The ivy on our neighbour’s gate post showing the pale flower heads
I was standing in our street, enjoying the gentle warmth of the late September morning sun but I wasn’t alone. Nearby, a large clump of ivy covering the top of our neighbour’s gatepost was alive with insects. For much of the year this ivy is dominated by shiny dark green leaves but from late summer, the woody climber throws up many pale green flower heads mostly from the upper part of the clump. The flower heads soften the look of the ivy and mature into spherical umbels of 20 or so florets, each loaded with nectar and pollen and emitting a sickly-sweet fragrance. This rich source of forage acts as a magnet for insects especially at a time when many flowering plants are shutting down.
A female ivy bee on the ivy flowers, note the pollen collecting on her back legs
When the sun shone, I saw many hoverflies, mostly drone fly (Eristalis) species, some common wasps, a few honeybees and bumblebees and the occasional red admiral butterfly on the ivy flowers but I was hoping for something else. And suddenly there it was, an insect about the size of a honeybee but with a shock of reddish, pale brown hair across the thorax and bright yellow bands around its black abdomen as it tapers to a point. It was also carrying large amounts of chrome yellow ivy pollen on its back legs as if it had collected sunshine (see picture above and at the head of this post). This smart insect is an ivy bee (Colletes hederae), a relative newcomer to the UK, first spotted in Dorset 24 years ago, but now seen across much of England and Wales. Ivy bees are solitary species that emerge in early autumn roughly in synchrony with flowering ivy. Mated females nest in aggregations in friable soil and I saw increasing numbers of the bees over the next few days gathering pollen and nectar from the ivy. This felt like an increase over previous years and I wondered if there were nests nearby although finding them is a matter of luck.
I took photos of the ivy bees and one photo delivered a surprise. This photo contained an ivy bee as intended but also, nearby on another leaf, was a very different insect. It had a bright green abdomen about 1.5 cm long with a prominent brown stripe along its back, very long green legs and antennae more than twice the body length of the creature. This was a speckled bush cricket a flightless insect that consumes leaves from various plants. In daytime they like to bask unseen among vegetation in sunshine, as was this one.
The speckled bush cricket basking on an ivy leaf (a better photo would have shown the speckles that decorate the insect) Clicking on the picture to enlarge it will allow the very long antennae to be seen. The photo has been cropped to remove the ivy bee.
Ivy in early autumn can be a paradise for insects but it’s not an entirely safe one. In the low autumn sunshine, strands of spider web strung across the top of the ivy stood out like telegraph wires and later I saw a spider catch a fly and kill the unfortunate insect. Given the mass of insects that frequent the ivy at this time of year, it is hardly surprising to find spiders taking advantage of this bounty.
The mass of insects on the ivy also helps pollination of the ivy flowers. Each pollinated floret produces a round black berry, a rich food source for hungry birds in winter.
Spider and prey (there may be two spiders or one and part of another in the picture along with the fly prey, see comments below)
Two bumblebees on an ivy flower umbel. The upper is a tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) the lower probably a buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)
Leaves lay by the side of the road as I walked down to reach the lane I have been visiting for the past few months. A large sycamore tree across from our house was the source of the roadside decoration and a few more leaves fell as I paused to look. Many of the leaves lay flat on the wet road, here they were mainly a uniform dark brown, well on their way to forming a slippery leafy sludge. Some, though, stood out, their greens, yellows and pale browns caught in the morning light, each leaf exhibiting a different pattern, each expressing a different personality.(see picture at the head of this post)
Further along, some uncultivated land contained all that was left of a group of umbellifers, probably hogweed. Their skeletal remains stood in a vague row, pale brown traceries of dry stems and flower heads, some still holding lozenge-shaped seed pods.
The mid-October sunshine that morning was welcome but deceptive. Recent weather had been very wet and when I reached the lane, the track and surrounding trees still showed evidence of the previous day’s rain. I pressed on up the lane, still mostly green but with a few hints of seasonal change, some curling browning leaves, plumes of bright colour on other trees and one a striking overall yellow. The track itself was quite muddy and strewn with increasing numbers of fallen leaves (photos below). By the side of the path there were a few flecks of pink from campion and herb robert flowers, now looking rather sad. One white bindweed flower stood out, home briefly for a foraging bumblebee.
I stopped to listen to the sounds of the morning: water running in the stream that follows the valley bottom, leaves rustling as a gentle breeze passed, the occasional flick as another leaf fell from one of the trees, some birdsong including the insistent trill of a wren and later the mewing of a buzzard circling overhead. Also, although it’s not a sound, almost below the level of conscious detection I thought I could smell the odour of decay.
the fern-lined green tree-lined tunnel
The green tree-lined tunnel was dark, dank, and muddy with ferns dominating as always but I saw plants growing here that I had previously overlooked probably because there had been so much else to see. Spiky, glossy, green holly grew in several places as did hawthorn; ivy crept surreptitiously across any surface it could find. There were, though, some new emergences. Wall pennywort pushed its slender stems and small dimpled leaves through the soil banks in several places. The leaves will grow gradually and cover some areas next spring. Also, on the soil banks was a creeping plant with opposing pairs of oval, fleshy green leaves. This is opposite leaved golden saxifrage a plant of dark, wet places and it will flower early in the new year. Extensive mats of this plant grew further along the lane in the very wet areas. Both the pennywort and saxifrage featured in my March walk when fully grown so, as the year moves on, we are beginning to see annual cycles. (photos below)
Beyond the green tunnel, the track became a conduit for water running off nearby fields following the recent heavy rains. Among the trees lining this very wet path was a large holly bush, distinguished by splashes of reddening berries. I wonder how long these will last? Will the birds take them or will they go for early Christmas decorations? Interestingly, this holly had many non-spiky leaves unlike others seen earlier. Spikiness in holly leaves seems to be a natural variant and some say that leaves become spiky to deter grazing animals. There are deer about in the nearby woods but I can’t see why this particular bush would be spared animal damage.
