Most gardeners think of hoverflies as aphid eaters: the adults eat pollen and nectar but, after mating, the female lays eggs on aphid colonies and her larvae eat aphids. Hoverflies are therefore considered a gardener’s friend, as ‘natural pest control’. But only around 40 per cent of British hoverflies lay their eggs on aphid colonies; others lay eggs on plants, in rotting wood, in bee or wasp nests or the sap of trees, while some prefer mud or stagnant water. Myathropa florea is in this last category, but she’s quite adaptable. She will lay eggs in stagnant water or mud but also my compost bin, if given half a chance. Known, affectionately, as ‘rat-tailed maggots’, her larvae are ‘detritivores’, feeding on bacteria from the decaying organic matter in the water or mud they have been laid in. (The ‘tail’ is actually a breathing tube, which they use like a snorkel.)
The female Batman hoverfly is not alone in her egg-laying choices; many other species also breed in stagnant water and mud, including the common drone fly (Eristalis tenax), the tapered drone fly (Eristalis pertinax), the footballer hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus) and the thick-legged hoverfly (Syritta pipiens). These are all common species that are regularly found in gardens but there are rarer ones, too, which lay eggs in puddles of water in the roots or forks of trees where leaves and other debris accumulate. These are (again, affectionately) called ‘rot holes’. Rot holes of rat-tailed maggots.
Hoverflies that lay eggs in mud and stagnant water are vulnerable to climate change because mud and small bodies of water dry out quickly in a drought. Next time you’re walking in woodland have a look at holes in tree roots and at the fork of two branches – are they holding water? If not, where are the hoverflies breeding? Is the ground moist or cracked? Has is rained lately? Where are the hoverflies?
Luckily, some species, like Myathropa florea, are adaptable; that’s why they use gardens in the first place, they have adapted to live alongside us. That’s why the females buzz around me as I’m sieving or turning compost, that’s why I often lose my comfrey solution, because a hoverfly has sneaked in and laid eggs and I can’t drain the liquid now, they’ll die! She’ll be buzzing around you, too. You could give her a helping hand by leaving your compost bin open a fraction, so she can get in to lay her eggs. Or, even better, you could make her a Hoverfly Lagoon.
A Hoverfly Lagoon is a rot hole in a bucket, a pretty unappealing replica of a beautiful woodland habitat. It’s easy to make: simply fill the bucket with grass clippings or leaves and then add water and sticks that reach the top so the hoverflies have something to land on when they lay eggs, and the larvae can climb out to pupate. Providing a
layer of leaves or other plant material around the bucket will ensure the larvae have somewhere to go to pupate, but you could just let grass grow around it. You can make one using something as small as an old 2-litre (4-pint) plastic milk bottle but I like to go the whole hog and give them an old water butt to lay eggs in – it attracts hundreds and hundreds of the things. It can get quite stinky as the plant material rots down, so keep it at the end of your garden, but don’t forget to top it up when the water level falls. Keep an eye out for your first Batman hoverfly. She will buzz around you, politely, and then get on with the business of making more Batman hoverflies. Whether she does or not is up to you.
November
It’s raining again. I head out in the near-darkness of dawn and empty the water butts into the pond. Each one has a hosepipe connector on its tap, and I move from one to the other, connect it up, turn the tap and stand beneath the shed roof to watch the water stream out. As the water in the butts recedes, the trickles from the downpipes start up again as they immediately refill. I could listen to them all day.
I have a rain garden of sorts. A fully functioning one would not have a gardener running around in her pyjamas, turning taps and connecting hosepipes, but it would collect water in much the same way. Rain gardens are designed to hold water, with no need for drains to take it ‘away’ into rainwater drains or sewers. Plants are chosen to cope with being waterlogged for a couple of days, and rain is directed from sheds, greenhouses and house roofs into pools, which gradually recede as the water soaks into the earth. There are usually also green roofs to further slow the flow of water from sheds and other outbuildings, and a limited amount of hard surfaces like patios and paths, which enables more water to soak into the ground and prevent ‘run-off’, which can lead to flooding.
