A Brit abroad

Late June in Languedoc

The summer birding doldrums have well and truly set in around Cambridge, and so I headed down to the south of France for a dose of Mediterranean specialities. In recent visits I have never failed to see at least one Little Bustard (Outarde canepetiere) when flying into Montpellier airport. This male was displaying.

I couldn't resist a second visit to the mixed heron/ibis colony at Scamandre, where several young Glossy Ibis (Ibis falcinelle) are now on show.

Only a small part of the colony is visible from the trail, but adults can frequently be seen flying to and from their nests.

While Cattle Egrets (Heron gardenoeuf) were the most abundant heron, I also saw reasonable numbers of Squacco Heron (Crabier chevelu) and Night Heron (Bihoreau gris).

Several Bee-eaters (Guepier d'Europe) were hunting around the reserve.

By mid-morning it was really too hot to bird, and the remainder of my birding consisted of getting up at 6am and cycling out to the source of the river Lez, a nice mixture of Mediterranean habitats. The pine-covered hillsides held Crossbill(Bec-croise d'Europe), Subalpine Warbler (Fauvette passerinette) and Woodlark (Alouette lulu). I spent much of my time in the shade of the riparian poplar groves, where the highlight was numerous sightings of Golden Oriole (Loriot d'Europe).

After much craning of the neck I was even able to have an obscured view of an oriole nest with at least one well-grown chick inside.

This female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Pic epeichette) was drumming and calling.

I had several glimpses of Rollers (Rollier d'Europe) flying over, but frustratingly none lingered. Hedgerows in the neighbouring arable land held good numbers of Tree Sparrow (Moineau friquet), Cirl Bunting (Bruant zizi), Melodious Warbler (Hypolais polyglotte) and Nightingale (Rossignol philomele), but perhaps the most surprising birds of the day were a party of 5 Gull-billed Terns (Sterne hansel) hawking insects over the fields, apparently a long way from the nearest standing water. Were these birds non-breeders or do they undergo long flights from nesting sites to food-rich areas?

Ladybird larvae and the BBC!

Last week a film crew from BBC1's Countryfile visited the ladybird lab to do a feature on Harlequins. My job was to to take the crew to the Cambridge backs and bash lots of ladybirds out of the trees, to highlight the difference between the Harlequin and the native species. Needless to say adult ladybirds were very thin on the ground that day, and the only native species I found (a Pine) flew out of my beating tray before we could film it! Fortunately we did find some Harlequin larvae to talk about, so here's a mini-guide to the ladybird larvae I've encountered so far.

In the late larval stages (3rd or 4th instar), Harlequin larvae are very distinctive with their big spines and two bright orange stripes down the back. This one is engaging in intraguild predation, eating the pupa of another ladybird species (a 2-spot or 10-spot).

2-spot and 10-spot larvae can often be found in the same deciduous trees as Harlequins, but lack the spines of the latter species and typically have just a few orange splodges on the back. On average 2-spot larvae tend to be dark grey or black...

... while 10-spot larvae are pale grey.

Cream-spot larvae, distinguished by their cream spots against a dark body, are also deciduous tree-dwellers.

Much less frequently seen, these are, respectively, the larvae of the Larch and 18-spot ladybirds. Both are smaller and paler than the above species and normally occur on conifers.

7-spot larvae can often be found in long grass and have 4 pairs of orange spots against a black body.

14-spots are also grass-dwellers; the larvae are black with bold white spots and long spidery legs.

One of the most distinctive larvae is that of the 22-spot, a mildew feeder.

Finally, this cute, furry larva is a herbivorous 24-spot, lacking the aphid-grabbing mouthparts of its carnivorous cousins.

I believe the Countryfile episode is due to air on BBC1 on the morning of Sunday July 6th - I'll be the embarrassed-looking guy fluffing his lines while kneeling in front of a beating tray!

Early June birding

Following an excellent May I've managed very little birding, mostly as I've been looking after my labmate's hungry ladybirds. I biked out to Little Wilbraham Fen one evening hoping for Long-eared Owls - no joy with this species, but I had decent views of a reeling Grasshopper Warbler.

This Hobby perched on the same dead tree as a Woodpigeon...

... and was briefly joined by a Jay.

A Reed Bunting basks in the evening sun.

I found this still-warm freshly dead mole - not a mammal I see very frequently.

A pair of Marsh Harriers circled above me just after sunset.

The Peterhouse Pheasants continue to entertain in the college gardens, but while these two are an obvious pair, I've seen no sign of young.

At least two broods of Robins have fledged.

A confiding Mallard pair.

A Harlequin's life story

I recently took a batch of Harlequin eggs to the lab and watched them go through their life cycle, so here's a short photo essay depicting the transition from eggs through 4 larval instars, prepupa and pupa to adult ladybird. In the process I discovered that the same camera I use for digiscoping can also be used with a hand lens or microscope (digimicroscoping?) for some extreme close-up images.

Adult Harlequins lay their eggs close to aphid colonies, so that the newly-emerged larvae will have something to feed on. The eggs are laid in batches, often on the underside of a leaf or branch.

Once hatched, the larvae will eat any leftovers or unhatched eggs.

At this stage the larvae are often dwarfed by adult aphids, their preferred prey.

Provided they find enough food, the larvae grow quickly. In this rather gruesome photo, a larva is attacking an aphid while she gives birth to her daughters - the dark dots inside of her body are the eyes of the youngsters. You can also see the spines along the length of the larva's body - these help defend it from being eaten by predators. If food is scarce, the larvae will resort to cannibalism.

When they have eaten enough to outgrow their old skin, they shed it (this process is called ecdysis). They undergo three such moults before pupating.

After each successive moult, the larvae get bigger and start to obtain their war paint. The orange stripes are a clear warning signal to predators that they are not good to eat.

Just after ecdysis, parts of the larva are a gooey pale yellow before hardening to a darker colour.

In the fourth larval instar, Harlequin larvae usually have four yellow spots forming a square on their back.

Before pupating, the larva swells...

... and the yellow-orange pupa emerges.

The pupal case hardens and becomes orange with black markings, much like an adult ladybird.

After a few more days, the adult starts to emerge...

... and finally an adult Harlequin appears. As it gets older, the spots often become larger and more numerous, and the ground colour darker.

These adults will feed, breed, and overwinter (often in people's houses), and the whole process starts over in the following spring.