Underseat Miniature Meadow	Yarrow
Self-heal	Black Medick

Let’s look at a typical under-seat area. This one is over towards the left-hand end of the seating. In this small patch we find a surprisingly large number of familiar plants and even one or two species which we haven’t found out in the main meadow. Among the familiar plants we normally see in the meadow there’s Yarrow, Self-Heal, Black Medick, two kinds of Plantain, Ribwort and Hoary, White Clover and Marjoram. There was quite a lot of the dainty Common Mouse-ear in the main part of the meadow earlier in the year, which is now fairly hard to find among the taller species - also some quite noticeable patches of Cut-leaved Cranesbill. Both are found in our miniature meadow under the seats, along with another Cranesbill, Dove’s-foot, with more rounded, notched leaves.

Ribwort Plantain	Hoary Plantain	White Clover	Wild Marjoram

Spear thistle also appears, which we haven’t found in the main meadow in 2007, except for one plant in the old pond.

Common Mouse-ear	Dove’s Foot Cranesbill
Cut-leaved Cranesbill	Spear Thistle

A number of what we often refer to as “those yellow things”, dandelion-like members of the Daisy family, are also in evidence. Most of these need careful close examination for positive identification, especially in this environment, where they tend to be smaller than usual as a result of repeated trampling or strimming – we’ll look at the “yellow things” in detail at a later date. Scarlet Pimpernel is growing happily under the seats but we haven’t found any out in the meadow this year. We have regularly found a tiny blue Forget-me-not in the seating area which we have not seen anywhere else in the meadow. And of course there’s the dear old Common Daisy, which never lets us down, even in winter, when nothing else is flowering!

Scarlet Pimpernel	Forget-me-not	Common Daisy

Some More Meadow Insects

This is an excellent time to look for meadow insects, especially on warm days, when it’s really buzzing out there! Here are a few new ones found this year.

Cardinal Beetle

In the undergrowth beyond the hides I found a beautiful scarlet beetle, one of the Cardinal Beetles, which is a name given to a group of brightly-coloured, flat-bodied beetles, many of which have irridescent wing cases and thorax. This one is Pyrochroa serraticornis, and is mostly found on flowers at the edges of woodland. It is around 20mm long, lives under the bark and feeds on other insects. It looks rather similar to the Lily Beetle, a garden pest which many of you may know, but that has a shorter, rounder body and dimples on its wing cases – our beetle is innocent of harming lily plants!

A Pretty Fly

This fly is as yet unidentified but is rather splendid when seen in close-up. In case you thought a fly was just a fly, think again. There is a very wide range of different shapes, colours, faces and all sorts of other characteristics. If anyone out there has experience of fly identification, we’d be pleased to hear from you!

Longhorn Beetle

The beetle pictured here is Leptura fulva (alternative name Corymbia fulva) and is a longhorn beetle, apparently found more often in central Europe and other parts of the world than in Britain. (Trying to find out more about this beetle on the Internet threw up mostly records in Dutch, though there was one reference to it being found on a nature reserve in Southampton Water). It has been present in the meadow in previous years and is there again in 2007.

Cantharis rustica

There are many Soldier Beetles out there, mostly the little orange ones seen particularly on white flowers such as Yarrow and Wild Carrot. Those are Rhagonycha fulva (see Meadow Muses August 2005). Another member of the same family, Cantharidae, is Cantharis rustica, a striking black and scarlet beetle which is often found on umbellifer flowers such as Hogweed, but seen here in the meadow on a Plantain stem. It is common and widespread in the UK and is carnivorous, feeding on other insects.

Weevils

Here are some very tiny insects, a group of weevils, running around all over a Plantain seed head. These are possibly Grain Weevils, Sitophilus granarius, which breed in stored grain and similar products and can become a serious pest in granaries. You need to get really close to see these little creatures and accurate identification depends on the differences between a large number of physical characteristics, including length of snout, position and shape of antennae, colour and markings. There are over 40,000 species of weevils in the world.

Froghoppers are Homopteran bugs, members of the family Aphrophoridae. They are mostly brown and can be distinguished from other similar insects, such as Leafhoppers by having very few spines on their hind tibia, while Leafhopper tibia have many spines. This is not actually very easy to see with the naked eye, as both bugs are very small and don’t tend to keep still while you look at them. As far as I can tell, the insect pictured here is a Froghopper.

Alternative names for the insect include Spittle Bugs or Spit Bugs, and naturalist Nick Baker calls them “Bubble Bum” in his book called “Nick Baker’s Bug Book”. While you may not have seen an adult Froghopper, you will certainly have seen their young, though somewhat disguised. These are the insects which produce the cuckoo-spit found on many plants in the meadow, though this has nothing to do with cuckoos, or indeed spitting! The Froghopper nymph blows the bubbles of froth from its rear end to camouflage itself from hungry predators, as well as to stop it from drying out or getting too hot or cold. Froghoppers feed on the sap of plants and the liquid forming the bubbles is the sap which has passed through the insect.

Froghoppers are the jumping champions of the insect world. They leap from plant to plant and are said to be able to jump around twice as far as a flea, weight for weight. They achieve this by having two long hind legs adapted for the process, which simply drag along the ground when not jumping. Big muscles control the legs, working like a powerful catapult and building up force until the insect shoots forward and away, with a take-off velocity of four metres per second, quite a leap for a tiny insect and relegating the flea into second place. The equivalent for a human being would be to jump over a 210 metre building! The froghopper shown here was found on Mugwort, growing in the old pond.

Next time you’re in the meadow, take a walk round the mown paths and look really closely at what’s growing there.....you might be surprised what little wild things you’ll come face to face with, often much smaller than you think! And in between watching the eagles and kites, don’t forget to have a look under your seat.