Lords-and-ladies

03 Sunday May 2026

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As you can probably imagine, the shape of this plant’s flowers makes it noticeable, and provides the inspiration for the 90-plus vernacular names it has been known by over the centuries and from different locations around Britain (per Flora Britannica).

This is Arum maculatum, a plant most commonly known as Lords-and-ladies, a name that Flora Britannica says is ‘probably a Victorian invention, coined as a polite alternative to this great catalogue of vulgarities’. Those vulgarities include Cuckoo-pint (where ‘pint’, rhymes with mint, is short for pintle, slang for penis), Dog’s cock (a name from Wiltshire), Priest’s pilly (from Westmorland), and Willy lily (from the first Elizabethan era), amongst many others.

Fortunately, not all Arum maculatum‘s common names are focused on its flowers’ shape. In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey also lists this, amongst others: ‘Starchwort, for example, recalls the era when the dried and ground-up tubers were used as a substitute for starch in laundries’. While you might not favour some this plant’s more ribald names, I do like the fact that the names show that people have taken the time to notice this plant (which people rarely do in today’s busy world) and to look at it closely enough to have imagined names for it.

The Fox and the crow

02 Saturday May 2026

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I don’t know why this Carrion crow died. It certainly wasn’t the Fox that killed it; it may just have been natural causes. I was alerted to its presence, laying by the woodland edge below my window (I live on the second level of our building, on a steeply sloping site, so I was essentially looking straight down at this scene), by the local Magpies making a lot of noise. Half a dozen of them were standing around the crow, squawking loudly, hopping a little closer, then hopping away again. After about 5 minutes, they seemed to reach a consensus that the crow was dead, and they all flew off to their respective parts of the garden (they’ve paired up now and each pair seems to have established its own territory within the grounds).

Later, in the evening, Mr Fox found the crow and it was interesting to watch his behaviour. He was very gentle, sniffed and nuzzled the bird a few times, presumably making sure it was dead, then sprayed it twice, from different angles, with urine, before trotting off. I’ve since read that this is quite normal behaviour for Foxes; they will spray their prey to mark it as theirs, so that other Foxes leave it alone. The next morning the crow was gone, presumably retrieved by the Fox sometime during the night or in the early morning on its way back to the den.

More Green tigers

01 Friday May 2026

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Almost two years ago I found the first Green tiger beetle (Cicindela campestris) to be recorded at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park (see A Surprising beetle find, May 2024), and I’ve been looking on and off since then for any more.

Ten days ago, on 21 April, I finally spotted another one, and then the very next day I found two more. Of course, this means there must have been more back in 2024, at least one male and one female, for this species still to be present at Cosmeston, and not just a one-off anomaly.

I shall continue checking the location where I found these, an area where a lot of loose limestone fragments and spoil from the adjacent former quarry was dumped when the park was first created in the 1970s. Though plants have colonised the area, much of the rock remains exposed; this holds the sun’s warmth well, which these insects seem to like.

Having seen these beetles again, and spent time watching them, I’ve become more familiar with their way of moving, which helps with spotting them. They’re almost impossible to see when still but move away when I walk the paths through the area. If you didn’t know them, you might think they were large flies, as they fly a short distance, scuttle, then stay very still. Green tiger beetles are active in the spring and summer so fingers crossed I find some more in the weeks to come.

Cute cootlet

30 Thursday Apr 2026

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Though I’ve been hearing the hungry cheeping of tiny baby birds in nests obscured deep within dense vegetation, I’ve not seen a lot of chicks yet this year. I did see the first local Moorhen babies three weeks ago, on 8 April, but they were, wisely, mostly hiding amongst the reeds and my photos weren’t share-worthy. So, when I was walking along the boardwalk on the edge of Cosmeston’s east lake on Tuesday and heard a low peeping, I was delighted, when I cleared the dense reeds, to spot this well-grown Coot chick feeding with its parents. And just look at the size of that foot!

Blood bees

29 Wednesday Apr 2026

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It’s just a week since I wrote on here that I find bees ‘tricky to photograph and even more difficult to identify and, though I don’t usually duck a challenge, bees are simply a step too far’. And then I saw a bundle of these red-and-black bees, and couldn’t help myself – they looked so lovely and distinctive that maybe, just maybe they were identifiable. So, I took some photos.

