Part One: Home Ground (more or less)

I look forward to every year in anticipation of reacquainting myself with various invertebrates as they appear each month, searching for new species and wondering what will unexpectedly turn up in the garden.

2020 was no exception, with holidays booked to search for rare bees and trips planned to explore more of my favourite Breckland. And then coronovirus turned the world upside down and in March we went into lockdown. In between queuing in my local shops and taking supplies round to my Mum, I spent even more time than usual looking at the wildlife in our garden. We also have an allotment close by that provided further opportunities to find interesting insects and it wasn’t long before we started racking up new species for both sites, some of which were entirely new to us too.

The light sandy soil in our area of Norwich attracts a lot of species that are frequent in the Brecks. Finding the Tachinid fly Gonia picea on the allotment was a big surprise but even so, we really could never have predicted that a rare Breckland Leatherbug (Arenocoris waltlii) would turn up in the garden in April followed by a second one in July.

Shieldbugs and leatherbugs are firm favourites of mine and there aren’t that many Norfolk species that I haven’t seen so it was amazing to discover a little colony of Scarab Shieldbugs around the Field Pansy plants in the Asparagus bed on our allotment. We shall allow even more of these pretty annual plants to spread around our plot now!

Public transport was a no-go and my usual wildlife recording patch, Earlham Cemetery, was literally heaving with people so we took to our bicycles to get out and made several visits to a stretch of Boudicca’s Way footpath on the edge of Norwich for a weekly bit of exercise. This is a great spot for solitary bees where Tim Strudwick (the Norfolk Solitary Bee and Wasp Recorder) has made some great finds, including the re-discovery of Andrena proxima, a species we hadn’t seen. This small mining bee particularly likes Hogweed flowers and we managed to find several after some pointers from Tim

It was good to get out and observe bees again in the countryside, knowing that I could contribute some records and build on my knowledge of different species. On our second visit we glimpsed what we thought was a Bryony Mining Bee (Andrena florea) but it took another visit and several hours of patient watching and waiting to confirm the first record of this species in Norfolk. It is quite distinctive, having red patches on the abdomen and collects pollen exclusively from the flowers of White Bryony.

The mosaic of edge habitat along this stretch of the footpath with hedgerows, mature trees and field margins with lots of annual flowers is ideal for all sorts of invertebrates. The plentiful Hogweed flowers in particular attracted all kinds of insects as well as the solitary bees. We encountered various beetles and sawflies and even a spectacular Snakefly. As adults, these bizarre-looking insects prey on aphids and other small insects. The female has a long ovipositor that she uses to lay her eggs in crevices in the bark of oak or pine trees where her larvae feed on other insect larvae. There are four species in Britain, all of which look rather similar so we are not sure which one we saw. 

Returning briefly to the bee front, no year would be complete without Anthophora quadrimaculata and they again graced our garden with their presence. We started the year with a garden bee list of 68 species and I wasn’t really expecting to add to it but we actually recorded 8 new ones bringing the total to 76, not bad for a small suburban plot. 

Last year we had a magnificent single plant of Ragwort in the middle of the garden that attracted lots of insects including solitary bees. This year the star attraction was a newly planted bed of cornfield annuals outside my studio where I could sit on the step in the sun with a cup of tea and watch whatever came along. Corn Chamomile and Corn Marigolds in particular proved very popular with hoverflies as well as bees.

Ladybirds are real favourites of mine, especially the more unusual ones, and I have recently started to make a concerted effort to find some of the smaller species, the so-called inconspicuous ladybirds. Beating is an ideal way to find many of them, placing a net or sheet under a tree branch or bush and then giving a good tap to the vegetation and looking at what drops off. Checking the garden waste bin a little while after putting anything in can also turn up interesting finds. But things often turn up where you least expect them. The side of our house seems to act like a bit of a wind tunnel and we often find odd things on the wall or the bin lids. It was certainly odd to find a Water Ladybird there as they are associated with damp habitats, usually on reeds and rushes.

Plenty of creatures find their way into the house as we often have doors and windows open when the weather is fine. One evening in late June, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and I could hear a fly buzzing loudly on the window. I ignored it thinking that it would be a large bluebottle. When I eventually got a pot to catch it I was amazed to see that it was actually a Volucella hoverfly and not just any Volucella but Volucella inflata the one species of the genus that I had yet to see. It made a rather fitting 50^th species for the garden.

The garden really proved its worth in the early part of the year when we couldn’t get out and about. The allotments gave another safe space and a sense of purpose in planting and harvesting and it was good to see that our organic approach with lots of wild flowers, agricultural weeds and ‘scruffy’ corners could harbour some interesting invertebrates. And bike rides were an added boon, especially on the almost traffic-free roads, enabling us to stretch our legs and broaden our horizons.