In the UK the rare Purbeck mason wasp (Pseudepipona herrichii) is found only in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset.
The female excavates a nest burrow in bare ground on heathland and later seals it with moistened clay.
Purbeck mason wasp (Pseudepipona herrichii) excavating nest burrow on heathland. Dorset, UK.
She stocks her burrow with the larvae of a small moth which feeds mainly on bell heather.
Purbeck mason wasp (Pseudepipona herrichii) with Acleris hyemana moth larva prey at nest burrow entrance. Dorset, UK.
The adults chew distinctive holes in the heather flowers to obtain nectar which their short tongues could not otherwise reach.
Purbeck mason wasp male nectaring on bell heather. Dorset, UK.
The Purbeck mason wasp is thought to rely solely on the larvae of Acleris hyemna, but in 2017 I photographed this female provisioning her nest with what appears to be the moth Acleris notana.
Purbeck mason wasp (Pseudepipona herrichii) with moth larva prey (Acleris notana?) at nest burrow entrance. Dorset, UK.
The wood ant mounds among the pine trees were beginning to stir on my visit to the RSPB’s Arne reserve in Dorset recently.
Nests become active in early spring when worker ants begin to forage for food items and building materials to repair damage sustained over the winter months. Badgers, magpies, jays and other animals often raid wood ant nests for food.
Wood ants are capable of carrying relatively heavy loads
Wood ant colonies can contain up to half a million individuals. On sunny days worker ants ‘sunbathe’ at the nest entrance to absorb heat and then re-enter the nest to release it – keeping it at a steady temperature. When the nest becomes too warm they open small vents to cool it down.
Sunbathing worker ants at nest entrance
The ants are particularly aggressive in springtime as they re-define their territories. Sometimes ants from weaker neighbouring colonies are recruited by force and carried back to the main colony.
Worker ant carrying another wood ant between nests
This species of wood ant is classified as Near Threatened (NT) in the IUCN Red List and classified in Great Britain as Local. Numbers seem to be increasing in the south of England but it has become locally extinct in parts of its former range in the north and east of England, the Midlands and north Wales.
Photographing ants is always a challenge because they’re small and they move very fast. It’s a good idea to keep your trousers tucked firmly into your socks when lying on the ground this close to a nest full of them! They will bite occasionally but can’t pierce skin. The formic acid they squirt in defence is too weak to harm humans.
The team at BBC’s ‘Springwatch Unsprung’ programme used a sequence of my photos to illustrate the intriguing behaviour of the spider-hunting wasp, Anoplius viaticus.
This solitary wasp targets spiders, which it paralyses with venom and then hauls back to its subterranean nest burrow. Once wrestled inside the female wasp will lay its eggs on the spider’s body for its larvae to eat when they hatch.
Bug expert Nick Baker explained that this species stores its prey before excavating the burrow and so the unattended spider often becomes the victim of a tug-of-war between Anoplius viaticus and other opportunistic wasps and ants.
Chris, Nick, Michaela, Martin and the Springwatch gang
Natural history superstar Mr. Chris Packham then related the curious fact that one of his first ever TV assignments was to film this invertebrate behaviour on nearby Studland Beach – this being made all the more awkward because it’s also frequented by enthusiastic naturists! Happily this particular site was a safe distance to the north on the peninsula. 🙂
The RSPB’s reserve at Arne in Dorset recently requested the use of my wetland wildlife photos for their new seasonal interpretation panels. They also commissioned a stitched panoramic landscape image to highlight landmarks visible from their stunning observation point overlooking Poole Harbour.
Featured above are the Southern Hawker dragonfly, Osprey, Wasp Spider, Raft Spider and Marsh Harrier, all of which can be found on the Arne reserve at different times of the year. Well worth a visit!
You’d think that arachnids and water was an unhappy combination, but one species of European spider has made boggy ponds their home.
The raft spider (Dolomedes fimbriatus) is the UK’s largest native spider – its body growing up to 2cm long.
It uses the water’s surface like other spiders use their webs – feeling for the vibrations of potential prey with front legs extended. Using this technique it hunts tadpoles, insects and occasionally small fish:
Raft spider eating damselfly
When alarmed, the water repellent hairs on the raft spider’s legs enable it to dive beneath the water, trapping a bubble of air to keep it alive until the coast is clear and it cautiously re-emerges:
The wetland pools favoured by raft spiders are increasingly rare in this country. On the RSPB’s Arne reserve in Dorset their habitat is lovingly preserved, and offers wildlife watchers easy access from the nearby heathland trail:
Boggy pond habitat
On a good day dozens of raft spiders at various stages in their life cycle can be witnessed at the pond’s edge.
1. Sex
The female raft spider is often considerably larger than the male and mating is a dangerous business. He approaches her cautiously, waving his front legs tentatively to judge her receptiveness:
Male raft spider approaches female at her den
She may rush out to scare him off on numerous occasions, after which she retreats and the process begins again, the male edging closer all the while. It’s a nerve jangling thing to watch, let alone participate in.
2. Birth
The female spins a silk bag to contain the fertilised eggs, which she carries about beneath her body, keeping it just warm and moist enough to ensure their survival:
Raft spider carrying egg sac
Then, when the baby spiders are ready to hatch, she lashes the egg sac to vegetation at the edge of the pond and the tiny hatchlings emerge:
Baby raft spiders in nursery web
Mum typically lies in wait nearby to ensure that her young ones don’t come to any harm:
Raft spider guards her hatchlings
This phenomenon of hundreds of spiderlings crowded together for their own mutual safety is only really appreciated up close:
Raft spider hatchlings closeup
But soon the young raft spiders are large enough to fend for themselves and disperse around the pond.