Further on, I came to a sunny clearing, lined by brambles earlier in the year but now dominated by two huge spreads of ivy scrambling over trees. The ivy was covered in flowers and their distinctive sweet odour perfumed the air. It attracted many insects, mostly wasps. I searched in vain for ivy bees but with the recent poor weather, the ivy bee season seems to be over.
The ivy flowers are contained in umbels of 20 or so individual flowers arranged in an almost perfectly spherical array. Each flower shows five-fold symmetry in the arrangement of its sepals and stamens. The anthers are exposed on the surface of the sphere so that the umbels appear yellow at a glance. I can’t help but marvel at these examples of the beauty contained in the non-human world.
An umbel of ivy flowers with a marmalade hoverfly. Note the five fold symmetry of the individual flowers, the spherical nature of the umbel with anthers around its surface,
While I was gazing, a pretty hoverfly with bands of black, yellow and silver-grey along its abdomen landed to feed from the ivy. This was Episyrphus balteatus, also known as the marmalade hoverfly. This odd name is said to derive from the thick and thin black bands on the body of the fly which remind some people of the thick and thin cuts of fruit in marmalade. I also see the yellow and silver-grey bands and think of the golden shred and silver shred marmalades made from oranges and lemons respectively.
One last thing. When I stopped earlier to listen to the natural sounds of the morning, I was surprised to hear another noise, one that I recognised as a train hauled by a steam engine and coming from the other side of town. The noise from the engine increased to reach a peak when it blew its whistle before the sound gradually died away. There is a heritage steam railway, the South Devon Railway, with its terminus in Totnes and I presume that this train had just left the station. We don’t normally hear the sounds of these steam trains so the particular atmospheric conditions must have been favourable that morning.
leaves along the lane
wall pennywort leaves, some tiny, pushing through the soil bank
Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage leaves, spotted with rain water. These are the basal leaves from which flowers will grow in spring.
holly bush with red berries and mostly non spiky leaves
It’s the middle of September and the morning starts with a cloud free, translucent blue sky. It’s not a summer light, though, and when I look out of the back windows of our house a pale mist hangs low to the north east roughly charting the course of the river as it snakes though the town. For a short time, the mist takes on a pink tinge from the sun rising behind the eastern hills. The effect is short lived and when the sun appears above the hills, it spreads a bright light across the trees in the valley below our house highlighting the clear signs of autumn in the yellow leaves now covering the silver birch trees.
Later that morning, I walk down our road to reach the lane I have been visiting over the past few months. The air is warm with bright sunshine as I walk along the road and a large stand of honeysuckle in a nearby passageway is trying to hang on to summer. It’s sweetly fragrant and full of life with a white butterfly and several common carder bumblebees flittering about the flowers.
The same cannot be said for the lane which is cool and dark and still showing signs of the severe cutting it suffered a few weeks ago. The lane runs roughly southwards but on its eastern side, the land rises steeply and there are many trees. At this time of year, the sun is in the east and quite low in the sky so that its light mostly fails to reach the lower parts of the lane and the green tree-lined tunnel.
In a few places, the trees do allow the sun to penetrate like a searchlight, creating aerial pools of brightness, highlighting parts of the path and nearby vegetation. In one of these pools of light I notice several yellowish insects flying about or basking on illuminated leaves, enjoying the warmth. There are at least three similar individuals and photos taken while they bask identify them as hoverflies (photo below). I watch them hanging in the air sometimes hovering one behind the other, each a small yellow blur, each aware of the others. Sometimes they appear to be looking in my direction, are they aware of me or am I imagining this? Perhaps they are simply aware of a large new object in their vicinity and need to update their internal map?
There are few clear signs of autumn along the lane. Some brown leaves litter the track, the beginning of the crunchy multicoloured carpet that will form here in a few weeks’ time. It is more the absences that speak of autumn, especially the near complete absence of flowers. Of those still left, the cyclamen are showing well and in increased numbers and in a sunny clearing, I come across an umbellifer having put on new growth, most likely hogweed at this time of year. Its attractive white flowers are proving popular with common wasps (photo below). Here and there, bindweed clambers across vegetation with its white trumpets showing and one of these flowers has attracted a pretty, well-marked hoverfly, Meliscaeva cinctella (photo below). I watch it for a while but eventually it has enough of me and flies off.
There is, though, one plant that makes up for the dearth of flowers at this time of year and that is ivy. This climber grows prolifically in several places along the lane but for most of the year it remains an understated, slightly sinister presence concealed by its dark green shiny leaves. As autumn approaches its personality changes and it cloaks itself in pale green flower heads each containing many small flowers (photo below). Each flower eventually opens exposing five yellow pollen-loaded stamens. The flowers are a rich, late season, source of pollen and nectar for insects and will eventually mature into black berries, important food for winter birds.
I found ivy growing in the early part of the lane with some flowers open attracting common wasps and, in the sunny clearing, there is a huge bank of the plant covered in flowers still to open. Along the minor road I follow to walk home, however, I found a bank of ivy in the front of a private garden. Many flowers were open and the bush audibly buzzed with insects in the warm sunshine, mostly common wasps and hoverflies. The flowers also emitted a sickly sweet odour, the plant’s way of attracting insects and among these were a few brightly striped bees carrying lumps of yellow pollen on their back legs. These are ivy bees (Colletes hederae, see photo at the head of this post and below), the last solitary bee to emerge in the UK each year and a clear sign of the changing season. I was pleased to see them as I have had few sightings of these insects so far in Totnes this year. With their rich pale brown-haired thorax and bright yellow-banded abdomen they carry reminders of the autumn leaves to fall and the sunshine of summer.
To round off this autumn themed story, I want to mention a poster I saw that day pinned to a wooden post at the start of the lane. The poster (see photo below) was advertising the “Mabon Equinox, Bardic Ceremony” to take place in a woodland glade near Dartington at the coming weekend.
The autumn equinox, one of two similar occasions each year when daytime and nighttime hours are roughly the same, took place on September 22 marking the astronomical start of autumn. Days get increasingly shorter after this equinox as we move towards the dark days of winter and perhaps that’s why so little is said about the autumn event.