I have the big pool of water (the pond), I have minimal hard surfaces, and I have lots of plants with thirsty roots. But, when the water butts connected to the house become full, the rain is directed back down the downpipes into the drain. I could easily drill holes into the top of the butts and run hoses from them into the pond to take the excess, but I’m not sure I want pieces of hose as visible, permanent features of the garden. To bury a pipe from the house downpipe, I would need to dig up the patio. So I’m stuck, obsessively fiddling with water butts in my pyjamas, releasing water as they fill to prevent rain from being taken out of the garden. I quite like the process. I say hello to frogs, marvel at mushrooms, listen to birdsong. We don’t often get out into the rain, so we miss things; I like the excuse to be out. I get wet, of course, but I like that. Besides, most of us don’t have the money or inclination to install a fully functioning rain garden, but we might have water butts we can empty from time to time. We can all be weird little gardeners in our pyjamas.
We’ve had a lot of rain in recent weeks, but I’m still not over the drought. I think back to July, when the garden was so parched the plants had wrinkled leaves and I recycled the dog’s bath water just to keep them alive. When I stopped using the dishwasher so I could hand-wash dishes and throw the water on to the lawn. I can’t go through that again (I know I will have to). I want to hold on to as much water as I can, here, in the garden. So I keep every drop, savour every puddle. And when my tanks fill up, I release the water into the garden – sometimes into the pond, sometimes around the trees and little hedge at the back – so they can fill again, so the garden can be full again.
There are reasons beyond being obsessed with water and wanting to keep it as my friend. ‘Surface run-off’ is caused by too much water landing on too many hard surfaces. The water collects and runs down the nearest slope, where it gains energy and meets other water, more and more of it pooling together and flowing faster and faster downhill. Eventually it surges into drains that can then back up and cause flooding. Sewers become ‘overwhelmed’, and their contents are discharged into the sea by water companies, who claim they are doing so to prevent it from backing up into the streets. I live near a sewage outlet pipe and have lost count of how many times raw sewage has been discharged into the sea I swim in due to ‘heavy rainfall’. I see it and I smell it; I watch lifeguards warn people against entering water full of human excrement. It’s disgusting and I hate it.
Most houses have both rainwater drains and wastewater drains. The rainwater drains take rainwater directly to rivers and the sea, while wastewater drains take grey water, along with ‘foul’ or ‘black’ water from toilets, into sewers. In older houses, thanks to renovations and corner-cutting, these separate drains can have the wrong type of water flowing into them, with rainwater draining into sewers and grey water flowing into rivers and the sea. Even black water, from toilets, might not be headed for the sewers. Add to that water from roads, which ends up in the sewers, and water from driveways and paved front gardens, which is usually directed into the road and therefore the sewers, and you have a lot of rainwater entering the sewerage system. Roads plus people plus paved gardens equals more hard surfaces. Climate change means more moisture in the atmosphere and, therefore, heavier bouts of rain. Hard surfaces and climate change mean more flooding and – currently – more sewage in our seas. It doesn’t have to, of course, but when you add privatisation into the equation, you soon realise where the money is that could have helped prevent these problems and see how we’ve ended up in the shit we’re in (pardon the pun).
UK water companies were privatised in 1989. I don’t understand why public services were ever allowed to be put into private hands because there will always be shareholders to direct profits to rather than the services themselves. The companies tell us they have poured billions into fixing leaking pipes and improving a system worthy of twenty-first-century levels of rainfall and excrement, but they are failing. When it rains, the systems can’t cope and our rivers and seas end up full of shit. (There has been public outcry, of course, but our government voted to let this continue anyway, of course.)
I don’t believe I am responsible for the shit that ends up in the sea. But I can do my own small thing to reduce the amount of rainwater that flows into sewers and the likelihood of sewage being discharged into the sea. Anyone with a garden can help slow the flow of water into drains and sewers. Anyone with a garden can help save our rivers and seas. And maybe, just maybe, if our gardens hold on to more water, they might cope better with drought. Their own little water tables might take longer to recede, the plants might remain hydrated for longer. And so the worms might continue to work the soil, the moths and butterflies might have plump leaves to lay their eggs on, and the birds might have caterpillars to eat. The ponds might take longer to dry out. Isn’t that worth doing? For our sakes as gardeners, as well as those that live among us in our garden, such as the frogs and the birds and the bees, which all went hungry this summer?
It is. I am telling you, it is.
The ground is a sponge. Tree roots are a sponge, and ponds are a sponge. When rain falls, it lands on leaves and trickles slowly into the soil, where it gently seeps into the earth. A pond will fill gradually and then gently spill over the sides, percolating into the soil and plant roots around it. Plant and tree roots absorb water; lawns hold water, and water butts, bird baths and buckets store water. You might notice puddles on your lawn, but they disappear quickly. It might be soggy underfoot, but usually not for long. Our gardens are sponges. Let’s use them.
