bio Diversity Training

I watched a small section of the patch - a cranny if you will, and indeed a nook. A very ordinary bit of land only about one meter square. Of the kind, that there must be, going for, a quarter of a million on the patch, and billions in the whole country.

I stood there and marveled at the biodiversity on view.

Small Skipper

Heath Rush

Smooth Sow thistle, Ragwort, Tufted Vetch, Bitter Vetchling, Hairy Tare - just a few of the plants. Low down in the undergrowth the surprisingly showy flowers of Heath Rush.

What was most striking was the coming and goings of the insects. There were at least 20 species of nectaring insects.

Red-tailed and White Tailed Bumble Bees, as well as the bumble bee mimic hoverfly - Volucella Bombylans.

Comma, Meadow Brown, Small Skipper and Gatekeeper butterflies flapped and flitted. Almost every Sow-thistle flower had a least one charmingly named False Blister Beetle.

One of the longhorn beetles - Rutpela maculata was of particular interest, there seem to be very few Lancashire records and none in South Lancashire.

The tireless activity reminded me of an airport concourse - the got-to-get-somewhere urgency. The people to see, places to be, the nectar to drink, the pollen to eat.

Most of all, though, I simply wondered at the abundance of nature.