Dr Phil Smith’s Wildlife Notes
October 2024

The Met Office ‘blog’ tells us that the UK weather in October was pretty average. Temperatures, sunshine hours and rainfall were all roughly normal. Rachael Parks measured 95.5 mm of precipitation in her Formby garden; also about average for the month. There was one particularly wet day on 16^th and a named storm ‘Ashley’ on 20^th, the latter producing a few hours of gale-force winds. Surprisingly, the sand-dune water-table, as measured at the Devil’s Hole, fell by 1 cm during the month.

Autumn had well and truly arrived as I crunched through fallen leaves in the Ravenmeols woods. As usual, the most colourful ones were Norway Maple and Aspen. Mild temperatures meant that a few summer flowers, including Evening-primroses, remained to brighten the dunes. The nearby Devil’s Hole still had some Grass-of-Parnassus, Round-leaved Wintergreen, Common Restharrow and Knotted Pearlwortbut I was there to label and measure 114 bushes of the rare hybrid willow Salix x friesiana (a cross between Creeping Willow and Osier) for my long-term study. I now have 13 years of data on this Devil’s Hole population but will I have the energy to do it again next year?

October provides the last chance to find interesting insects before they shut down for the winter. As usual, flowering Ivy was the main attraction, especially for late-flying hoverflies and Ivy Bees. Since its first Sefton Coast sighting in 2018, the distinctive Ivy Bee has boomed. I found them regularly on south-facing Ivy patches at Ravenmeols, Oxford Road and Hesketh Road, Southport, my latest being on 27^th. Other highlights included a new hoverfly for me at Wicks Path, Formby Point. It rejoices in the English name of ‘Migrant Flatbelly’, being widespread but scarce and often seen as an immigrant. Also new to me was an attractive pinkish-orange fly, which was eventually named by an expert in the group as Suillia pallida. Its larvae feed on toadstools.

On 19^th, I bumped into Pete Kinsella and Mark Nightingale at Ravenmeols. A couple of hours staring at Ivy flowers produced several goodies, including a Locust Blowfly spotted by Pete, whose eyesight is far superior to mine. Found mainly in north Africa, this fly breeds on the eggs of locusts and is recognised as an important controlling agent. In recent years, it has spread across Europe and is now being reported quite widely in Britain. Whether it occurs only as a vagrant or can breed here is unknown. Another relative newcomer is the Dock Bug. Moving up from the south, it was first recorded here in 2020 and is now everywhere. I see it on waysides, not necessarily on docks, nearly every time I go out. At Ravenmeols, I also photographed an unfamiliar ichneumon wasp that went to a Ukrainian expert to be confirmed as Perithous scurra. It parasitises the larvae of solitary wasps and seems to be fairly widespread and increasing. Also on the Ivy was another parasitic wasp, the tiny black-and-yellow Brachymeria tibialis. This attacks the caterpillars of Burnet moths, which are such a familiar feature of the dunes in high summer. Butterflies attracted to Ivy were a bit thin on the ground this month but the occasional Commawas nice to see, while Red Admirals peaked at nine, well down on previous years. A single Painted Lady on Ivy at Kenilworth Road, Ainsdale, was my best butterfly find.

Autumn often sees a peak in shieldbug numbers before the adults hibernate. Green and Hawthorn Shieldbugs are regulars; I even found one of the latter species on my parked car. While ‘Buckthorn Bashing’ on the Ainsdale dunes I also spotted one of the less common species – a Spiked Shieldbug.

As insects and plants pack up, birds become an alternative attraction. A Mistle Trush was a new garden ‘tick’, while a Grey Wagtail accompanied me down Range Lane, Formby, on several occasions. Pink-footed Geese were frequent companions overhead, with an impressive flock of about 5000 feeding on stubble fields east of Cabin Hill. Marshside produced a notable count of 83 Little Egrets on partially flooded saltmarsh near the coast road. I can remember, back in the early 1970s, when this was a national rarity! While mapping young plants of invasive Pampas-grass prior to their removal from the southern Green Beach at Ainsdale, I nearly trod on two Jack Snipe. However, the main bird news of the month was the Northwest’s largest ever influx of Yellow-browed Warblers, a vagrant from Siberia that is regular on the east coast but is less often seen on our side of the country. I tried several times to catch up with one but without luck. I gather I wasn’t alone – several other birders also drew a blank.

Finally, the ‘Buckthorn Bashers’ began their thirteenth season of weekly events cutting the invasive shrub, Sea Buckthorn, on the dunes near Sands Lake, Ainsdale. Sixteen volunteers represented our best turnout during the month though, needless to say, we could always do with a few more.