I visit Dad and Ceals in Suffolk for a few days of walking, catching up and helping Dad on his allotment. They’re not so good at walking long distances these days, and so I set off on mini adventures each morning before they get up, see what I can find and learn. The first day I head east to Southwold beach, cut along it and then up through the dunes, round the back of Dad’s allotment and then home. It’s nice to say hi to places I haven’t been for a while. But I need more. I look at a map: why have I never explored the estuary?
On day two I set out at 7.30 a.m. I trample the damp, dark pavement as streetlights flick off and gulls return to the rooftops from the sea. I cross the road and head down a footpath along the side of a school and then get lost in the half-light among bracken and fences with huge KEEP OUT signs. I walk between chain-link fences for a while and then become cross; I am not here for chain-link fences! I return to where I started, make a right turn instead, look at the horizon for the estuary. There it is. Through the gate and on to a ridge above marshland, where longhorn cattle graze their breakfast and a lone barn owl seeks out the last of the night’s prey. Barnacle geese fly in great, noisy skeins overhead, chaffinches scatter in the gloom, reeds rustle as the wind picks up. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I don’t have my binoculars. What’s that? I think… I think I hear curlews.
Have I heard curlews? Could I have heard curlews? The most wondrous birds with the most beautiful, eerie calls, I have never seen them or heard them before. But I know them. I’ve watched videos of them. I am mildly in love with them without being acquainted with them. Mournful wading things with long, gently curved bills used for probing sand and moist soils for invertebrates. They nest on the ground, often in farmland, which rarely ends well for them. I have watched videos of curlew mothers flying in circles and crying as their chicks have been destroyed by farming machinery. I have donated to curlew conservation funds. This once-common bird is yet another victim of ‘modern farming practices’, of human expansion and disregard. And oh, its call! Its haunting call. If we ever really look at ourselves and see what we’ve done to the world I hope it’s to the soundtrack of the curlew’s call.
I head further towards the estuary, through mud trampled by cows’ hooves. At the water’s edge I look out to a flat expanse of sand and marshland, which I later discover is the perfect habitat for overwintering curlews. More geese. More flying things with different calls that I manage to record and send to a friend who tells me they are wigeon. More eerie calls that could be curlews. I need to know more about curlews. I need to be back at Dad’s by 9.00 a.m. so I can shower and have breakfast before going to meet his friends. I set off, through mud, across the ridge, keeping one eye out for the barn owl, two ears out for curlews. I shower, eat breakfast, see Dad’s friends then return, much later, to my room to rest for a few hours before heading out again to do a talk for Dad’s allotment society. I return to bed, again, feeling exhausted. I text nature friends about curlews, and read about overwintering versus nesting habitats, spring calls versus autumn and winter calls. My nature friends text back and tell me that, if they are curlews, they will make brief calls as they take off or come to land, that they call for longer during the breeding season. I tell them: ‘Tomorrow I look for curlews!’
It’s my last morning here and I wake at 5.30 a.m. It’s now or never. It’s dark and cold, it’s raining and has been raining all night. I creep down to make tea as quietly as I can so I don’t wake Dad and Ceals. I drink it in bed as rain pounds the windows. Of course it does. Should I just not go? I wait for half an hour, make another cup of tea. Eventually it eases. I head downstairs to find Dad in the kitchen. ‘Did you find the binoculars?’ he asks. He points at the door. I grin. ‘You’ll get wet,’ he says. ‘I will!’ I reply. ‘But that’s OK.’ I make my escape, 20 minutes before sunrise.
I am ill prepared; badly dressed in running shoes, tracksuit bottoms and a jacket made of recycled plastic bottles that is neither wind- nor waterproof. I cross the road and join the footpath that is now one long puddle, and splash my way through it as the wind whips the bracken against the chain-link fence. I turn right today. There’s a blackbird, followed soon by two wrens, not remotely impressed by the figure splish-splashing clumsily towards them.
On to the ridge, where today there are few cows and no barn owl. I push on to the estuary, the only sounds are the rain tapping the hood of my jacket and the squelch of my shoes in the mud.
