HoverflySpotter Mar 26 Sightings – part 1

Bagworms, BugSnug, Didymodons & Hoverflies part 1

I think spring might have sprung, many of my followers and subscribers are enjoying the sun, finding spring flowers and blossom, newly emerged queen bees, hearing chiffchaffs call their name and their first hoverflies - its pretty much the same in my locality. I find I have been away from my desk, spending more hours in the garden or surrounding countryside and even awoke this morning to a most glorious dawn chorus. 

Welcome to the spring everyone🌸 🌼 🌷🌱🦋 🌞

So, what have I been up to this week.

Bagworms

The week started at a local cemetery. Late last year I spotted some bagworms feeding on lichen covered gravestones, so I returned to see if they were still there and to my surprise, they were.

Bagworms (Psychidae) are a group of micro moths where the larva live in a little bag/case. This bag gives them protection through camouflage, as they use substrate materials such as sand, soil, lichen, or plant materials to help make their disguise. These larvae carry their bag/house around, whilst eating their preferred food.

The Bagworms above were found on several old gravestones, feeding on the lichen from which they make their grainy grey cases, its portable house. They are no larger than 5mm and if you are patient enough you might just see one move like in the video below, its head and thorax just visible, poking out from the case.

There were several still mobile on the gravestone, but most were stationary and grouped together in these gatherings at the top. I wonder if they are ready to pupate into adults. Most Bagworm species only metamorphose into wingless females. I thought at first these might have been Ramshorn Bagworm (luffia lapidella) as seen on a recent video by the Ramblings of an Entomologist – but they did not seem stick out their cases at 90 degrees to the substrate. So, using the Micro Moths Field guide I am suggesting they might have been the Lesser Lichen Case-bearer (Dahlica inconspicuella). Certainty of species can only be established by rearing them to adulthood, if some pupate into males as in the picture below then they are Lesser Lichen Case-bearer, else if only wingless females emerge then that would make them Narrow Lichen Bagworm (Dahlica triquetrella).

If anyone can tell from my poor pictures what the species might be or have further ways to establish confirmation without disturbing them then please do comment below.

P.Sterling & M.Parsons (2012): Field Guide to the Micro Moths of Great Britain and Ireland: British Wildlife Publishing (BWP).

I created a BugSnug. 

Last year as I always do, I resist the urge to cut back the vegetation and leave it to overwinter. The garden looks untidy but doing this provides a variety of habitats for all kinds of garden wildlife, a signpost to birds that the HoverflySpotter’s café is worthy of a visit. I have had some wonderful days just sitting and watching the garden café being explored by birds and grey squirrels, especially when days have been too drab to go out. But it’s now time to cut it back and let the new growth come through. Last year I just added all the waste to the compost heap and much more to the green bin for waste disposal, this year I thought I would try and do something different. 

I was on a Yorkshire Rewilding day last year (It was world rewilding day on 20th March) and I came across Wigwam styled structures made from tree branches fixed in the ground then tied up like the one below. As often happens when visiting other people’s garden, you take back ideas and implement them into your own garden. So, starting with canes of Buddleia which I cut back, I created this wigwam and then using some of the smaller twigs I tied them together horizontally to create a mesh shelf about 20cm from the ground, filling the rest of the wigwam with last year’s die-back vegetation from the shelf upwards. The hope is that everlasting pea that sprouted from that bed last year, might again germinate and grow up and around the structure, fingers crossed. No vegetation was put in the green bin for disposal.

What do you think?

I am always looking for ways to increase structure in my garden, creating new habitats for wildlife to inhabit both vertically and horizontally. I will let you know how successful this was.

https://www.yorkshirerewildingnetwork.org.uk/

Part two of the article to follow in a day or two……. hoping you will return to read it too.

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