Of course, when I checked my photos later that day, it didn’t take long to discover that they’re NOT identifiable, at least not to species. I can tell you that they’re Blood bees, of the genus Sphecodes, but there are 17 species of Blood bee in the UK and they need to be examined microscopically to distinguish one from the other.

I did discover that these bees may look lovely but they have a dark side; Blood bees are kleptoparasites (or cleptoparasites). The entry on the Naturespot website explains that they are parasites of

ground-nesting solitary bees, including Halictus, Lasioglossum and Andrena. The female enters a host’s nest and breaks into the cell, killing the egg or grub. She lays one of her own eggs and reseals the cell. When the egg hatches, the grub consumes the food intended for the host species’ larva.

Nesting material

28 Tuesday Apr 2026

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When, from a distance, I first spotted this Great tit, I wondered what on earth it was doing.

It was plucking constantly and vigorously at something on the ground that it was holding down with its feet.

The bird was so focused on what it was doing that it wasn’t bothered about my approach and I was able to get a series of photos before the bird flew off with its prize.

Reviewing my photos, I realised that the object the tit was plucking at was part of a tennis ball, most probably an old dog’s ball that had fallen apart and been abandoned. At least now it was proving useful to the Great tit as nesting material, and I rather liked the idea that the bird and its nest would be colour-coordinated.

Lifer: Box bug

27 Monday Apr 2026

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Sunday week ago, as I was meandering my way around the outskirts of my town, I found an area of shrubs that was warmed by the bright sun and also sheltered from the seemingly relentless cool easterly wind. Not surprisingly, it was alive with insects enjoying the warmth, and this little creature was one of those.

At first, I thought it was a Dock bug but, on closer examination, I realised it looked similar but with some significant differences: its body was slimmer than a Dock bug’s; its legs were smooth and pale; and, most tellingly, its ‘shoulders’ were angular and pointy. This was my first ever Box bug (Gonocerus acuteangulatus – note the epithet ‘acute angle’ that references those ‘pointy shoulders’), a rare find in Wales, where fewer than ten have so far been recorded.

I wondered about the reason for this bug’s rarity and found the answer on the British Bugs website:

Historically very rare and known only from Box Hill in Surrey, where it was found on Box trees, this bug has expanded its range dramatically during the last decade and now occurs as far north as Yorkshire and as far west as Devon. This range expansion has been aided by a shift onto numerous other foodplants, and it is now most frequently found on hawthorn and buckthorn.

Peak Wild garlic

26 Sunday Apr 2026

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It’s peak Wild garlic flowering time in my local green spaces, making a visit to my local park a culinary experience – the smell is so strong you can almost taste it in the air!

On Wednesday I went for a stroll through Cwm George woodland, a local hotspot for Wild garlic (or Ramsons, if you prefer; Allium ursinum), and it was just glorious.

The lush green swathes of Wild garlic, with their abundant brilliant white flowers, looked so picturesque carpeting the earth beneath the towering Beech trees and garlanding the edges of the woodland pathways.

And it wasn’t only the human visitors who were appreciating the profusion of flowers. Flies and bees of many species, hoverflies, butterflies and beetles were all lapping up this springtime feast.

First damsels of 2026

25 Saturday Apr 2026

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This has been an exciting week as new species of insects seem to have been emerging each and every day.

The Large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) is usually my first odonata species of the year, and this year is no exception. In fact, I spotted my first two on Tuesday, the 21st, the exact same date as last year, though in a different location.

And this week’s fine weather and warm temperatures have meant that more damselflies have emerged very quickly. When I returned to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on Thursday, I found ten Large reds, and I’m sure there were more lurking in the vegetation.

NFY: Green-veined white

24 Friday Apr 2026

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It’s been 13 days since I found this Green-veined white butterfly (Pieris napi), my most recent new species for 2026, and what a little beauty it was, a brilliant white but with the subtle grey-black markings on its upper wings that are typical of this butterfly. Of course, I’ve seen many more of these since that first sighting, and they’ll all be busy finding butterflies of the opposite sex, mating and egg-laying; this species has two generations each year, so there’s no time to relax and enjoy the flowers!