Lockdown Diary: Sunday 19.7.20

Last night, I met up with my friend Hugh to once more have a look for and at Glow-worms, near Helpston. We were inspired by my friend Will having gone out the night before and managed to see not only males attending to the glowing females, but a pair mating. Female Glow-worms are flightless, and look a bit like stretched woodlice. Males look like pretty normal beetles, and fly around attracted by the female’s lights. After mating, the females apparently turn the light off! Neither adult males nor adult females have mouthparts, so all the energy for flight, crawling, and clambering around on grass, and laying eggs, is stored up from the larval stage. Larval Glow-worms look quite like females, and feed mainly on snails and slugs.
Anyhow, Hugh had been at the site for a bit before I got there, snd had already had a good session watching an Otter! He had seen very few Glow-worms. And in a stretch where last week my son Ed and I had counted 45 glowers, there was just one glowing female! So, presumably, the rest had already succeeded in attracting a mate and switched off. We inspected the only Glow-worm female, and immediately saw that a male had come to visit! They weren’t actually mating, but would be shortly; and we thought it best to turn any torches off to allow them to use the female’s natural light as the main draw.
We left them to it and went searching in other places, but only found tow more females. And when we returned to the original spot, the light was out, the deed was presumably done!

Female Glow-worm, near Helpston, Cambs, 18.7.20

Male and female Glow-worms, near Helpston, Cambs, 18.7.20
In the morning, after it stopped raining, I went back to Southey Wood. However, despite the Crossbills being seen fleetingly by others, a 2-hour wait couldn’t produce any action. They must have found a new favoured feeding station! On my walk back to the cart, I stumbled upon a magnificent insect walkign across the path. It was not in the best condition, but it was still amazing. Huge and terrifying, in appearance it was a harmless sawfly called a a Giant Wood Wasp or Giant Horntail. I recognised it instantly, as it was a stand-out insect in the insect books of my youth. I have only previously seen one before, so immediately set about photographing this mighty insect. They lay eggs in conifers, and the larvae bore into the wood and apparently feed on a fungus which then grows in the tunnels!

Giant Horntail aka Giant Wood Wasp, Southey Wood, Cambs, 19.7.20

Next, I was off to Bedford Purlieus to see if the Broad-leaved Helleborines (a woodland loving orchid) were in bloom yet among the Beeches. I found half-a-dozen flower spikes, but nearly all were still closed. One or two had the lovely flowers opening, though. Next weekend these could be magnificent…

Broad-leaved Helleborines, Bedford Purlieus, Cambs, 19.7.20