Advice & Guides

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Welcome to the first of a new series of blogs featuring the photos and sightings of wildlife in the garden (and our outreach sites like Chattowood) by our staff, whether in office, shop, tearoom, nursery or garden. The images are curated and commented upon by Dr Chris Gibson, our Wildlife Advocate.

While the photos are not always of the highest quality – our staff are always busy doing their main jobs! – they give a real feel of life in the garden. We will aim to produce monthly blogs for most of the year, but because midwinter sees fewer insects, and many fewer people out in the garden to see the wildlife, this first one covers the three-month midwinter period from November 2024 to the end of January 2025.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


While November in the gardens can see the start of winter, more often than not it is simply the tail-end of autumn. And so it proved in 2024: the insects just kept on coming. This lovely selection of hoverflies and wasps photographed by Hen all go to prove my oft-made point about the incredible wildlife value of ivy, even in the depths of November, a nectar and pollen source for all manner of insects.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Despite often cool night time temperatures, there are many moths that habitually fly in the autumn, and lighted walls can be a good place to spot them the following morning as Scott found next to the staff room door. Both the Feathered Thorn and November Moth pictured here can be found as adults only at this time of year.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


But there are a whole lot more moths that are found as caterpillars at this time. Here we have two tiger moths, Ruby Tiger and Cream-spot Tiger, and a Large Yellow Underwing  found by Cathy, Rob and Hollie respectively. The fact that two of these were on plants in the nursery speaks volumes: as the home of ecological and sustainable plants and gardens, it would be quite improper for us to use chemical pesticides (poisons!) to control (kill!) such munchers…

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


For some groups of insects, the stage between caterpillar (larva) and adult is the chrysalis or pupa, where the magic of metamorphosis sees the caterpillar ‘melted down’ and reforged as the adult. Also on the nursery area, Annie photographed this chrysalis of a Small White butterfly, one of the so-called 'cabbage whites' that were so abundant in September, one of the few insect highpoints of the summer.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Beetles too have this type of life cycle, although the larvae are usually called grubs, rather than caterpillars. And they can be tricky to identify: this collection of beetle grubs found in some compost by Hen are probably from one of the chafers or stag-beetles, several species of which we have found in the garden. An online guide to them can be found at https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:03cfe166-dc76-444c-bed8-b2129bb58cda

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Bugs are often mistaken for beetles but they have an entirely different life cycle, hatching as mini-adults (nymphs) and growing to maturity through a series of skin sheddings. Many overwinter as adults, and Cathy provided this lovely photo of two species: Hawthorn Shield-bug (the bigger brighter one) and a Green Shield-bug, which is bright green in summer and dull brown/green in winter, with colours to match the average leaf colour. And Ben found (and correctly identified) this impressive beast as a Western Conifer Seed Bug from North America. Accidentally introduced at the very end of the 20th century, we have a couple of previous records from the garden, all at this time of the year when they come into buildings and sheds for winter. 

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Spiders too often overwinter as mature adults. Scott found two lovely species during the month, firstly a Woodlouse Spider which isn’t a common species in north Essex which uses its massive jaws to open up its main prey: woodlice. Similarly uncommon is Nigma walckenaeri, a little green species which doesn’t seem to have been recorded in the gardens before.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Of course fungi are a group, indeed a Kingdom of life, that is especially associated with autumn, the time of year that a summer’s growth dies off and is recycled, fungi being one of the main groups of decomposers. But rarely have we been as excited as when Miya posted a picture of bird’s-nest fungi growing in some of her peony pots. The 'eggs' are reproductive bodies that get dispersed by raindrops dropping into the 'nests'. The fungus lives on dead wood and chips and doesn't harm any plants. On closer examination, they proved to be Common Bird's-nest Crucibulum leave, the second species on our garden list, to go with Field Bird's-nest from 2022 that Cathy found outside in the Reservoir Garden, twice as large and greyer in colour.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Another fungus photo was sent by Rob of at least two types growing out of a tree stump. The one in the foreground is the very distinctive Jelly Ear, which usually grows on old Elder wood, but can feast upon a wide range of broad-leaved trees.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


In December, the wee beasties of the garden are harder to find, but many are still there if one looks in the right places: the cycle of life, death and decay must go on, even as the garden closes down! The flat millipede (probably a Polydesmus sp.) snapped by Scott is an example of another decay organism, one that munches up leaves and suchlike, so that fungi and bacteria can get to work on the smaller fragments with larger surface area, while the ichneumon wasp found by Cathy is a parasite. Ichneumons mostly lay eggs in grubs and caterpillars, where their larvae eat and kill the host slowly from the inside: gruesome but necessary – parasitism and predation are important processes in maintaining ecological balance.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


And yes, there are also the hibernators, including this aggregation of 7-spot Ladybirds Rob photographed, which highlights the need not to be too tidy around the garden in winter. If safe hibernation sites are lost, then next spring we will not have our army of little helpers keeping aphids at bay. Queen bumblebees often hibernate too, but as the one Cathy photographed shows, they do need to feed up first. In Britain, our gardens, with winter-flowering shrubs and perennials, are well placed to meet this need when really the only thing flowering in the wild is gorse. And a final picture from Cathy, frogs in the leaf litter in the wood. That’s why it’s great to leave the leaves lying!

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Moving into January it was predictably quiet, though Rob managed shots of a Rosemary Beetle, always an iridescent delight, plus a fly and a parasitic wasp, neither of which can really be identified from photos. But all of which point hopefully towards spring…

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


Across in the Meanwhile Garden in Colchester, David found this Lithobius brown centipede. Compare it with the similar looking flat millipede above: the millipede has two pairs of legs per segment, the centipede just one. And they do very different things: millipedes eat mostly dead organic matter, whereas centipedes are predators of other litter-dwelling invertebrates.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025


And finally a picture from Emily, which she summed up as ‘Best start to the day - so beautiful!’ And who could disagree! Midwinter, when arriving and leaving times coincide with twilight always gives the best chance of seeing a Barn Owl (or two) along the driveway.

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

 

And so the end of January is upon us, the winter closure is coming to end, and what better time to come to the Gardens (open Tuesday-Saturday from February 4th) to see not only the spring flowers, but also the wonderful array of wildlife that we share the garden with?

For a different perspective on the last three months, you can see Chris Gibson’s personal blogs at the links below:

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: a time for renewal | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the advent of winter | Chris Gibson Wildlife

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: … and the year turns full circle | Chris Gibson Wildlife

 

And please come back to see what is happening in the wild side of the garden over the coming year!

 

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Wild Words from the Ground – Midwinter 2024-2025

Comments (2)

I love all your blogs and posts from the garden at Chattos I find the articles very informative and love the wildlife ones
I can’t get to see the garden easily as I’m disabled and live in Somerset but it brings that fantasy community of garden alive ! Thankyou
Annie Farley | 01/02/2025
I love all your blogs and posts from the garden at Chattos I find the articles very informative and love the wildlife ones
I can’t get to see the garden easily as I’m disabled and live in Somerset but it brings that fantasy community of garden alive ! Thankyou
Annie Farley | 01/02/2025
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