A sound muffled by my hood sounds like my phone is going off. I pull it down and catch the end of what I think is curlews. Two figures fly overhead with swooping wings, but fall quiet before I can confirm who they are. I keep my hood down so I don’t miss them again and plough on to the estuary. The rain is horizontal and now whips my face and ears. One arm is completely soaked through. Through Dad’s binoculars I can see a figure feeding in the mud. It has a long bill but is too far away to see it clearly. Curlew? Barnacle geese fly overhead again, plus lapwing and the wigeon I met yesterday. Curlews?
I walk on, to the estuary proper. I scan the muddy flats with binoculars. There are wading birds with long bills; I can just make them out in the half light. There are bubbling calls overhead. If I can’t make out the curlews on the ground I can make them out in the sky. There are curlews, there are curlews! I wish I could stay longer. I wish my coat were waterproof, that my running shoes were wellies. I wish the curlews would make more calls. But no matter all of this. No matter because I met the most wonderful birds on the most awful of mornings. I can’t wait to come back to see them again.
My favourite thing about the natural world is how it surprises me. How it can be one thing in one moment but something altogether different the next. How it’s just there, getting on with itself, but if I spend just five minutes exploring it, it can change the fortune of my day. It can lift me, excite me, throw me and educate me. It can send me down a research rabbit hole where, for the next three days, Emma will ask what I’m doing and I’ll say, ‘I’m reading about black redstarts.’
The male black redstart is a gorgeous bird. A dunnock dressed in the finest velvet suit, his black face and chest graduating to a grey-white belly and an orange tail. Smart grey cap. He’s exquisite and he knows it, the white patches on his wings like two fingers to anyone gawping at him. He’s a silver fox, a dapper gent, he’s debonair and sexy. And he turns up EVERYWHERE. How do I know this? Because I spent three days reading about them. Because I lifted binoculars to my eyes expecting to see a pied wagtail and–
Oh.
My.
GOD.
There’s a black redstart on that roof.
It was a filming day. Filming days are busy and hectic but also involve lots of hanging around, which I take as a gift to look at the garden. I always find new species: the first yellow-faced bees in the bee hotel, the first aphid wasps, a funny-looking female damselfly that spent the whole day laying eggs in the pond and which I later learned was a rufescens-obsoleta form of the blue-tailed. Mining bees nesting in the lawn, a comma caterpillar under a hop leaf, the first ever ringlet butterfly. And today, as the cameraman got his cut-away shots of seed-bearing plants, I watched a bird gambolling about on the roofs of the houses opposite. I thought it was a pied wagtail, due to the slight wagging of his tail. But as I lifted the binoculars I found someone else entirely: he on someone’s roof and me at my kitchen door, meeting for the first time. Hi! He continued to gambol about for a bit, circling roofs and hopping up and down the roof tiles. Sometimes he’d sit and stare out to sea (or so it seemed). I wasn’t sure who he was at first but made a note to look up redstarts. I drew a picture: a child’s drawing of a bird with a white patch on each of its wings and arrows pointing to ‘dark face’, ‘long orange tail’.
‘Are you going to post that on Twitter?’ asks Blake, the director, laughing.
‘No, I’m going to find out on my own,’ I reply petulantly. And I do, the next time Ed the cameraman needs to film cut-aways I look up redstarts, and I find my silver fox.
The black redstart, Phoenicurus ochruros, is a rare bird in the UK, with less than 100 breeding pairs. It can be found all year round in some parts, including London and other cities, brownfield sites and industrial areas, but there are ‘passage migrants’ in autumn and spring, which can turn up anywhere, especially on the coast. Well, here we are.
They traditionally nest in rocky outcrops but have adapted to urban areas astonishingly well. They need crags or holes in buildings to nest in, and rocky or stony, sparsely vegetated ground on which to find their invertebrate food. Populations boomed in London after the Second World War as they moved in to bomb sites, which earned them the nickname of the ‘bomb-site bird’, a veritable Mother Courage profiteering from war. Now they nest on green or rubble roofs high above the city, but also down the road from me, on the cliffs in Hastings, where the first record of them breeding in Britain was made in 1923.
They sing a hurried warble, followed by a scrunching sound that some suggest is like a bag of marbles being shaken, and then finish with a burst of ringing notes. They feed on insects and their larvae, but also earthworms and small snails. They take fruit and berries in autumn. The female is not quite as sharply dressed as the male, a duller brown-grey with a rusty rump and tail. But still gorgeous.
