Cambridge Area Water Resources

Peter B listened to recent U3A talk about the local water resources, pleading for an increased awareness and care of our valuable chalk streams, such as the Granta - in terms of the balance required between the need for water for human use (including abstraction), and the environment. Peter notes that Abington Rivercare got a brief mention.

The slides from the lecture are available here:
http://u3ac.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/U3AC-Enviro-lecture.pdf

Butterflies along the Old Railway Cutting

Over the last week or so, Andy M has been noting the butterfly species around along the Old Railway Cutting, and has taken a few photos of those he has seen:

Small Tortoiseshell 

 Marbled White

 Red Admiral - which seem to prefer feeding 'head-down'

 Red Admiral

 Comma

- characteristic colour and 'ragged' wing shape

Peacock

Meadow Brown

Meadow Brown - with forewing hidden, so no 'eye'spot evident.

 Meadow Brown - 

unusually with two small white 'eye' spots, more typical of the 

Gatekeeper - but lacking the orange colour of the latter.

Gatekeeper - 

note the four small white dots on the underside of the hind wing

 Gatekeeper - 

note the 'typical' double white spots in the 'eye-spot' and the bright orange colour

Female Ringlet

 - the female has more obvious white and black spots (much less distinct in the male)

 Female Ringlet

 Female Common Blue

 - brown fading to blue near the body, and with orange, black 

and white spots on the lower edge of the hind wing

Female Common Blue

Female Large Skipper

- has the chequer-board pattern, but lacks the bold black strip or 'sex-brand' of the male.

Essex Skipper

- very similar to Small Skipper, but having black-tipped antennae

(which are orange tipped in Small Skipper)

 Essex Skipper 

 Small White

 - smaller than Large White, and with paler 'grey' area just at the tip of to the forewing

(much darker tip extending down the edge in the Large White)

A few Shieldbugs

Polly M pointed out some interesting little 'beetles' just hatching from their eggs last week, and on closer examination, these seemed to be the 'first instar' (or first life-cycle stage) of the Common Green Shieldbug. There were a quite a number of these little shieldbugs hatching together from their eggs on a Sweet Pea leaf. The following day they had dispersed leaving just the empty eggs.

As often seems to happen when one sees something, Andy M started noticing shieldbugs all over the place. Shortly afterwards he spotted an adult Common Green Shieldbug, and a Red-legged Shieldbug in the garden, and a splendidly-coloured Hairy Shieldbug adult along the ORC.

The excellent 'British Bugs' website was extremely useful in identifying these True Bugs, and a very good source of information about these interesting creatures.
https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/index.html

First instar Common Green Shieldbug - just hatched ..

.. and their empty egg-cases the next morning

Adult Common Green Shieldbug

Adult Common Green Shieldbug

Adult Common Green Shieldbug

Adult Red-legged Shieldbug

Adult Hairy Shieldbug on the flowers of Ladies Bedstraw

Adult Hairy Shieldbug  

Wasp nest

Gill C had an unwelcome brush with wildlife recently, when a sizable nest of the European Wasp or German Wasp, was discovered low down in some bushes in her garden on Church Lane. This species (Vespula germanica) is larger and more aggressive than the native Common Wasp (Vespula vulgaris).  Unfortunately, the occupants of the nest kept stinging people in her garden, and they had to be removed.

Caterpillars

Jennifer H spotted these caterpillars of the Large White butterfly this weekend.  Having eaten their fill, they seemed to have moved on the following day.

Bourn Bridge Road Protected Road Verge

David and Gaynor F surveyed the Bourn Bridge Road Protected Road Verge at the end of June, and below is the list of plants they observed.  In all there were 24 broadleaf species and 7 grass species recorded.

General view of the PRV

 Ladies Bedstraw

 Knapweed

 Buff-tailed  Bumblebee

 Red-tailed Bumblebee

Scabious

Wildlife on the Dennis' new nature area

Bev and Sean D have been busy creating a new wildlife area behind their house on the former LSA. and it's really starting to pay dividends.

Back last November, a Kingfisher regularly visited their pond, feeding on the sticklebacks that had been establishing there.  More recently a Cormorant has also been visiting with the same stickleback prey in mind. The Fox was photographed among the wildflowers on 2nd July, and visitor that Sean says comes to the pond every day.

Kingfisher 

Cormorant

Fox