The last garden club this season. Thanks to all those who have come along and supported our free fun-in-the-garden experiment. We are making an application to buy some kit and make things better and more long term for a garden club at KHCC. I will post when ready to start again in the new year.
Photos below are of lacewing hotel making - I did something similar at
Evergreen. I will post to Bugmen Ad Bates and Nick Williams (
OPALWM and
Butterfly conservation who both visited earlier this year) to check they will work, but they look pretty in our trees anyway.
 |
| Searching for sticks |
 |
| Attaching wings |
 |
| Decorating tins |
Thanks for making it happen!
ReplyDeleteHi Marcus, Nikki and all
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed seeing the photos of lacewing hotel making. These normally are made of hollow stems such as sections of bamboo cane or hogweed stems or similar, but essentially as long as there are spaces of varying sizes available and accessible for small creatures and they are put in locations sheltered from the worst of the weather, they should be used by something. This may well not be lacewings, but could be earwigs, spiders, harvestmen, beetles etc. You could have a look at one or two of them in a few weeks' time once there have been a few really cold nights unless you prefer to leave well alone and never quite know what used them.
Another technique is to cut some long grass, (as in from a large tussock), and place that carefully in a sheltered location at the base of a shrub or plants that you aren't intending to disturb, leave for several weeks, then get something like a fertiliser bag (white plastic if possible), cut it open and spread it on the ground or on a table indoors, then collect your grass tussock or haycock and shake it out very gently over the fertiliser bag so the kids can see all the little bugs running for cover. When they have seen it, you can carefully return the grass and the contents to where they came from. This is a standard method of recording spiders, especially money spiders, most of which are mature and breeding over the winter rather than in the summer like their larger cousins. When I was in Teesdale many years ago I did quite a lot of this, and because very few spider recorders had spent any time in Teesdale we recorded several new species for Yorkshire including one or two new to England as well as new records for that north-western part of Yorkshire.
All the best,
Nick
Hi Marcus,
ReplyDeleteSomething or other will over-winter in them to be sure. Lacewings aren’t that abundant in the environment, but are pretty and eat greenfly. This is why they’re a target species for this sort of thing along with ladybirds. It is important to not get disappointed if you can’t see lots of lacewings in them, because this is a rare occurrence.
When it comes to over-wintering, invertebrates need it to be dry, the cold is no problem. It is cold plus water à ice that’s the big problem for them.
If you want something quick that you can do at this time of year (well, it would have been better a few weeks ago) along a similar vein is creating fake bark over-wintering sites. It is basically like flaky bark, which a lot of species over-winter under. A more temporary approach is using corrugated cardboard (maybe with stickybackplastic keeping one side dry), a more permanent one is using plastic corriboard (like a plastic version of corrugated cardboard). Pieces can be stapled or pinned tight to a tree trunk to create a place for beasties to climb under for the winter.
Let me know if you need me for anything when it warms up again and the flowers and beasties are out.
Best wishes
Adam
Dr Adam Bates
Earth Sciences
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
The University of Birmingham