On 15th September 2015 I published my first ever blog post, hoping to document our journey of discovery as we started to manage six acres of coastal grassland for nature. Back then, I had no idea of how little I knew. Now, ten years and 586 posts later, it is probably true to say that I still know very little, even though it is considerably more than before.

We are in the middle of this year’s Heritage Open Days festival which runs from 12th to 21st September. Every year thousands of places across the country throw open their doors for free to celebrate our history and culture, the details of which can be found here: heritageopendays.org.uk. I had optimistically drawn up a list of interesting places that I wanted to go to last weekend but, as usual, things happened and we never got there. We did, however, manage a visit to the Norman church at nearby St Margarets-at-Cliffe. It is thought to have been built in 1136 and has remained largely unaltered since then.

I am hoping that we will get the opportunity to visit some more Heritage Open Day events around Deal this coming weekend.

On this 10th anniversary of the blog, I decided to start a ‘Moth of the Week’ spot and that the first moth featured was going be the lovely dusky thorn. There are nine different thorn moth species in the UK, all of which distinctively hold their wings up when at rest.

But no sooner had I chosen the dusky thorn as moth of the week, than he got toppled from his perch by Dave’s discovery of an absolute colossus of a moth – the convolvulus hawk-moth. In preparation for a visit by BT, he was hacking back the hedge around a telegraph pole that they will want to go up:

This clearing work exposed the moth that, up until then, had been resting ten feet up the pole, covered by the dense vegetation. The wingspan of this moth can be up to twelve centimetres which is bigger than any hawk-moth we had ever seen before:

They have enormously long tongues and are able to feed from flowers that no other British moth is able to access:

Their favoured flower to feed on is Nicotiana and many moth-lovers grow this tobacco plant in their gardens specifically to try to attract them. This is something I too will be attempting next year, although I read that these plants like full sun but moist soil, which will be a struggle on our free draining chalk.

Since we were responsible for it no longer being safely hidden, we rescued the moth and released it in the dark when the birds had roosted.

Some of the older hedgerows surrounding the meadows are now largely composed of ivy which, in September, has its moment of glory when it comes into flower. This represents a lifeline to invertebrates at a time when most other flowers in the meadows are flagging.

Red admiral butterflies on the ivy last September:

And common blue, box bug and common carder bee this week:

Unlike the others, the box bug is not after the pollen but uses the ivy as shelter.

Ivy bees, Colletes hederae, time their emergence into the world as adults to coincide with this September ivy flowering. They only collect ivy pollen, although they may visit other flowers for nectar.

There are countless thousands of ivy bees working the hedgerows here at the moment and, on a sunny calm day, the sound of their buzzing fills the air.

At night, it is moths rather than bees that are working the pollen. We went out with torches and found eight different species, including this old lady on the left and angle shades on the right:

There were many vine weevils on the ivy in the dark too:

These weevils are mating now and their grubs will develop over the winter. They are actually a bit of a nuisance here because our plant pots are places of safety for these grubs where their predators can’t reach them. They live off the roots of the plants and will eventually kill them, so we regularly treat the pots with the nematode Steinernema kraussei as a biological control. Experience over the years has also taught us that we just can’t grow their most favoured plants, such as Heuchera, in pots here because the weevils always get them in the end.

There were also earwigs on the ivy in the dark. I realised that I didn’t know much about earwigs and it turns out they are fascinating things. Most unusually among insects, earwigs show maternal care to their offspring. The female stays with her eggs in the soil and keeps them clean of fungal spores by licking them. Once the young hatch, she continues to remain with them and protects them until they can look after themselves.

But the most flabbergasting thing I found out is that they can fly! They do this only rarely but have two pairs of wings and the hind ones are intricately folded like complicated origami:

I find myself feeling more favourably towards earwigs now that I know a bit more about them.

One of the pear trees in the orchard is under close observation:

The foxes love pears and have previously gone to great lengths to get at the fruit. Or perhaps I should say that they have gone to great heights because they have climbed high up into the tree:

I would love to know if this was just a one-off or if they will do it again. This year the fruit is fast disappearing, but it hasn’t yet reached the point when all the lower pears have gone. It is surely only then that the foxes will ascend up into the tree if they are going to.

Jays, crows and magpies are busy pecking at the pears all over the tree…

…and badgers are hoovering up below:

The foxes, though, are reaching up onto their hind legs to pluck the pears off the tree:

I have many photos of this because it has been a good pear year:

This leap into the air made me laugh:

And here is a fox caught red-handed with a pear:

It is worth mentioning that windfall apples are lying on the ground untouched – it is only the pears that the foxes are after.

The female kestrel continues to regularly hunt in the meadows. She has caught something in her right talon here although I can’t work out what it is. She certainly does eat a lot of invertebrates but this is possibly a small reptile or amphibian:

And it is very unusual to see two kestrels together in the meadows:

So I have now entered the second decade of writing this blog. The astounding discovery that earwigs can fly and finding that supersized hawk-moth up a telegraph pole has been a great start. What will we find out to amaze and enthral us next?