3. Death
Raft spiders are not fussy eaters. When times are tough and food is scarce, or when too many raft spiders compete for the same local resources, they may even turn to cannibalism:
Post-industrial landscape reclaimed for wetland wildlife at RSPB Arne
The Arne peninsula in Dorset juts out into Poole Harbour, separating the Wareham channel from the main body of water. Right out at the tip, concealed by the remains of ancient oak woodland, lies a former ball clay pit.
The extraction company, Imerys, finished mining the deposit in 2008. Since 2010 they have been restoring the area as part of their mitigation agreement, before transferring ownership of the site to the RSPB, who manage the surrounding nature reserve at Arne.
I was asked to document this reclamation process on behalf of the RSPB, in particular the flooding of the claypit basin with water from the harbour to create a saline lagoon habitat for wading birds and other species.
Earthworks
With mining activities ended the pit was re-profiled with heavy earth-moving equipment, and a layer of topsoil deposited above the expected final water level in the summer of 2011.
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Next, a channel was cut through the embankment to join the claypit with the harbour at the south end of the site. On especially high tides the water from the harbour would flood this channel to gradually fill the lagoon.
This process was expected to take many months and it was decided to document the process with a timelapse camera.
View to a spill
We surveyed the best location for the camera – somewhere with a wide view of the pit, a glimpse of the harbour in the background, a small island in the middle ground and some vegetation in the foreground to provide varied visual interest.
Unfortunately this necessitated pointing the camera due south, so we also calculated the position and angle of the sun in future months to try to minimise its dazzling effect on the camera’s lens and sensor.
Arne claypit timelapse project plan
The pit itself is off-limits, but there is public access to the surrounding area and it is too remote to monitor. Exposure to the elements over such a long period was also a consideration, so an expensive DSLR setup was not a practical option, and a relatively cheap-and-cheerful alternative was sourced.
The pit filled much more rapidly than the engineers had predicted and in April of the following year, after only 7 months, the rising water had achieved its final level.
The following video sequence shows events over that period, compressed to just 1 minute, using stills taken at 3 hour intervals:
Life returns
The island habitat is already frequented by shelducks and sika deer regularly visit its shores. It will take longer for the waters to settle and for other species to establish themselves.
It’s hoped that the regular interchange of water with the harbour will prevent the process of eutrophication, which would otherwise make the lagoon inhospitable. The suspension of clay particles in the water can be a serious problem in this respect.
Arne claypit reclamation stills sequence
Whether this industrially exploited area becomes the wildlife oasis hoped for only time will tell.
With thanks to Mark, Rob, Damon, James and Em at RSPB Arne.
Photographic survey for RSPB and Natural England for use at public inquiry
Talbot Heath lies largely unnoticed on the outskirts of Poole in Dorset. Once it formed a seamless whole with the famous expanse of heathland familiar to Thomas Hardy and his contemporaries. Nowadays it’s sliced apart by bypass and railway to north and south, and nibbled away at by encroaching residential developments to the east and west. The sea of heathland has become an island here.
Most of the locals clearly love this precious green (and brown) open space, but its close proximity to human habitation regularly puts the heathland flora and fauna at risk from fire and other degradations. The effects of arson in particular, but also the predations of local cats, litter and path erosion present a considerable threat to this Ramsar and SSSI designated site.
Planning breach
The local borough council in their wisdom recently approved a planning application to extend a housing development in the north, onto farmland which currently serves as a buffer between urban and heathland areas. This decision was controversial for several reasons, but especially because it appeared to override a government directive which prevented new developments within 400m of heathland sites.
The RSPB and other conservation bodies became worried that this development might set a dangerous precedent and the decision eventually went to a Public Inquiry. As part of their submission to the Inquiry I was asked to document the site photographically for the RSPB and their partners at Natural England.
Urban effects
Following 3 visits to the site in late spring 2011 I delivered a library of 300+ geolocated images, documenting the Talbot Heath landscape, its flora and fauna, human visitors, and urban effects.
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Update: In February 2012 the proposed development was refused permission by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
In the scorchingly hot, dry month of June 2011, Upton Heath near Poole in Dorset caught fire. I happened to be on the Arne peninsula at the time, and recorded this video footage from the opposite side of Poole Harbour:
Fanned by strong winds, the fire spread rapidly to become the largest heathland blaze in Dorset for decades.
Upton Heath was home to some of the UK’s rarest wild creatures, including the smooth snake, sand lizard and dartford warbler.
Over the following few days I documented the aftermath of the fire for the RSPB and Natural England, with permission of the Dorset Wildlife Trust’s team on-site:
I’m always interested in finding new ways to combine my photographic skills with interactive technology.
A couple of years ago I experimented with panoramic photos taken through a complete 360 degrees, stitched together, and then animated inside a Flash player to enable the user to scroll left or right and explore different aspects of the view. I incorporated these panoramas into a Google Maps interface, to provide a ‘virtual tour’ experience for the website of a local country park and nature reserve.
More recently I’ve taken this to its logical conclusion and stitched together full spherical panoramas, which not only scroll horizontally through 360 degrees, but also up to a ‘zenith’ in the sky and down to a ‘nadir’ beneath the viewer’s hypothetical feet, through 180 vertical degrees.
When viewed in a dedicated Flash or Shockwave player the effect is suitably immersive. Click the images below to be transported (requires Adobe Shockwave).
RSPB Lodmoor 360° x 180° Panorama
And this wintry scene from RSPB Arne after an unusual snowy spell:
RSPB Arne 360° x 180° Panorama
To make this exercise worthwhile you ideally want plenty of interest in the upper and lower extremities of the scene. Architectural interiors work well for this reason, as do dramatic cloudscapes.
* Shockwave wizardry courtesy of SPi-V – developed by the very talented Aldo Hoeben.
Dom Greves Digital / Blog 