When we are not hunting we are all meeting up to discuss the day’s events and consuming vast amounts of curry and pasta dishes all washed down with a glass of lemonade or three – and in the mornings note that battle fatigue is setting in and we have only just started to fight the battle.
As fast as we find a nest more calls come in about hornet sightings and so more trap stations are set out in the new areas and the searches continue.
Every parish now has sightings and/or nests found and with insect numbers now at their maximum we know that the calls will only increase. One thing that has helped with recording this year is that due to high numbers of wasps being about a number of Islanders have put out traps and then found they have hornets in them that they then report to the Environment Department.
Most are the Asian variety, however some are our own resident European hornets and that has identified the fact that they are more common than we had thought. They are larger than the Asian interlopers, pose no threat to the local bee population, make their nests in hollow trees and generally pass unnoticed by most people.
One bird species that has clearly done well this year is the goldfinch judging by the flocks containing youngsters. They also seem to have had a very long breeding season brought about in part by the hot dry summer producing an abundance of seeds to feed on.
There are times when I curse not having a camera with me and one such occasion happened recently when arriving back early evening from hornet hunting I needed to call up to my workshop.
At present I have a wooden chair outside the door awaiting repair and sitting in front of it was one of our Jack Russells who was intent on the area in front of her that contained the compost bin that she was convinced had a mouse hiding behind it.
Sitting on the chair behind her was a freshly fledged goldfinch who, when it saw me began to flap its wings and beg for food until the dog turned her head to see what was making the noise.
It then flew up onto the workshop roof where it joined two other fledglings and they all started flapping wings and making feed-me noises that almost immediately generated a response from a parent bird that commuted from a nearby feeder to attend its brood.
Our butterfly transects have been a disappointment this summer with fewer species and numbers recorded and if it were not for large and small whites and speckled woods the fields would be denuded of any at times.
Part of the butterfly survey includes recording bumblebees and they have struggled as the dry weather has reduced the nectar in many of their favourite food plants, meaning that many of the workers have been under nourished and are consequently stunted and short lived.
As previously mentioned one of the insect species bucking the trend is the common wasp which has flourished this year and we are experiencing plague proportions of them about our hornet bait stations which can be very distracting when trying to track flight paths and timings let alone the stings when one is trapped between fingers or drifts up trouser legs. It seems that every hedgerow and bank we pass has a nest of theirs and although hornets take them at the feeding stations I have not seen any hawking across the nest entrances unlike around our bee colonies.
Another species we record is the pheasant and we have come across fewer nests or young compared to past years, a sign perhaps that the buzzards and marsh harriers have taken their toll.
We have a friend staying at present who has expressed her joy at seeing red squirrels on her walks as living in Dorset she only sees the American grey squirrel.
Late summer can perhaps be a tough time for reds as the autumn harvest of nuts has yet to mature so they can be seen searching far and wide for food.
They have no road sense whatsoever so when driving keep a sharp look out for them and never try to second guess what they are going to do or where they are going to go as it will always be the opposite to what you think, so allow them time to get clear.
One other species our friend commented on was the number of wall and green lizards she was seeing in the bays and along the cliff paths so it is to be hoped that they too have had a good breeding season.
Finally this week getting back yet once again to hornets I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the public that have given us their overwhelming support and allowed us to tramp around their gardens and land in search of this elusive beasty. We may have lost the war but we battle on.
