Adventures in Monkwood

Monkwood was the destination of our wildlife adventures this weekend and it did not disappoint. It is an area of semi-natural, ancient woodland just a few miles north of Worcester, near a village called Sinton Green. There has been woodland here from at least the year 961, impressive. The woodland is jointly owned by the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and Butterfly Conservation and covers an area of 152 acres.

Looking for Birds

The Woodland Ride

Shortly after getting out of the car my 11 year old daughter asked to take the camera as she wanted to take photos of plants and invertebrates. I handed her the camera and she got involved exploring the woodland.

Solider Beetle

Another Beetle

Monkwood is a stunning place to visit and enjoy a few hours wandering around. The management of the woodland has created wonderful wide woodland rides which we had the pleasure to walk through. The sun was pushing through the clouds intermittently creating some beautiful light. It was such a pleasure meandering along the footpaths. My daughter, on her photographic adventure, commented about the Common Hogweed flowers. “Each flower head has loads of insects, and on each flower head the insects are all different.”

Buff-Tailed Bumble

Common Hogweed Flower Head with Invertebrates 

She was correct. To stop and acknowledge the biodiversity supported by something as common and familiar as Common Hogweed was quite mind blowing. The Hogweed is an impressive plant in its own right and could easily be overlooked. Growing large dominating leaves and sending up a tall flower stalk upwards of two meters in some cases. It makes it stand proud of the surrounding flora. The large white flower heads, comprised of hundreds of individual flowers, with delicate hints of pink and yellow, which act as a beacon for the passing pollinators. Consequently each flower head was teaming with flies, bees and beetles; some large and many small but all playing their part in increasing the interest and biodiversity of the woodland.

Hoverfly

Common Hogweed Flower Head

The best find of the day was the crab spiders (Thomisus spectabilis). Crab spiders are fascinating arachnids as they are not your typical web creating hunting spider. They exploit the evolution technique of camouflage and wait to ambush their victim using their long 'crab' like front leg to hold the pray when they provide it with a fatal bite. Perhaps the best bit of Biology is the way they are camouflaged, they can change the colour of their body to match the colour of the flower they are living on. In our case, on the Hogweed, the spiders were white. We even spotted one with a hover fly in its grip.

Crab Spider with Hover Fly

Longhorn Beetle and Others

Other notable species we found on or around the Hogweed were Solider Beetles, Yellow and Black Longhorn Beetles, Thick-legged Flower Beetles, Dock Bug, Green-legged Sawfly. However, we really went there to spot some butterflies. Unfortunately only 2 species were noted.

Yellow and Black Longhorn Beetles

Green-legged Sawfly

We did spot a Large Skipper and a Speckled Wood. The Large skipper was enjoying the nectar of the plant Ragged Robin. Ragged Robin is a plant that is wide spread across Britain and tends to be found in wet meadows and wet woodlands, such as Monkwood. Due to the reduction in meadows it has unfortunately seen a decline in its numbers. It is important nectar source for many species, such as this Large Skipper, and many other butterflies and long tongued bees.

Large Skipper on Ragged Robin

Look at that tongue

All in all we had an exciting few hours but most importantly my daughter really engaged in the wildlife and had fun. I feel it is so important to allow children to engage in nature, it helps then love and understand wildlife and see why it is important to our planet to have healthy ecosystems. Then they will want to protect them in the future. All photos were taken by her, (except the very first one).  

Large Skipper

Dock Bug

Fly