The Mabon Equinox is a modern pagan version of a ceremony held to celebrate the abundance of the final harvest and to give thanks for our blessings and personal achievements. Some also see Mabon as a time to connect with nature and its cycles. Connecting with nature and its cycles might do us all a bit of good and we might appreciate more clearly our dependence on the rhythms of the non-human world.
Autumn leaves
One of the hoverflies I saw in a pool of sunshine. With its wings covering the markings I found this difficult to identify but an expert told me that it was Episyrphus balteatus, known as the marmalade hoverfy,
A common wasp on the umbellifer (probably hogweed)
Hoverfly (Melicaeva cinctella) on bindweed
Ivy growing in the front of a house along a minor road showing the flower heads with their small flowers. The flowers are mostly not open in this view. A common wasp and an ivy bee are visible in this image. The picture below shows some open flowers on the same stand of ivy
An ivy bee feeding from ivy flowers. The open flowers with stamens are visible in this picture.
The river Ashburn in its stone-lined channel near the centre of Ashburton showing the large bank of ivy and to the right, North Road
As the river Ashburn approaches the centre of the south Devon town of Ashburton on its descent from Dartmoor, it runs along a stone-lined channel close to North Road giving the area a distinctly watery feel. The rapidly running water attracts wildlife so I always stop to look.
Today, a long section of the wall on the road side of the stream is covered in ivy which at this time of year (late September) is in full flower. Each flower head contains many small pale green hemispheres each topped with five yellow pollen-laden stamens. The overall effect is to give the normally dark green bush a temporary pale green coat with a glistening yellow sheen. The flowers are a rich late season source of pollen and nectar and give off a sickly-sweet odour perfuming the surrounding air, providing an irresistible lure for insects.
There is a cool blustery wind but there have been hints of sunshine and I notice some wasps and honeybees feeding from the ivy along with one or two distinctively marked bees with bright yellow hoops around their abdomen (see picture above and below). With their pale chestnut-haired thorax, these are ivy bees (Colletes hederae) our last solitary bee to emerge each year with a strong preference for feeding from ivy. These are males as their back legs lack pollen collecting hairs. They move about quickly from flower to flower and are very jumpy. They are waiting for females to emerge and their enthusiasm sometimes bubbles over into misguided mating attempts between males.
I can’t help glancing at the running water and suddenly I notice a flash of white. It’s rather far away so I use my camera zoom and find that this is a bird standing on a branch in the water. Photos show its chocolate brown plumage and a prominent white bib, unmistakeably a dipper (Cinclus cinclus). Dippers are elusive birds, at home by fast running water but always on the move and they get their name from the frequent bobbing movements they usually perform. This one seems more interested in preening and stretching its wings but it does a little dip for good measure (see video below).
I look back to check on the bees for a few moments but when I return to the dipper, it has already moved on.
Two male ivy bees on a head of ivy flowers
Two overexcited male ivy bees
A still photograph of the dipper
I visited Ashburton on September 27th 2023 and all the photos and the video were taken on that day,
We perched on a stone wall overlooking the pebble beach and sea at Blackpool Sands to eat our sandwiches. Across the water, the Start Point peninsula was a moody, dark bluish grey outline while mobile pools of bright light wandered about Start Bay as gashes in the cloud cover opened and closed.
We had walked down the Blackpool Valley starting in bright autumn sunshine on the western edge of Dartmouth where a huge housebuilding project is now underway. Narrow country lanes took us away from the commotion into quieter places. Hedges were punctuated periodically with flushes of flowering ivy and the sun, following heavy rain, seemed to have brought the insects out. An elegant ichneumon wasp, largely black but with a few white markings and with reddish legs was cleaning its antennae, and nearby we spotted a mating pair of hoverflies. Their striped thorax reminded me of mid-20th century school blazers. A beautiful male wall butterfly basked briefly in the sunshine, its wings, the colour of paprika and cinnamon held the essence of the season changing around us. A few pollen-loaded female ivy bees joined the show while, on the road, two all black devil’s coach horse beetles wandered past giving us their scorpion-like, tale up, warning greeting.
The ichneumon wasp cleaning its antennae. Malcolm Storey on the British Ichneumonoidea Facebook site identified this as a male Vulgichneumon saturatorius.
Mating hoverflies, most likely Helophilus pendulus
Male wall butterfly (Lasiommata megera)
Devil’s coach-horse beetle (Ocypus olens)
At Venn Cross, we turned right along Blackpool Valley Road descending between dramatic hills and following the course of a stream in the valley bottom. Lane side hedges had avoided a vicious flailing this season; hazel and sycamore had grown prolifically together with a few sprigs of rowan and dog rose, giving the lane an enclosed feeling. Veteran beeches and oaks grew from the hedges and when the sun played across the beech leaves it accentuated their kaleidoscopic colour range of greens, yellows and browns. The lower trunk of one of the old beeches had become an impromptu local notice board including a carved declaration of love.
The declaration of love carved on a beech tree. I wonder who they were?
Blackpool Valley Road
The main stream passing over a weir, well down the Blackpool Valley
The water gathered force as we headed southwards with small streams joining the main flow from surrounding hills and, eventually we came to Riversbridge Farm, one of several old water mills situated along the valley. Altogether we counted five former mills before we reached the sea, each set in this landscape of trees, pastures and steep hillsides. Today it was a peaceful scene but I wondered how much it had changed over the years. The artist Lucien Pissarro worked and lived here a century ago producing a charming set of images of the valley, a record of country life in the first part of the 20th century and apart from the arrival of the motor car the landscape and buildings look very similar (see picture below). The mills, of course, are no longer used, they are mostly private dwellings but the buildings show signs of their former activity alongside 21st century incursions such as a small water driven hydro and a hot tub.
We left Blackpool Sands to complete the circuit back to our car. As we stopped to look back at the beach, as many as 30 house martins circled over the cove feeding, perhaps before leaving for warmer places.
