A local walk from the beginning of our half-term break.
A perforated Alder leaf. This kind of damage is apparently characteristic of consumption by leaf Beetles.
When I first spotted Alder Leaf Beetles on several Alder saplings this spring, by the boardwalked path close to Hawes Water, I’ll confess that as well as being impressed by their metallic blue colouring, given that I like shiny things, I was also quite excited by the thought that I might have stumbled on something significant, because the UK Beetle Recording website says that they are: “Very rare in Britain. Previously classified as extinct.”
I know find, on the RHS website, that whilst there were hardly any sightings between 1946 and 2003, some beetles somehow arrived in Manchester in 2004 and that they are now “widespread in northern England” and rapidly spreading into the rest of the country. Amazing how quickly things can change in the natural world.
I also read that the beetles emerge for 12-15 days and then have a diapause. To be honest, although I’ve done a little research, I still don’t feel like I fully understand the difference between diapause and hibernation, which is what these beetles do during the winter. Doesn’t sound like an exciting life does it?
Anyway, the larvae are black caterpillars, which also feed on Alder, so I shall be on the lookout for them when the new Alder leaves appear in the spring. Actually, even as I write that, I realise that the mating beetles I saw in May were the ones which had overwintered from the previous year, so the larvae will be later, maybe in June? Well, I know what to look for and roughly where, so I have at least a chance of finding them.
This tree has appeared on the blog many times over the last seventeen years (just got an anniversary notification from WordPress!). I’m currently reading, and enjoying, ‘Common or Garden’ by Ken Thompson. He sets his book up as a sort of antithesis to Peter Marren’s ‘Chasing The Ghost’ in which Marren attempts to find the last fifty species of plants on his UK list (I read that, last year I think, and enjoyed that too). Thompson, on the other hand, writes about what he judges to be the fifty most common plants in the UK. The only non-native species in his list is Sycamore, and he mentions, in passing, the great affection people felt for the tree in Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall. (Which has also appeared in this blog a few times, most recently as a stump, sadly.)
I was quite taken aback by the apparent outpouring of anger and grief when that Sycamore was felled, and wondered whether, like me, many people have local favourites which they regularly call on. For myself, I feel like it’s a little bit easier to become attached to single trees like this one; in Eaves Wood, for example, I sometimes feel like I can’t see the trees for the wood, if that makes sense. Although I do have some favourites there too.
I worry for these oaks growing in the fields near our home. Several of them have fallen during the frequent storms which have battered us during recent winters. I checked on them this morning though and they all seem to have survived the most recent squalls. It won’t be too long before the Rooks start to set up their nests in them once again.
…if you look hard enough.
Beating The Bounds 
