All creatures great and small

30 July to 1 August 2015

After the rather lacklustre weather during my days off work it was slightly galling to wake to bright sunshine on Thursday morning when I had to go back to work. Why does that always happen? So there I was, half past six in the morning, walking under the Big Bridge the sky reflected in a mirror smooth river, wishing I could just keep on going.

A butterfly fluttered across the path as I made my way towards the boardwalk but I didn’t even bother raising my phone, knowing the futility of trying to capture a butterfly on the wing . When it settled on the trunk of a tree a few yards away I couldn’t believe my luck. With my phone raised I crept towards it clicking away and expecting it to fly off at any moment. Surprisingly, it stayed exactly where it was, even when I was right in front of it. It was a red admiral basking in the early morning sun, probably trying to warm its wing muscles up before attempting another flight. The irony of a butterflyless butterfly walk a few days before and this chance sighting on my way to work was not lost. Then I’d been in the right place at the wrong time, this time I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

A little further on a bumble bee clung to the toadflax. It was so still I thought it might be asleep. The bumble bee life cycle is completed in a single year with new queens emerging from hibernation in spring. They build a nest and forage to feed the first batch of worker bees. Once the workers are able to look after themselves the queens go back to the nest and keep producing more workers. As summer is coming to an end queens begin to produce males and new queens who will start the process all over again the next spring. The males live outside the nest and these are the bees you find sleeping on flowers on late summer mornings.

The buddleia along the railway line was filled with bumble bees but these were awake and gathering pollen or nectar. They say that bumble bees are in decline because there aren’t enough pollen and nectar bearing plants but wild areas like these are bursting with wildflowers and, consequently, bursting with bees. Sadly, many of the popular garden flowers have been bred for their showiness and are not great nectar or pollen producers and this has contributed to the general decline in bees. Maybe the answer is for all of us to grow more wildflowers.

At the end of the boardwalk the bright buttons of tansy have appeared since I last walked to work. It may not be popular with gardners but it’s a great hit with the bees and butterflies. When it goes to seed I might just gather some for my own garden because it’s also a wonderful insect repellant for non pollinating insects like mosquitos, beetles and ants. It also makes a great companion plant in the vegetable garden and I think it’s pretty.

Further on, in the little bower of trees on the slope, the cinnabar caterpillars were still growing fatter. Soon they will pupate and the pupae will overwinter underground to emerge as pretty red and black moths in May. The poor ragwort were looking pretty bare and sorry for themselves with so many caterpillars munching on them but there were a lot less caterpillars than the last time I passed by. Although they are poisonous, absorbing poison from the ragwort they feed on, they’re such voracious eaters they can outeat at their food source and have been known to eat each other. Of course, some of them could have already been underground slowly turning into moths.

The insect theme continued in the office when a ladybird somehow got in, perhaps on someone’s coat. Most people don’t mind ladybirds but, for some bizarre reason, Mia and Sabrina are terrified of them. Panic ensued until I managed to catch the poor thing in a plastic cup and release it into the wilds of the car park.

The call of the day was about dogs.
“It’s digusting that you don’t allow dogs on your buses,” a rather loud elderly lady shouted.
“We do allow dogs,” I said when she’d finally stopped ranting.
“Well, you charge too much for them then. Children get on half price, why should pensioners like me have to pay for our dogs, they don’t even sit on a seat.”
“We don’t charge for dogs,” I said. “If a driver has asked you to pay for your dog you should let us know which bus and when or give us the driver details from your ticket.”
“Oh, I never go on the bus,” the lady said, “and I don’t have a dog.”
Some people just have way too much time on their hands in my opinion.

As always, it was a relief when it was five o’clock and time to go home. The sun was still shining and it was hot so I stuffed my cardigan in my rucksack, tied my mac around my waist and set off along the boardwalk. A young woman was sitting on the rocks surrounded by swans. It made a pretty picture and put me in mind of the Hans Christian Anderson story of the Wild Swans.

On the way up the Big Hill I noticed a ladybird sitting on a garden wall and I wondered if this might be the one who’d visited our office earlier in the day? She could have hitched a ride on a bus after all. All in all it seemed to me this was a day of all creatures great and small.

Friday morning was equally bright and sunny and I began to wonder if the weather gods had it in for me. There were no more butterflies along the river and I thought I had quite enough pictures of bees for one week so I left them to their nectar gathering. The swans were busy with their morning grooming routine and the early train was making its way to Southampton Central station as I headed to the boardwalk for another busy day.

Up on horseshoe bridge I saw a man in shorts walking towards me. He picked a blackberry from the tangle of plants on the railway embankment and popped it into his mouth, then looked at me sheepishly.
“Is that the River Test?” he asked pointing in the direction of the boardwalk.
“No, it’s the Itchen,” I told him.
“Oh, are there any nice walks around here? I’ve got a bit of time and I thought I’d go for a wander.”
“There’s a lovely park and a river walk if you go down the road here and turn right across the bridge,” I said, “how long have you got and how far do you want to go? You can get all the way to Winchester if you fancy a long walk.”
“I’ve only got half an hour.”
“Right, the park is too far then, you’d only just get there before you had to turn back. You could always walk along the boardwalk and back again but it probably won’t take you half an hour. Mind you, the blackberries are probably better without all the cars going past them.”

The animal theme continued when I had a complaint about a cat on a bus.
“I want to make a very serious complaint,” a young sounding woman said. “There was a man on my bus this morning with a cat in a basket and I don’t think it should be allowed.”
“I’m sorry you weren’t happy with that but we do allow cats on the bus as long as they’re in a proper cat basket,” I said, “lots of people use the bus to take their pets to the vet.”
“Well this one had a litter tray in the cat box and the cat used it. It was disgusting and it smelt. I complained to the driver but he said there wasn’t much he could do.”
There isn’t a lot you can say about that really although I’ve never heard of a cat box with a litter tray before.

It was another busy day and it was late afternoon before I managed to go out for lunch. If we hadn’t been running out of milk for our coffee I’d probably not have bothered going out. When I did the air was filled with flying ants. As we had flying ant day a couple of weeks ago, even though I didn’t see any of them, I was pretty surprised they were at it again.

Usually flying ant day is a once a year phenomenon. When the weather conditions are just right fertile queen ants emerge from their nests along with, smaller less noticeable males. Both the males and the females have wings and they fly around in a kind of mad mating dance accompanied by masses of greedy seagulls intent on eating as many as they can. Often it’s the seagulls you notice first. If they haven’t been gobbled up by seagulls the ants mate and then drop to the ground where their wings fall off and they wander around looking for  a good place to start a new colony.

There were ants everywhere I looked, flying through the air and crawling about on the ground, some still with their wings and some without. It seemed a fitting end to a week that had been all about creatures, both great and small.