Even before the recent storms there were signs of the changing season. Flushes of red berries had begun to appear in roadside hedges and subtle colour changes were permeating leaf canopies. One sign for me, though, that always heralds the arrival of autumn is the emergence of the ivy bees (Colletes hederae), the last species of solitary bee to appear in this country. It’s the time of year when I stand in front of clumps of flowering ivy gazing at these insects feasting on this final flush of food. So, here are two stories about my recent experiences with the ivy bees.
The first concerns a visit I made to Roundham Head, Paignton, south Devon in the second week of September:
The old stone walls at Roundham Head with their ivy covering and an intriguing gateway
Hidden away on one side of a residential street on Roundham Head is a curious area of rough grass and trees divided into rectangular spaces by old stone walls and loved nowadays by dog walkers. This was once the kitchen garden of a nearby Victorian villa, now a care home, set in a commanding position on the edge of the promontory overlooking Torbay. The kitchen garden is surplus to requirements but the land has not been developed and the old walls have been commandeered by ivy. At this time of year, this normally dark green and slightly sinister climber adopts a new persona covering itself with lime green globe flower heads creating a multi-sensory experience for anyone prepared to look.
I approach one of the old stone walls bathed in sunshine, and gradually I become aware of the sickly-sweet perfume emanating from the ivy flowers to pervade the surrounding air. This perfume attracts huge numbers of insects which move about the ivy flowers in all directions at high speed, occasionally pausing on a flower to sample the extraordinary, late-season canteen of pollen and nectar. This profusion of insect life means that a clearly audible buzz surrounds the ivy.
Today, I see honeybees, hoverflies, a speckled wood butterfly and a buff tailed bumblebee together with many, many ivy bees. These insects must have emerged very recently and with their pale chestnut-haired thorax and yellow and black-hooped abdomen they look very fresh. The slimmer, slighter males (about two thirds the size of a honeybee) outnumber the chunkier females who collect lumps of bright yellow pollen on their back legs. The pulsating movement of so many insects implies a huge kinetic energy fuelled by the sugary nectar provided by the ivy flowers.
Wherever there is ivy and sunshine there are ivy bees on the old walls and the same is true when I walk through the nearby public gardens built on the cliffs overlooking Goodrington Sands. The gentle microenvironment offered by this seaside garden supports succulents, palms and other tender plants and today the agapanthus are providing flashes of a bright steely blue. Ivy has also insinuated its way into the gardens growing along old walls and railings overlooking the sea.
At one end of the gardens is a partly concealed path leading downwards to the beach below and along one side of the path I find a long grassy bank. The grass has not been cut this summer, a result of the pandemic, but beneath the grass cover I can see bare red soil with open holes and many more male ivy bees. This is the main nest site for the ivy bees at Roundham Head. The males are even more excited here, dancing above the grass, flying backwards and forwards rapidly and from side to side in a tick tock movement. They occasionally explore the holes but emerge disappointed and fly off. Sometimes there is a little joshing between the males who seem overexcited but they are waiting for females to emerge so that they can mate.
Today, though, I don’t witness any matings but I do see a few females returning to the nest area carrying bright yellow pollen so some couplings have occurred. These mated females enter the nest holes and leave pollen as food for their larvae. It does feel, however, as though the main emergence of female ivy bees has not yet occurred here. The males will go on waiting by the nest site for that chance to mate, visiting the ivy occasionally for a top up of sugary nectar.
Male ivy bees
Female ivy bee with pollen
The grassy bank with the nest area overlooking Goodrington Sands
Male ivy bees at the nest site
Female ivy bee with pollen returning to her nest
…………………….
My second story comes from a visit we made to West Sussex in the third week of September to deliver our daughter to University. We had a few days walking in the county including this visit to the coast:
A view along West Wittering beach with East Head on the right stretching into the distance and a storm behind. A man is painting, looking towards the sea and it was a mystery as to how he kept the canvas on the easel in the wind. (photo courtesy of Hazel Strange)
Autumn had arrived with a vengeance in West Sussex, the temperature had dropped by nearly ten degrees overnight and there were heavy squally showers at West Wittering where we had planned to walk. Rain fell as we made our way along quiet lanes between houses to access the track along the water’s edge leading to East Head a huge sand spit projecting into Chichester Harbour. Long views across the flat watery surroundings made approaching storms easy to spot adding an elemental feel to the day. East Head is coated in marram grass which must help to stabilise its structure but, as we walked along the beach, there were signs of erosion at the sides of the spit and much of it is cordoned off to prevent further damage. Near the tip, it was possible to look at plants growing away from the edge such as sea holly, its prickly blue flowers faded to grey, sea rocket with its pale violet flowers and sea spurge its grey green leaf-covered stems tipped with greenish yellow complex flowers.
Banks of ivy overhanging the stony beach above Chichester Harbour with East Head in the distance
Behind East Head is a lagoon with salt marshes and the path along this side eventually curves round to meet shingle beaches on the edge of the harbour. Oaks grew along the edge and a few generous clumps of ivy overhung the beach. Much was in flower and here I saw the first ivy bees of the day, all males with clear yellow and black hoops moving backwards and forwards with high speed despite the lack of sun.
This kind of watery environment with extensive salt marshes should also favour the close relative of the ivy bee, the rare Colletes halophilus which Steven Falk refers to as the sea aster bee owing to its preference for the flower. I looked around for sea aster and found some, rather pale and faded but I saw no insects on the flowers. Then we came to a grassy open area by the side of the water. Large stands of gorse were growing by the edge and one of these was smothered by Russian vine, an invasive scrambling climber with many racemes of small white flowers. I have seen this used by ivy bees in Devon, even when flowering ivy is abundant and the same was true here, or so I thought. Insects that looked like ivy bee males were moving about the flowers rapidly, barely resting to feed but I managed a few photos as it was otherwise difficult to see the details of the insects. In the photos, to my surprise, all of the bees I captured on camera had black and white hoops.
