The Biting Fly Stomomyx calcitrans

 This cursed fly seems to be more common than it used to be.  To the unaided eye it looks like a rather small house fly.  With the aid of a super macro camera one can see more detail. The lower photograph shows the offending proboscis.  It is as hard as horn and can penetrate the soft skin of the human leg with ease, causing much irritation.
It is said that the skin is first cut using the lower lip of the labium and that is certainly how it feels.  The larvae develop in rotting straw or hay especially if it has been used as animal bedding and has been impregnated  with urine. 

The Black Soldier Fly - Hermetia illucens

 The sort of beastie which is a creature that one should really know more about, but one doesn't.
There are quite a few who do know a good deal, however.  Among the avant-garde of gardeners there are those who are quite familiar with this insect.
Its original home is in the continent of America. Now it is probably found world-wide.  Looking up the recorded distribution in France, I find it is recorded in departments along the Atlantic Coast and here and there elsewhere, but not in the Department of the Lot, till now.

This large fly (16 mms long) was sitting on a window frame, looking almost moribund, which it probably was, for the adult only lives a few days.  It cannot eat and is but a reproductive element in the life cycle, in the same manner that exists with mayflies.  I thought at first that it was a species of horsefly (Tabanid) but the length of the antennae seemed to suggest otherwise.  Then what attracted my attention strikingly were the two transparent discs on the forepart of the abdomen. One can see right through the body like windows.
This insect is, as a larva, a maggot, a voracious scavenger of both plant and animal remains.
Further reading tells me that the insect is actually 'cultivated' to reduce compost and food waste.  The larvae can be used as chicken feed and even it is suggested as human food.
The adults live  for a few days, in which they mate, lay eggs and then die.
The references in general say that it causes no disease problems and is probably most useful in clearing up the waste generated by us humans.

Grasshopper hunting wasps.

 In late summer when one opens a window, it is not unusual to find the groove at the bottom packed with pieces of cut hay packaging a number of small 'grasshoppers'.  The green insects are in fact 'sauterelles' as the French call them. To create confusion in English they are called crickets, whilst to make that yet more confusing what the French call criquets, the English call 'grasshoppers'.

Wasp hoard of hay and oak-bush crickets

This mass of sauterelles and hay is placed there by a large black and red wasp named Sphex rufocinctus.  The sauterelles are Meconema meridionalis - In English called the southern oak-bush cricket.  This species is quite tiny rarely reaching 15 mms.  Indeed they are small enough to be confused as larval forms. They tend to hide away during the day underneath the leaves of oak, high up in the trees.  

The crickets are paralysed by the wasp. And into this heap of Hay and crickets, the wasp lays about one egg to every four crickets.  After  some short period the eggs hatch and the larvae commence to eat the food stored for them. That you can see in the photo on the right.
These larvae will then pupate first enveloping themselves in silk rather as caterpillars will do.  The firm dark brown pupae will await there till the next spring.

Another pest from the Far East - Chestnut leaf gall wasps.

Dryocosmus kuriphilus

It looks almost like a Christmas decoration, doesn't it.  But those two shining berry-like structures are a pest from China.  They are galls created by a minute wasp with the jaw cracking Latin name written below the picture.  The wasp is classified in a group known as cynips. Such wasps are about two to three millimetres long and pitch black in colour but with bright orange legs.

 Image of the wasp  taken from the Forestry Commission site, 

and originally courtesy of Gyorgy Csoka, 

Hungary Forest Research Institute, Bugwood.org

The tiny wasp does not reproduce via normal mating.  The females lay eggs in small batches amounting to about 100 eggs at the end of summer. This is without any mating i.e it is parthenogenesis. The eggs are placed just inside the developing winter buds.  The larvae develop slowly and induce the surrounding plant tissues to develop into protective galls. The following summer the adults emerge to infect new buds.

 Gleaning information from the internet one learns that its original home is China, from it spread by 1940 to Japan,  and then to Korea in 1974 and on to the United States. In 2002 it appeared for the first time in Europe. The species has been extensively recorded from Italy since 2005. In 2007 it reached the south of France.

At that time the infested trees were burned but the spread has not been stopped. It has reached England and again burning of trees was tried.  
The pest weakens the trees which must have a toll on both fruit and timber production.
The insect is clearly now widespread through France.

