Bog bean and other beautiful things.
By seaburngirl
11 comments
Karen asked about the bog bean in my last blog. So here is another photo. It is in the corner or the pond and started life as a single root 8 yrs ago. I put it in the corner in a shallow planting tray with just gravel and no compost. The pond has fish so there is plenty of nutrients for the plants to grow.
Since then it has produced other stems that extend about 2 ft away from the starter root. I find once a tip has flowered it then starts off from side buds along the stem. So it rarely gets any bigger than that. If there was a mud bank it would root into it and go on from there.
So its size is approximately 2ft by 2ft and this year there are 6 flower spikes. Bog bean is a British native and is scientifically Menyanthes trifoliate.
Keeping in the theme of British natives this chap/chapess was feeding on slugs on the pond wall at 11pm last night. A pretty colour form rather than the green and brown one that was in the corner under the bog bean.
Now you may well be wondering what I was doing out by the pond at 11 pm last night. I ask myself the same question really as I was ready for bed at 10pm. The answer is Victoria. She has a moth trap and has been checking early fliers from 10.30-12 midnight then up again at 5.30-7.00 am to check what is present.
This loud buzzing was followed by what sound like a small stone hitting the conservatory window. On investigation it was this 1" long beetle.
It has many common names, mainly May beetle or cockchafer. Their grubs do a lot of damage eating roots. She trapped 6 last night. They were photographed and released. The blackbirds took 3 of them so that was good.
We had a couple of pipistrelle bats flying round feeding on the midges and other small insects. We could hear the tawny owls but could not see them sadly.
This morning she woke me up at 6am to tell me she had a hawk moth in the trap and did I want to photograph it before she released it. Guess what the answer was!
This is a poplar hawk moth.
It was released into the under growth and we hoped it would avoid capture during the day.
Can you spot it?
We did a similar thing with the elephant hawk moth that was trapped the day before.
Later in the day this butterfly was resting on the grass. It is a female orange tip.
I have plenty of plants for them to feed on and I think the moth species count is 30+. We are so lucky to have beautiful wildlife on our doorstep.
And in the flower ;o) This is the bee in a delphinium flower.
21 May, 2020
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Comments
Fascinating blog about your pond and garden inhabitants, thank you.
We found a gorgeous moth in our garden last season. I
think it was a privet hawk moth. We'd never seen one before; staggeringly beautiful. I'll put a pic. up for you to see if we got its name right!
22 May, 2020
WONDERFUL blog Eileen . . . who knew that East Yorkshire was wildlife heaven?! You captured some great shots there, and well done to your daughter for her dedication. Really enjoyable :)
22 May, 2020
Sheila it is a wonderful place for wildlife as it encompasses so many habitats from coast to wetlands and everything in between.
all the hawk moths are stunning Anget but our real would like to see is the deaths head. one day hopefully.
22 May, 2020
Really enjoyable and educational blog!
22 May, 2020
Thanks for that! Helpful info about bogbean and some amazing insects too!
22 May, 2020
Beautiful moths,and great photos. Well worth getting up early for!
22 May, 2020
wow, that's impressive - almost alien-like. It's cool to see.
22 May, 2020
Love the Poplar hawk moth, not so keen on May bugs though :-( I'm interested in moths, must be fun to have a trap & see what you get. Can they be bought or
improvised?
23 May, 2020
yes they can be bought. the better sorts use 'black light' it has more uv light in it and is less harsh than a bright white light. Toria bought a mid range one for about £130. this is the shop she got hers from on line. though she did ring up for advice. excellent service.
https://www.dalegatemarket.co.uk/one-stop-nature-shop/
But when they were children we used a water proof torch under a clothes horse with a white sheet over it. The moths will land on the surface. we used to put this out at about 8.30 and kept going out to it every 30 mins. until we went to bed at midnight. we rarely stayed out coz of the mozzies.
23 May, 2020
The Bog Bean is pretty which would fill my little pond.
You have a some lovely visitors to your garden . Its great your daughter has set up a moth trap I watched a documentary in the Brazilian rain forest doing this and loved watching it . It will be very interesting to see if your daughter captures some thing unknown with weather change. Never seen a beetle like that before.
Recently I watched a program where they done an experiment on a row of gardens to see how much wild life was in each one had gone wild and over grown they thought that would have the most diversity of wild life but it was a couples garden that had the most filled with plants shrubs and trees which shocked the comentator filming . So your daughter should be lucky with your garden
23 May, 2020
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Early morning in the garden can be magical. The birds were flitting around collecting insects for their offspring this morning, moths too big for our little birds. You captured some interesting moths today. The Hawk Moth pic is stunning.
21 May, 2020