The sea aster bee looks very similar to the ivy bee only its hoops are white compared to the ivy bee’s yellow hoops. So, could I have seen the rare sea aster bee here? The environment is certainly right for the insect and it has been recorded at this site before but it is impossible to draw a firm conclusion based on colouration. Male ivy bees can fade, losing their yellow colour and microscopic analysis of the mouth parts is required to distinguish males of the two species unequivocally but that is beyond my capability.
Females are easier to distinguish from photographs as there are yellow furry patches, like epaulettes, at the top of the abdomen of the ivy bee that are lacking in the sea aster bee. You can see these furry patches in the picture of the ivy bee at the end of this post. Unfortunately, I saw no females that day but it provides a good reason to return to this fascinating place with its mosaic of environments.
Male ivy bee at West Wittering
Russian vine with possible sea aster bee.
Russian vine with possible sea aster bee
Female ivy bee showing furry patch at the top of the abdomen (between left wing and left back leg on this picture).
A large stand of flowering ivy in the early autumn sunshine is an impressive sight. The many pale green globe flower heads give off their distinctive sickly-sweet smell and insects throng to the flowers to take advantage of the sudden abundance of pollen and nectar. Movement is constant and the entire bush buzzes audibly. Among the insects gorging themselves, there may be red admiral butterflies, plump stripy bumblebees, also good numbers of honeybees and wasps. Sometimes, especially near the sea in the south of the UK, these are outnumbered by beautiful honeybee-sized insects with a distinctive yellow and black banded abdomen and russet coloured thorax. These are ivy bees, the last of our solitary bees to emerge and it’s a delight to watch them each year in September and October.
Ivy bees are relative newcomers to the UK having arrived from mainland Europe eighteen years ago. Since then, they have prospered, spreading across the entire southern half of England and northwards as far as Cumbria As their name suggests, the species prefers pollen and nectar collected from flowering ivy and part of their success must reflect the large amounts of this climber that grow around the UK.
Each year I look out for the ivy bees; for me they signify the changing season, the movement of the year. September 2019 began very mild and dry where I live but, by the fourth week, temperatures dipped and intermittent wet and sometimes very wet weather set in and stayed with us during October and into November. In spite of the weather, I saw ivy bees in several places and here are some highlights of my 2019 observations:
A grassy bank in Sussex
In late September we spent a few days holiday in Sussex, a county in the south east of the UK. We had delivered our daughter to the University of Sussex to begin her degree and were keen to do some country walking. The weather was less than cooperative but on the 25th, our last day, we decided to walk up to the massive iron age hill fort at Cissbury Ring, high on the South Downs. We parked in the village of Findon not far from the 15th century pub, the Gun Inn, and as we passed the traditional butcher’s shop the butcher himself was standing outside wearing his blue and white striped apron.
We left the car and walked up through the village past some private houses where my attention was taken by movement in a grassy bank alongside one of the driveways. I was delighted to realise that this was a large colony of ivy bees. I hope the owner of the house is equally delighted, and I hope they know these are not wasps. Many male ivy bees were dancing about just above the surface of the grassy bank waiting for females to emerge. They occasionally coalesced into a mating cluster when a newly emerged female appeared and after a short time the cluster dissolved and the female and her chosen suitor were left alone. The incessant movement of the colony even on a dull day was very impressive. Here are two short videos which capture this movement.
mating pair of ivy bees on grassy bank
We left the ivy bees and continued uphill to reach Cissbury Ring. Today this was an elemental place: clouds scudded about driven by the strong blustery wind that was now also peppering us with raindrops and, when the clouds parted, the sun broke through leaving transient pools of light on the surrounding countryside. We kept to the eastern rampart to afford protection from the wind and from the highest point we saw the sea to the south and a second hill fort, Chanctonbury Ring to the north across rolling tea-coloured fields. A few hardy bees were braving the conditions to take advantage of the scattering of wild flowers across the chalk hillside.
view northwards from Cissbury Ring with the group of trees at Chanctonbury Ring on the horizon
Bee resting in this small dandelion-type flower – the BWARS experts tell me that this is a furrow bee (Lasioglossum sp.)
On our way back down the hill we passed banks of ivy in flower where, despite the intermittent drizzle, ivy bees were collecting nectar and pollen to take back to their nests.
Heath potter wasps, no – ivy bees, yes
Bovey Heathfield is a nature reserve, about half an hour’s drive from where I live with several claims to fame. It is a surviving scrap of lowland heath, a fragment of the large area of heathland that once covered this part of Devon. Even though it is small, the heath provides a unique environment with unique wildlife and in August and September it bursts into life as the heather blooms covering the land with a pinkish purple sheen. It’s also the site of one of the more important battles of the English Civil War, The Battle of Bovey Heath 1646 and on the reserve, there are memorials to the conflict.
I went to Bovey Heathfield on a windy Saturday afternoon (September 28th) under partly cloudy skies to meet John Walters, a local naturalist and wildlife expert. John knows more than anyone else about a species of solitary wasp that frequents sandy heaths. This is the heath potter wasp and the plan was for John to show me these insects. Unfortunately, the weather was not sunny enough to tempt the wasps out but he did show me one of the pots constructed from muddy clay by mated females that give them their name. They attach these pots to stalks of heather and gorse and then lay their eggs in the pot, equipping it with caterpillars as food before sealing. These are mini-marvels of engineering and John has some wonderful video showing the wasps constructing clay pots (see here).
a double pot constructed by a heath potter wasp
In the absence of these insects, John showed me the large colony of ivy bees that has built nests in the south facing sandy paths on the heath. The ivy bees were not deterred by the cool conditions; the males were very active and a number of newly emerged females were mobbed by them. I saw one mating cluster develop around a female resting on a heather stalk and wondered how they all clung on.
mating cluster of ivy bees attached to a heather stalk
Ivy bees in a local cemetery
male ivy bee
The river Dart drives a picturesque, watery wedge through the town of Totnes dividing it into two unequal parts. The eastern part, across the river, goes by the name of Bridgetown, a mixture of old and mostly new houses. Buried in the old part, behind the early nineteenth century St John’s Church is the cemetery. I rather like the cemetery, it is slightly unkempt with rough grass, trees, flowers and several large clumps of ivy. Most of the graves date from the 19th and 20th centuries and the place has a peaceful calm atmosphere. Last year I found ivy bees here for the first time, it was also the first time I had seen the species in Totnes. This year the ivy in the cemetery was late in flowering but finally on the last day of September some ivy bees appeared on a few of the open flowers. I saw males and pollen-carrying females, but not many of either gender. I wondered if they might be nesting in the cemetery but was unable to find any evidence. Somewhere nearby there must a nest aggregation.
female ivy bee
As I was poking about looking for ivy bee nests, one grave stone, for Edwin Jordain, caught my attention. It was late Victorian, dating from 1893 and had fine carvings of flowers along the top edge unlike most of the other graves. I wondered whether the flowers were symbolic or just decorative and did a little research.
