Pine-cone Mothing!

Exciting day yesterday..
Exciting if you're the kind of person who gets satisfaction from searching 8 billion Pine-cones before eventually finding the target you were after - a 2mm hole in one of the seeds!

It's better than it sounds, honestly. These emergence holes belong to the 'Nationally Scarce B' Moth: Cydia conicolana, an unassuming Micro that spends its time around the tops of various Pine trees. Subtle in appearance but like most of these smaller Moths, a thing of beauty in their own right when viewed up close.

Inspired by fellow nature-nerd Antony Wren, who has found 3 new sites for this species in neighbouring Suffolk, I've been looking to put my own dot on the map for a couple of weeks now. It's funny how things happen though - I was out with my Dad, Mick and was telling him about the species and the up-until-now fruitless searches. I pointed out a few trees that I'd already checked and suggested we might as well have a look at the last one, as we were there..
Blind as a bat, without his glasses, he picks up the first cone he sees, passes it to me with a wry smile and says "I can't see it properly but is that one?" ....Yes Dad. It is. You b*****d. We went on to find another half a dozen emergence holes in different cones from the same tree, so definitely signs of a decent population, definitely a new record for the 10kmsq and in fact the only record for the surrounding 30km squares - result!

Ridiculously easy to overlook but once you get searching, it's almost a habit to look at as many as possible until you find one. Or four, or five:

A couple of close-ups:

I delved a bit deeper and cut into one of the cones and found a load of frass (caterpillar poo) and more surprisingly, the remains of a long-dead larva! Getting the tiny speck under the microscope shows what's left of it:

I'm sure, like a hell of a lot of the Micros, this species is under-recorded due to size. It really is easy to look for though and I'd urge you to just inspect a few Pine-cones when you pass them next. Antony told me that all the new sites he's found are from individual Pine trees in the open and not actually part of a big, covered forest. That certainly seems to fit the bill, as we found these ones on this tree here:

So get checking those cones, good luck!

Mini-Tullgren Funnel for mini-beasts!

Firstly, what is a Tullgren funnel?! The Tullgren Funnel (or Berlese funnel/trap) method is what's used to extract insects from soil, leaf litter and moss etc. In a nutshell, it's a sample of any of those substrates with a lamp above it and a collecting pot underneath.
The lamp creates heat and light which the mini arthropods then go deeper down to avoid until they end up in the pot below, for you to look at.

I made a mini-Tullgren funnel a little while ago and was blown away by how many different things live within a handful of leaf litter etc. You really should give it a go.

Here it is:

Glamorous, huh?! Ok, maybe not, but I've got a bit of a thing about making things out of stuff I've got laying around and this is made from:

- Plant pot holder/stand
- small funnel
- small sieve (handle hacksawed off)
- one of those ghastly fatball feeders that I didn't use because it's the kind that birds get stuck in (bottom cut out).
- Clip on light fitting
- 60w light bulb.
- 2 lengths of thin wood (I split a piece of Bamboo).

It really doesn't require a manual, you can see from the pics that the sieve goes into the funnel (held by wire) and the that sits on the fatball feeder. It's a bit springy but no biggie, it was more that it's the perfect height to get the samples close enough to the light while also leaving room to put a pot or tub under the funnel.

The light fitting is clipped to one piece of wood and the second piece is there keep the light level and not pointing down at an angle. You want the light focussed down onto your sample to maximise heat/light.

The collecting pot underneath would usually have alcohol or a liquid solvent in, to kill whatever is collected for investigating but I've always just used water - a small amount so that you can see how much is being collected and prevent anything walking or jumping out of your pot. The minibeasts you'll be finding in these samples are nowhere near bigh enough to break the waters surface tension and so tend to collect up with any loose dirt or debris that's fallen through, creating little islands on the surface.
I then have a good look under the microscope to see what's what, ID what I can and take some photographs before emptying the contents back into whatever soil/moss/leaf litter I got it from.
Job Done. No harm done.

It's not the most productive time of year, insect wise, to show an example of what can be found and in the handful of (pretty dry) moss I found nearby, there wasn't anything come out of it BUT don't be put off! In a month or so, this little 'raft' of debris can easily have 5,6,7,8 different species on it so well worth having a go!

The Bee 'ghost-hotel!'

The small, shop-bought Bee Hotel we got for the garden served its purpose but rooms were booked quickly and in no time at all, it was a full house..or hotel. The usual unnecessary additions of sawdust and a couple of Pine Cones came to no use (as usual) but as the bamboo sections attracted an impressive number of Bees, we left it be.
This was a couple of years ago now and I will admit right now, that I was a bit naive about the upkeep and maintenance required to run a hotel, which I've recently learnt, can end up being detrimental to the very occupants you're trying to attract - the Bees!

So this dilapidated hotel fell apart during the winter and has definitely had its day. I kept the remains out the way to sift through and investigate to see what insects I could find - normal behaviour, right?!..of course it is ;)
As all the cells were sealed shut with mud last year, there were no new occupants so I deemed it safe to open up and have a look without destroying any developing Bees. What I found was plenty of larvae of what must be the Fly, Cacoxenus indagator, a cleptoparasite of Osmia bicornis - the Red Mason Bee:

On the side of one of the Bamboo lengths, I also noticed a small hole which COULD be an emergence hole from a Monodontomerus species of Wasp? Not sure and haven't split that cane open yet so there may be clues inside. To the right of that hole, on the seem of the Bamboo joint, you can see a group of small white things which I'm fairly sure are Pollen Mites - probably a Chaetodactylus species and as the Red Mason Bees are in good numbers here, one could hedge ones bet at them being Chaetodactylus osmiae but I couldn't confirm that one I'm afraid!

I found a few Bee cocoons trapped in between rotten debris, mouldy pollen stores and fly larvae, so they've all been placed in a tub in the off chance that something may emerge with the warmth of Spring. I've also kept the fly larvae in a pot with the contents of the tubes in which they were feeding on - cleptoparasite or not, that's nature and that's their life. Would be good to see an adult to confirm the species too, but I might just release these a way away from the new hotel!

All but one of the tubes had the chamber partitions and 'door' sealed with mud, but I did split one open to find the work of a Leafcutter, one of the Megachile species, I believe? Correct me if not, Bees are my kriptonite and I really MUST put more time into learning more about them!

What a learning curve that was this afternoon. Although the emphasis is on creating and looking after a healthy environment for the Bees, it's been another reminder as to just how many different things thrive in different conditions. Amongst the Dipteran squatters and Acarid intruders were also spiders, Bugs, Woodlice, Slugs and Fungi making a home out of what we deem fit for the bin.


With the Bees in mind however, what have a since learnt??

- before Winter hits, I'll move the new hotel to a covered area, to keep from the rain and therefore delay moisture and mould.

- The Baboo canes should be replaced annually, at a suitable time to not turn it into a parasite hotel.

- I need to spend more time ID'ing the Bees I see!


The new Hotel is up and open for business. It's been crudely knocked up and looks far from a 5* place but it will work:

Let's see what visitors I get this year...