Changing ways … and really big beetles

18 August

There are some moments that we can only recognize in hindsight.
“And that was the last time anyone ever saw a Dodo. Ah yes, that was the last time anyone ever saw a Passenger Pigeon. And that was the last encounter with a Tasmanian Tiger in the wild.”
- Sydney Michalski

Wildlifing with the Old Guy

I know that some people of my generation say that they don’t feel old … and really, I don’t. A bit creaky perhaps and I do need hearing aids to hear birds, but mentally I am reasonably chipper … as far as I know. On the other hand, in just under a month I will have added yet one more year beyond the biblically allotted span. Some would say it’s time to pour a beer and put my feet up, but that sounds terribly boring if it’s all that I have to do.

Where is this going?

As I have aged I have found that my approach to wildlifing, and especially birding, has changed too. I have always enjoyed looking at nature, I would not have become a biologist had I not. I have found things to learn and things to enjoy in the natural world ever since I was about five years old and found that I could make my female relatives cringe when I picked up worms. Even more so when I learned to make ants “explode” by using a magnifying glass to focus the sun on their bodies. It was, though, not until 1998 when we immigrated to Canada and I discovered “birding” that I started keeping serious lists and ticking species off in a structured way. I am not, and never have been, in the slightest way competitive. I don’t play team games and if someone can run faster than me, which is not hard, then good on him/her. I did though, little by little, start enviously wondering if my bird list was longer than the other fellow’s list. This led me to do occasional Big Days and, heaven help me, even a Big Year or two. It was fine, and I made good friends along the way but I was insidiously slipping into the trap of trying to improve my personal numbers into trying to beat the other guy’s numbers … and that’s not really how my mind wants to work.

Then I along came GreenBirding, which is to say saving the planet from climate change (hah!) by restricting my birding to those places and birds that I could reach without the aid of an internal combustion engine. Boots on and walk out of the door. It’s a thoroughly good thing to do, keeps you fit with the side benefit that you can smugly say “my list isn’t as big as his list because I am pure and travel under my own steam whereas he drives 500km to get another tick”. All the more so when Green Big Days/Years came onto the scene with an inevitable whiff of sanctity around them. Oh, I was into GreenBirding big time, and I even wrote a book about it (link follows).

Today, and really without any particular epiphany, I find my approach to birding has shifted gear once more. Birds are still the first things I look for when out and about and I still keep lists, if only because the eBird scientists want to know what I have seen, but I am now equally concerned to add companion lists of flowers (J insists) and trees and fungi and insects and lichen and spiders and all the other wonderful species that held my attention seventy-some years ago and of those that I have yet to see, and must see, before achieving my century and getting the telegram from the King.

I cannot resist making lists. I will set out on a long hike with J and we find by lunch time that we have only covered a very short kilometre or two because of the many fascinating things living beside the trail. I no longer try to explode ants however, even though my garden has quite a number of colonies to practice on. This probably a good thing.

All of which is to say that as we age and reluctantly slow down we can turn our wildlifing to go into greater depth, having done all the breadth stuff before we got here. There is no right or better way to pursue our interests. Don’t forget, either, that when it comes to the wildlife in your location then YOU are the expert.

Here’s a bird you might see while GreenBirding … a Black-crowned Night Heron

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On Knowing Names

A common theme here has been the importance of knowing the names of the plants and creatures we encounter - clearly I am not alone:

Quote: … it is very worrying that many people are growing up now without any knowledge of even the most common species. A survey a few years ago found that two-fifths of British children couldn’t identify a dandelion and nearly a quarter didn’t recognise a conker … “Losing their names is a step in losing respect. Knowing their names is the first step in regaining our connection.” I agree. It seems only courteous to learn the names of the other species I see most frequently - I like to think of this as getting to know the neighbours. I also want to take the time to discover the names of species I’m less familiar with and to try to remember those names for the next time we meet, just as I would with any new acquaintance.

Getting to know the neighbours

Log Piles and Big Beetles

Long ago (>50 years) in a land far away, J and I rented a small basement flat in a large house in the bosky south London suburb of Beckenham. The area is quite well-to-do with lots of trees in large gardens. Small basement flats are OK … it was only a couple of years after student life when all we had was a single room each, this was a step up into luxury I suppose and under £10 a month in rent 🙃 … but there comes the time each day when you need to get outside and see the sky and away from four basement walls. We have fond memories of evening walks along the residential streets at this time of year, hot August evenings, and being forcefully struck by large, black, hard Stagbeetles. They hurt! Usually this caused them to fall on the ground where they, not being all that aerodynamic, floundered about, often on their backs, until we picked them up and put them on a branch or wall from which they usually managed to take off again. Stagbeetles are a vulnerable species nowadays. This is because their larvae need rotting wood to munch their way through and eventually grow large and fat and become adult beetles. Like most insects they are anyway declining in numbers but a bit of diligent research informs me that they are still to be found in the park just down the road from where we used to live.

This is the point at which you ask why I am writing about a beetle that lives across the ocean from me. Well, partly because I have an international readership, but mostly because these splendid creatures were brought to mind by learning that there is a series of online wildlife live drawing classes using nature subjects - and a recent class involved people sketching stagbeetles while simultaneously learning about their biology. Sounds a good idea … if this interests you, the button below will take you to the relevant website:

And if you happen to like big, black beetles then you would like to think about having some rotting wood in your wildlife garden … failing that some fallen trees alongside a trail you regularly walk and which you can visit as you pass works almost as well.

You can easily make a stumpery (I have written about these before) in the form of a Log Pyramid which provides rotting wood undergroundas well as on the surface. Bury several logs upright in the soil, perhaps 50cm deep. Logs should be broadleaved wood (not conifers) and at least as thick as an adult’s arm. Fill the space between the the logs with soils as some species of beetles lay their eggs in the soil next to rotting wood and the larvae move in and out of them. Alternatively, create a simple Log Pile giving food and shelter for many species. The insects that live in log piles are a source of food for other animals, including birds.

Just lay down the logs you have, they can be neat or untidy, large or small and a mix of species. You can add some dead leaves which will attract small creatures to hibernate in winter. Different locations attract different species. Placed in shade, the wood stays damp and is good for fungi, mosses and invertebrates. The insects feed birds. In full sun, the wood dries out but is good for solitary bees. You can equally well leave a dead tree stump and its roots to stand and decay - the creatures and fungi will soon move in.

We don’t have Stagbeetles as such in Canada but there are insects occupying the same ecological niche. For example, the Horned Passalus Beetles (Odontotaenius disjunctus), which “is critically imperilled" in Canada”

And the related Bess beetle - https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/84443-Passalidae … these are not local to me but can be found not far away, just south of the border.

Odontotaenius disjunctus

The name of the Passalus beetle family apparently comes from Greek passalos, meaning a peg or gag, though I am not sure why. A common name for the group is "Bess" beetle which, I read, would appear to be from French baiser, to kiss (compare Middle English bassen, Modern English, though archaic, buss to kiss), and bestowed in recognition of the kissing sound (stridulation) made by the beetles when handled.

Anyway … here is a Stagbeetle, and I do wish we had them here for me to meet when out walking. Is it not magnificent … 75mm of hardened chitin thudding into the back of your head. The collisions happen because once launched they are not all that aerodynamic of maneuverable.