Gravestone in Bridgetown Cemetery with flower decoration. One of the stands of ivy can be seen at the rear on the left.
The flowers on the left side are most likely blue passion flowers. I learnt that these were very popular adornments to Victorian graves, representing the suffering of Christ. I feel less comfortable about my identification of the flowers on the right but I think they are lilies, linked with purity and innocence by the Victorians, especially after death. Many of the flowers depicted are open, apparently symbolising the prime of life; Mr Jordain was only 36 when he died. His epitaph perhaps sums this up: “Brief life is here our portion”.
The picture at the head of the article shows a female ivy bee I saw at Paignton on October 8th. Here is a link to an article I wrote about the ivy bees at Paignton in south Devon that has recently been published on The Clearing: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/the-clearing/ivy-bees-by-philip-strange/
Towards the end of October, I spent a day at Cogden Beach, just east of Burton Bradstock in west Dorset. It’s a beautiful, natural spot, a rich concoction of sea, sky and shingle where wildlife prospers despite the sometimes harsh conditions. It’s becoming increasingly difficult, however, to ignore the scatter of plastic pollution on the beach and the potential effects of this manmade material on marine life.
Looking west along Cogden Beach towards Golden Cap, showing the clumps of sea kale and yellow horned-poppy
It felt unseasonably warm as I walked downhill from the car park, more like a late summer’s day, although the blood-red rose hips and smoky-black sloes decorating the leafless scrub spoke of a different season. The vast shingle bank of Chesil Beach dominated the long view, a yellowish-brown convexity edged with white waves sweeping eastwards towards a mistily mysterious Isle of Portland. The sea was calm and a steely grey except where the low sun’s rays highlighted individual wavelets whose reflections merged in to a broad, silvery band of light.
When I reached the shingle bank I found traces of the special beach plants that grow so profusely here in spring and summer. Well weathered, blue-green and brownish-grey leaves were all that remained of the sea kale that dominates in May whereas, beneath the brown remnants of this season’s vegetation, fresh glaucous leaves were showing from the yellow horned-poppies. Small flocks of starlings skittered about puddles at the back of the beach like children in a school playground and, in a low sandy cliff, I was surprised to find bees busily filling nests. These were ivy bees (Colletes hederae), the last of our solitary bees to emerge, the females collecting chrome-yellow pollen from nearby clumps of flowering ivy. To the west, there were spectacular views of Burton Bradstock’s yellow cliffs and the distinctive flat top of Golden Cap.
It seemed like the perfect natural spot. But was it? Almost all the clumps of beach plants contained plastic waste including pieces of plastic wrap, colourful plastic rope or plastic fishing line. On the shingle between the clumps, I saw the occasional plastic drink bottle, some were intact, some in pieces. The prominent strandline about half way up the beach contained dark, dry seaweed and small pieces of wood mixed liberally with shards of plastic as though objects had shattered in their continual buffeting by the sea. Plastic drink bottles or their fragments also appeared at regular intervals along the strandline. This beach is no longer a completely natural, wild place, it has been contaminated by our throwaway plastic culture. Perhaps the most poignant symbol of this tension was a chunk of expanded polystyrene covered with pale grey goose barnacles.
Plastic is, of course, both versatile and cheap. It has transformed our lives but its very ubiquity and ease of use means that we don’t value it enough. Think how much you throw away each week: plastic wrap or bags from supermarket produce, drink containers and lids, plastic trays, pots and so on. We have embraced a “disposable” lifestyle where about half of the plastic we produce is used once and thrown away. Some countries manage to recycle or energy-recover a large proportion of their plastic waste but the UK is not one of them. In this country, more than 60% of plastic waste ends up in landfill where it does not break down and is effectively lost. We are squandering resources and energy on a massive scale, an appalling indictment of our way of life.
But what about the plastic waste I found on Cogden Beach, how does it get there? It comes from the sea and is left behind by the retreating tide. We have turned our oceans into a “plastic soup” composed of plastic bottles and bags, plastic fragments formed by breakdown of these larger items, also microplastics (5 mm or less in size) such as industrial pellets, small fragments and very small fibres from clothing or from car tyres. This is a huge global problem and shows no sign of abating. A staggering 12 million tons of plastic waste enters the oceans each year. All countries contribute but a large proportion comes from several in the Far East with poor waste management systems.
The consequences for marine wildlife are alarming. Consider, for example, the Northern Fulmar, a bird that forages exclusively at sea. A study in the North Atlantic showed that 91% of dead Fulmars found on beaches had plastic in their gut, having mistaken the plastic for food, reducing their ability to feed and sometimes damaging their digestive tract. At the other end of the food chain, zooplankton have been shown to ingest tiny microplastic fragments that may end up in fish and perhaps in humans. Plastic fragments also attract toxic chemicals that may affect the creatures consuming them. Our throwaway lifestyle is disturbing the entire global marine ecosystem. The problem is just as serious as climate change.
What can be done? First, we must reduce the amount of plastic in circulation by moving away from single-use items such as plastic bottles, takeaway cups, plastic cutlery, plastic wrap and plastic packaging. The introduction of the 5p charge on plastic bags led to an 85% reduction in use, so a levy on single-use takeaway cups and plastic cutlery may also be effective. Second, we need to encourage a “circular economy” where as much plastic as possible is recovered and recycled and none goes to landfill. A deposit return scheme for plastic drink bottles would increase recovery but greater recycling of other plastic containers must also be achieved. It is encouraging that some government ministers are now talking about the problems of plastic waste, but their words must be translated into actions.
