Recolonisation

The area I went to today was Spruce plantation for 50 years, then it was clear-felled about 10 years ago.  The original heath environment has recovered somewhat, leading to a wide diversity of wildlife where there was nothing but a black, arid desert for 50 years.

The area is rich in lichens, mosses and heathers, and the remaining stumps and logs are home to more lichens, fungi and insects.

Bilberry is just flowering now, and this flower has drops of what I presume is nectar forming on the inside:

Bilberry flower

Racomitrium mosses have a very distinctive appearance: each leaf ends in a long, twisted hair that gives the plant an overall pale colouring.

Racomitrium lanuginosum

Peltigera lichens are very leafy in appearance, although their colouring ranges from black to palest grey. This huge (40 cm.) specimen of Rabbit's Paw lichen -Peltigera membranacea - is growing on a dead log. 

Here's a close-up of one or two of the individual 'leaves' (properly called 'thalli'):

Peltigera membranacea

Equisetums (popularly known as Horsetails) are some of our most ancient plants. This immediate area has three species in very close proximity, although I do know of a nearby area with Wood Horsetail which clings onto remnants of its original woodland habitat (which presumably preceded the Spruce plantation).

Marsh Horsetail tends to grow in the fringes of wet areas:

Marsh Horsetail

Whilst Water Horsetail definitely prefers its feet to be very wet:

Water Horsetail

Field Horsetail has separate, pale, fruiting growths, which precede the green non-reproductive shoots:

Field Horsetail

Horsetails reproduce via spores which have hair-like growths attached to them. These hairs are very sensitive to humidity and they expand and contract very rapidly, enabling the spores to move through the undergrowth as if they were walking. 

This next shot is rather interesting:

Bombus bohemicus

It's Bombus bohemicus, one of the parasitic Cuckoo Bumblebees. Bombus bohemicus is parasitic on the white-tailed Bombus lucorum complex and, yet again, timing is critical here. The queen of the host species finds a place for her nest and lays her first batch of worker eggs. The cuckoo bumblebee then invades the nest and kills the original queen before laying her own eggs. The host workers then proceed to feed the cuckoo bees for the rest of the season. I watched this cuckoo bumblebee feeding on nectar and then it proceeded to remove all traces of pollen from its legs (you can see the pollen on the grass in the picture.) Since one of the primary roles that bumblebees perform is pollination, it's clear that adult cuckoo bumblebees are of no benefit to either plants or their hosts.


Another legacy of the original woodland environment is the occasional specimen of Wood Sorrel:

Wood Sorrel

Micromoths are just beginning to make their appearance for the year. This is Grapholita jungiella:

The micromoth Grapholita jungiella

These micros are very active at the moment, and you usually have to be patient enough to follow their very erratic flight in order to see them at rest after they eventually land. 

A (little) bit of sun

This bumblebee has taken up quite a bit of my time. It has 3 yellow bands, a white tail, long antennae, black hair above the eyes and no pollen baskets. The body hair is also long. I reckon it's the male of the cuckoo bumblebee - Bombus bohemicus. I showed the female back in April.

No identification problems with the Ringlet butterfly. These have been appearing as singles for the last week or so.

This Ichneumonid looks like Ablyteles armatorius, but so do 100 others.

This is the larva of the 14-spot ladybird. It's about 5 mm long.

Cuckoo Bumblebee

Last year I found a few specimens of Bombus bohemicus, which is parasitic on Bombus lucorum. Today I noticed the head of a bumblebee poking out from some grass:


After a few minutes' observation it was clear that I had another Bombus bohemicus in front of me, so they clearly managed to find a lucorum nest last year.


The main identification feature is the yellow tail band which almost mirrors the curved golden band on the thorax. Another give-away is the total lack of pollen baskets on the legs.

These cuckoo bumblebees find a nest where the host queen has already laid eggs and then a fight to the death ensues. The cuckoo females then lay their eggs in the host nest. The host workers hatch out and then proceed to feed the young of the cuckoo bees for the duration of the season.

I find this total destruction of the host to be a rather dramatic form of parasitisation, since the parasitised nest will not produce any hosts for the following year. Strictly, these cuckoo bees are kleptoparasites, since they don't live off the body of the host: they 'merely' steal the pollen that would have been used to feed the host larvae.

Status of Bombus bohemicus in Ireland: threatened.