Trunch Wildlife Watch
The editor of this topic is Anne Horsfield who has been writing Wildlife Watch articles for the Trunch Mardle for several years (contact 01263 720649).
July 09
Good news first. The second brood of blackbirds successfully fledged. Amazingly, it only took eleven days for the tiny, pink helpless hatchlings to become scruffy, fully feathered fledglings. They had been fed on insects, grubs and worms.
I phoned Bill Drayton to report visits of a Nuthatch 
(left) and Marsh Tit 
(right). He said these were uncommon sightings for Trunch. He also commented that this spring had been a good year for garden birds as there were so many juveniles about.
Brewery Road pond was the nesting place for a Moorhen. Paul Farmer phoned to say he saw the new family on the pond. I wonder where they are now?
Now the bad news. The number of Brimstone caterpillars (left: Brimstone butterfly) decreased each day until we couldn’t find any at all on the leaves of the Buckthorn shrubs. I did see a Blue Tit eat one. The food chain at work again and the Brimstones lost out.
This summer two new species of insect bred in the garden by making underground nests – good protection against birds! In the spring a queen wasp came out of hibernation and found a vole hole in a flower border. She made some cells, laid some eggs and nurtured these to be the first worker wasps for the colony. These workers further excavated the hole, made more cells for the queen’s eggs and looked after the resulting brood. Thus the colony size increased.
The wasps are carnivorous and feed their grubs on pulped insects. Wasps cannot make wax (like bees) but make their nests and cells from wood that they have chewed and pulped.
In late summer special cells are produced and queen wasps and male wasps emerge from these. The old queen does not lay any more eggs so the workers have nothing to do. It is now that they can become nuisances around jam, fruit, ice-cream, etc.
The new queens mate and hibernate. All the other wasps die in the cold. In winter I will try to dig up the nest.
In the sandy soil beside the garage wall, I found ten little “volcanoes”. Each one had been made by a female Tawny Mining Bee (image left). Underground, she would have made five or six side chambers and lined them with wax. Here she would have laid her eggs and provisioned the chamber with pollen and other suitable food for the grub. She then left the burrow, her work having been completed. Next spring new Tawny Mining Bees should emerge from the “volcanoes”.
Something new every year!