Individual decisions can also bring about change. We can refuse to use plastic cutlery. We can choose to drink only from reusable cups. We can use and reuse our own shopping bag. We can recycle all plastic bottles and containers. We can pressurise local businesses to reduce plastic waste. We can participate in beach cleans. If we love our beaches and our seas we must do this.
Plastic bottle and sea kale on Cogden Beach
A well-travelled plastic bottle remnant on Cogden Beach
New growth on yellow horned-poppy, with plastic bottle
Plastic waste on Cogden Beach
Goose barnacles on expanded polystyrene
Low cliffs at Cogden Beach with ivy bee nests
Female Ivy bee (Colletes hederae) returning to her sandy burrow with pollen, at Cogden Beach
Here is an account of a visit I made to Paignton about eight weeks ago, seaching for ivy bees.
Goodrington Sands viewed from Roundham Head
Ice cream and chips, not together of course, but that’s what people are eating. The sun is shining, the sea an intense blue, the air gently warm and sun loungers have been dragged unexpectedly out of pastel-coloured beach huts. Couples stroll along the promenade arm in arm and one or two children shriek with delight as they run in and out of the waves washing over the long sandy beach. This is Goodrington Sands near Paignton in south Devon and it’s the end of September.
At one end of the beach, the ground rises steeply to Roundham Head, a cliff-lined, grass-topped promontory that interrupts the otherwise smooth sweep of Torbay. The south-facing side of the headland is home to the Cliff Gardens with its terraced flower beds, zigzag paths and mild microclimate supporting many tender sub-tropical plants. A colony of winter bumblebees also flourishes here, nurtured by the almost year round supply of pollen and nectar.
The flat, grassy surface of the promontory eventually gives way to residential streets but before suburbia takes over completely, there is a transitional region, a mosaic of green rectangular spaces and tall, red-brick walls. Nowadays, the area is popular with dog walkers but, in one wall, there is an intriguing, curved-top gateway, hinting at older usages. These walls, now mostly covered with ivy, are the remnants of the kitchen gardens of a nearby Victorian villa.
About a year ago, I discovered these old walls covered in full-flowering ivy with many ivy bees taking advantage of their preferred food. The ivy bee (Colletes hederae) is the last solitary bee to emerge each year and is very distinctive with its yellow and black-striped abdomen and chestnut-haired thorax. I looked for the nest area but, although I found a few small nest aggregations, I was unable to find anywhere large enough to support the number of bees I had seen.
Today, I park in a street bordering the old kitchen garden. Ivy cascades over the wall by the car, its many pale green flower heads scenting the air with their sickly-sweet smell. Insects move about the ivy constantly, flying to and fro, ignoring me to the extent that we sometimes collide. I see hoverflies, wasps, one or two bumblebees and honey bees, and hundreds of ivy bees. The male ivy bees fly about edgily, sometimes stopping to feed, sometimes pausing on a leaf to preen and rest. The females, noticeably larger than the males, carry chunks of chrome yellow pollen on their back legs and abdominal hairs but continue feeding. Sometimes a hopeful male disturbs them, attempting to mate, but they show no interest in their new suitors. Movement is constant, there is an insistent low buzz and this liquid energy steps up in the sunshine. The same liquid energy abounds wherever the ivy is in flower on these old walls. There is a lot of ivy here and that means many ivy bees.
But where are the nests? Last year I found one small nest area in some exposed red soil along the cliff-side path descending from Roundham Head to Goodrington so that’s where I begin today. Sure enough there are still holes in the cliff face together with crumbly soil suggesting active nests. Around these holes there are hundreds of ivy bee males performing what my friend Susan Taylor has christened the “sun dance”. They fly about incessantly, swinging from side to side, occasionally stopping to look into one of the holes but emerging unsuccessfully. It’s an impressive sight along a two metre stretch but what is lacking are any females and anyway it doesn’t feel like a big enough area to account for all the bees on the ivy so I decide to walk down to Goodrington to look at the sea.
As I stand by the beach, I see someone walking down another steep path from Roundham Head. I hadn’t noticed this paved path before: it runs parallel to the cliff-side path but about three metres inland and is partly hidden behind a low hedge. I decide to take a look. The path is bordered on one side by a low bank covered in short, rough grass and hundreds of ivy bee males fly about, skimming the surface, “sun dancing”. When I get closer, I see that the red soil in the bank is peppered with many holes and crumbly soil is spilling out showing that the bank contains active nests.
The males here seem particularly edgy, they constantly investigate the burrows, presumably looking for females and sometimes they even try to mate with one another, not a clever move. On several occasions I notice the males suddenly congregating to form a rough ball. Other males soon join the melee rather like rugby players in a ruck. Somewhere in the middle there must be a female who has just emerged from one of the burrows. The males are trying frantically to mate with her but only one will be successful and I see one copulating couple fly off together, still attached.
There is also a slow but steady stream of females returning to the nest area loaded with yellow pollen. They have come to deposit food in their burrow for their larvae, but finding their nest looks a bit hit and miss. Some approach the area and fly around for a short time before landing and making their way on foot. Others seem to crash land and then pull themselves together after a short rest. The males show no interest in these already-mated females.
The aggregation covers an area about ten metres by half a metre and there must be hundreds of nests. This is a large, very active, nest site and looks big enough to support a huge number of ivy bees. I can’t say whether there are other nest aggregations in the area but this one goes some way to explaining the large number of ivy bees seen at Roundham Head.
I am completely absorbed watching these creatures go about their lives; it’s like being allowed through a door into another world. But then I look up and see, no more than 20 metres below me, an ice cream kiosk with people enjoying their Devon Farmhouse ice cream. Dogs dash along the hard sand splashing in the water. A steam train struggles up the bank hauling vintage chocolate and cream coaches towards Kingswear.
