sometimes up to twenty drunken striped individuals stuffing their little insect faces. Seems the whole country is experiencing a bumper year for wasps, particularily right now when the worker wasps are no longer fed sugary treats in the nest so have to disperse to fruit trees, recycling bottles, and discarded jam jars for their fix of the white stuff. Still, weather is cooling fast now, and the choir invisible beckons...

Tis sad but at least I might get some apple pie this year.

The Gathering on the Hill

Buzzards were massing today over Caradon Hill. We must have seen at least twenty of them all at one time, rising on the thermals, tumbling through the air, calling to each other and some even exploding up out of the bracken when we passed by. Looked like a mixture of adults, this year's young now on the wing and possibly some of last years thrown in for good measure. Mix that in with a pair of wheatears, half a dozen ravens, a sparrowhawk being mobbed by four swallows and a Hercules transport plane flying past below where we walking and it all added up to a lively afternoon stroll.

Mirkwood

Took a little stroll into the depths of Hawkswood this afternoon. I may have mentioned this place before, -a large, and brooding conifer wood to the south of Kilmar Tor. It dominates this end of the Lynher Valley and looms over Middlewood as you drive down into our little hamlet. I only took a short walk, with the pup in tow, as rain was teeming down and the rest of the family were waiting nearby in a nice dry car, but enough to know I should go back again on a better day for some serious exploring.

The interior of the wood is very shady and carpeted with moss and clover, even the fallen logs are thick with the stuff and fungi thrive in the damp conditions. Sound is quite muffled and I could only really hear the occasional bird call. Here and there stand black barked and twisted decidious trees which look very strange amidst the lighter trunks of the conifers. I noticed signs of deer beneath some of these - there are supposed to be quite a number of roe roaming the Hawkswood.

I could also imagine other creatures moving through the trees -dark creeping figures with luminous eyes and cloaked Victorian gentleman with tall hats and no faces....

Hmm. Back to the car I think.

Latest artwork Herring Gull

I've just been doodling away on a little sketch-book style illustration of a herring gull sat among thrift flowers on a south western-esque cliff top. It's deliberately quite loosely painted as I've tried to capture a bit of the spontaneity found painting in the field. Planning on do a few more like this, maybe some roe deer or foxes.

Fly by Day

About two hundred yards down the road from here, towards the neighbouring hamlet of Berrio Bridge is a stretch of road which is shaded by overhanging trees. On a sunny day it is quite cool and with dappled patches of light here and there. I walk down their literally every day, usually about oneish in the afternoon (hey I'm a creature of habit) and for the last two days have been rewarded with the fantastic sight of a single pipistrelle bat flying up and down the road hunting for insects. Now we often see various types of bats around here, quite often in the evening around dusk, but this is the first time I've seen one hunting in broad, albeit dappled, daylight. The little guy performs all manner of aerial acrobatics, flying right past my head and even skimming just above the road surface. We've had a huge amount of rain and bad weather here lately so my hunch is this chap, being a bat and like most bats prefering not to hunt in bad conditions is making the best of the recent warm sun and piling in as much grub as possible. And good luck to him I say.