It looks as though it is here to stay.  Just as the Asian hornet is now established and also the Asian Box tree  caterpillar so this Oriental Chestnut Gall Wasp is here to stay.

Caterpillar eats orchid

The tongue orchid produces no nectar.   Yet in the tubular hollow formed by the petals one can  find from time to time insects of various kinds.  Tiny beetles can scurry around.  Nevertheless it was something of a surprise to find a caterpillar (May 3rd 2013)  The caterpillar was tiny but the space is small and it was curled up. Its head was moving up and down as though it was eating, and indeed that was the case!

T=he flower of this orchid has a bright shiny purple swelling  on the labellum. That is to say the petal which lies lowest

and forms the base of the flower tube.  I extracted the caterpillar by shaking onto a small saucer and dissected the flower.  In the illustration here I have pinned the labellum of the eaten flower next to another which was not eaten.  You can see how the caterpillar has chewed at the red swelling in the petal on the left, exposing the pale tissue beneath.

Pursuing this matter, I searched for the species name of the caterpillar.  To keep it alive so I could see it more easily  I placed it on another Serapias flower head held in some water in a glass beaker.  The caterpillar crawled up the flower and proceeded to eat at the edge of a petal in the fashion which is common to caterpillars, attacking the petal edge sideways on and champing through as though it were a leaf edge.
The next two pictures show the caterpillar at the top of the flower and beginning to feed.

It appears to be the caterpillar of the common quaker moth [Orthosia cerasi syn - O.stabilis]  The books give the food plants as oak, elm. birch, willow, hawthorns, hazel and perhaps others.  I think I can add Serapias lingua!
The most likely explanation for thecreature being on the orchid is that heavy rain and gusty winds which have shaken the  'darling buds of may'  have thrown the caterpillar from the young leaves of the downy oak (Quercus pubescens) which are above this little group of orchids and the little creature will happily eat whatever it can.
The Common Quaker Moth is not that spectacular.  Its  fore wings are brown but prettily patterned.

Weather 2012

Statistical data cumulative for 2012
To view click here


April and May were wet and since then it has been very dry and hot. In July and August the average maximum temperatures approached thirty degrees Celsius.
The drought naturally has led to a failure of many crops only kept going with some irrigation from rain water stored in our cistern from the earlier part of the year.
The walnut crop this year will be poor but oddly there is a large crop of figs.
We make fig jam each year which serves as a substitute for Marmalade.  This year I have made 25 pots which should last till the next fig season.
The problem with fig jam is that it does not set without encouragement.  The fault lies with the acidity of the fruit.
This recipe solves the problem

To make 6/7 jars of Fig Marmalade

1.6 kg of ripe figs, cut into small chunks

One Lemon - use the zest and juice and as much pulp as possible.

Three large slices of crystallised ginger cut finely.

One rounded teaspoon of cinnamon powder.

1.6 kg of sugar (with pectin added if possible)

FOUR tablespoons of red wine vinegar.

Bring the figs, lemon, ginger and cinnamon mixture to the boil.  Macerate with a hand-held blender.

Add the sugar and boil quickly for about 6 minutes.  Test for setting. 

Bimonthly weather report January-February 2012

To go to the index click here

To view statistics click here

It has been  a disastrous season - at least if we only remember February.  January was reasonably mild but February was Arctic!  The average night temperature was nearly minus three, but there were ten consecutive nights below minus eight.  We suffered as did numerous friends and neighbours from burst pipes.  One gushed like a fountain and our guest flat had three centimetres of water throughout the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.  The consequence of that inundation is not entirely resolved in March.
The amount of rainfall has been appallingly low. We had only 7 millimetres in February.   Last year we had 44 and the year before 38. 
The snowdrops were delayed.  The first one was seen on the 23rd January  but it and its buddies soon hit the frost and the real flowering appeared on the 28/29 February.
Nearly all winter vegetables in the garden were killed.  Brussels sprouts  pulled through.  The roses which  were planted last autumn have been seriously damaged and possibly some have died.  This is a terrible shame  because they were a special planting to commemorate my wife's birthday.
No celandines appeared before March and of course the early flowering plum tree is still shut up tight even as I write this on the 10th March.
No migrating cranes (birds) have been seen during these two months.