One of the old walls and the Victorian Villa overlooking Torbay.
An intriguing, curved-top gateway covered with ivy.
A male ivy bee
Some of the “sun dancing” males by the cliff nests. Some are flying, some are investigating the holes.
The grassy bank by the path descending from Roundham Head to Goodrington, with the ice cream kiosk by the beach.
Crumbly red soil and nests in the grassy bank
Male ivy bees forming a mating ball, somewhere in the middle is a female.
Ivy bee mating pair
Female ivy bee returning to her nest loaded with pollen
The ferry arrives at East Portlemouth from Salcombe
Steep steps descend from a narrow passageway off Salcombe’s Fore Street. At water level there is a stone jetty, the Ferry Pier, and above and to the right the Ferry Inn enjoys almost perfect views across the estuary. A clinker-built motor boat, with the skipper standing up, is already making its way across the water to pick up the few waiting passengers. Once we are all safely on board, he backs out and turns before heading across the estuary to East Portlemouth; it’s a calm day so this is an easy crossing. The view from the boat always impresses me, low in the water, a cormorant’s perspective. Looking towards the mouth of the estuary, the sea is a dark blue but, in the light breeze, ripples caught in the low sunshine cast a dancing light across the water.
The journey takes only a few minutes but it’s transformative. Salcombe is all cafes and posh clothing shops but across the water we find peaceful long beaches with fine sand. The tide is very low so we follow the strandline, leaving a record of our footsteps in the soft sand. Beachside houses cast long shadows in the low sunshine but, where the sun reaches the beach, it creates pale blues and greens in the seawater, shallow over golden sand, and I imagine the Mediterranean.
Eventually, we reach Mill Bay, a football pitch-sized expanse of undulating, pale sand stretching from the sea to the coast road. Very popular for family holidays in summer, today it is all but deserted. On one side of the beach, the low tide has exposed a long, green, seaweed-covered slipway with prominent metal rails and stone teeth. This was built in 1943 by the US navy to support landing craft during the Normandy landings. It’s hard to imagine the beaches and the estuary filled with ships awaiting the assault on occupied France.
The rear of the beach is fringed with sand dunes bound together with scrubby grass. One exposed vertical face is peppered with holes, burrows for insects, and several black and yellow striped wasps are moving about the nest area in a proprietorial manner. Longer and sleeker than the better known common wasp, these are field digger wasps, solitary insects that dig tunnels in the sand and provision them with dead flies as food for their larvae. A large buff-tailed bumblebee queen is scrabbling in the sand wall as if she is trying to burrow. She looks in good condition but behaves as if something is wrong.
The path leaves the beach to head gently upwards through coastal woodland in the direction of the estuary mouth. The autumn leaf-strewn track meanders through the woods with tantalising views of beaches below. In today’s light, the colours of the sand and water glimpsed through the trees look more southern European than south Devon. We emerge from woodland cover into brilliant sunshine and spectacular but slightly hazy views across the mouth of the estuary to the vast green headland of Bolt Head and the sandy beach at South Sands with its boutique hotels. A red, yellow and blue boat passes by purposefully; it may look like a toy, but it is the Ferry that links South Sands with Salcombe town.
The path turns gradually eastwards seemingly cut into the hillside so that we walk with the land falling away to the sea below us and, on the landward side, rising steeply to rocky outcrops. There is much bracken in evidence, already showing the effects of autumn; bright sparks of yellow gorse shoot upwards. We pass a single spike of mullein, a few yellow toadflax and clumps of sheep’s bit with their unruly mops of blue petals. Several stonechats entertain us, fluttering up and down, tail flicking, chatting.
The sea is calm today. From this vantage point, it is a deep blue but where it meets the rocky coastline, the surface shatters into bright fragments in the sunshine. I scan the coastal waters for seals but get a surprise when I see what looks like a person standing on a rock just above the sea. A closer look reveals a large cormorant, sunning itself. Further away, sailing boats take advantage of the good weather and a fishing boat moors close enough for us to read its name through our binoculars.
Eventually, ahead of us we see a curious, white-painted, cylindrical hut, topped with a thatched roof and perched high above the path upon one of the rocky outcrops. Far below the hut is a secluded stretch of sandy beach and in the distance lies another headland, Gammon Head. The thatched hut is the former coastguard lookout at Gara Rock and we leave the coast path to head up to investigate. Behind the lookout there is a new resort/hotel/apartment complex with people sitting in the sunshine enjoying a drink. A row of coastguard cottages was built here in the 19th century and converted into a popular hotel early in the 20th century. Laurence Olivier, John Betjeman and Margaret Rutherford are said to have stayed here, not necessarily at the same time. The old building was knocked down in the last ten years and rebuilt as the new complex.
The old coastguard lookout has glorious views across the sea and coast and it is surrounded by huge banks of ivy. Much of the ivy is in full flower, filling the air with its distinctive sickly-sweet smell. Perhaps it is something to do with the light today but the flower heads on these clumps of ivy appear as almost perfect globes. Multiple pale green lollipops extend from the centre of each flower head in perfect symmetry, like pins in a pin cushion. Each lollipop is decorated with a frieze of pale yellow-headed stamens, creating, from a distance, a sunny halo around the green globe. The ivy flowers attract many insects including more field digger wasps but it is the ivy bees that I am looking for and I am not disappointed. Many of the elegant yellow and black striped-females move quickly about the flowers together with a few hopeful males. The females are carrying large amounts of bright yellow pollen but still feeding.
We drag ourselves away from this extraordinary spot and head back down the inland valley to Mill Bay following an ancient, slightly sunken green lane with farmland either side. This is a green tunnel with muted light, formed by overhanging trees including a long stretch of very old lime trees with dark, gnarled bark and multiple branching trunks. When we reach Mill Bay, we take the coast road back to the jetty. Many of the houses here are closed up; more than 40% of the houses in the Salcombe area are second homes. The chimney of one of these homes is swarming with bees, probably honeybees. The owner will be in for a shock when they next visit!
For a map and further information on this walk click here.
Philip Strange Science and Nature Writing 