One fateful Saturday, a pair of sky warriors crashed to the ground, locked in battle.
They say every fight you can walk away from is a good fight. I guess that means our new friend had a good one indeed.
Her opponent, however, flew off. Because this is what victorious hornets do, after successfully shredding their rival’s wings.
So there she was – bruised and battered and suddenly pedestrian.
Under any ordinary circumstances, this would have meant she would be torn apart, limb by limb, by an army of gleeful ants. Unless she were lucky and a hungry bird got to her first.
But these were no ordinary circumstances. Because the turf on which she landed was ours.
She may have lost the duel but she won our love, along with a life-time supply of sugar water.
Zhuzhana, as we named her, was born a worker. But she ended up living like a queen.
Here’s a pair of creatures who get blamed for all the wrong reasons. This loved-up couple are crane flies, most likely of the Tipula oleracea persuasion.
They’re too big for any regular mosquitoes, check fingers for scale, which only makes it worse because they get accused of being giant mosquitos and swatted out of existence.
But these clumsy insects don’t bite at all. Their larvae on the other hand, do bite alright – they have a taste for plant roots and can chew their way through vast swathes of grass and crops, leaving huge dried patches in their wake.
As is often the case, good biodiversity goes a long way. If baby crane flies are giving you a headache, know that birds and ground beetles can help you keep their numbers modest and their activities focused on munching decaying plant matter, which is a good thing because it keeps nutrients cycling.
Just keep your pots and pans covered when the adults pay you a dinner visit – they have an uncanny talent for falling into open dishes.
When two garden snails really like each other, they show it by mutual stabbing. They’re equipped with special love darts for this very purpose – they’re hermaphrodites and their love dueling, which goes on for hours, is how they exchange seed. Throughout history, garden snails have loved hitching a ride with humans and this is how they’ve managed to reach some of the farthest corners of the Earth. They’re cute in their own right but their appetite can spell disaster for crops in areas where their natural predators are scarce. Good biodiversity is your friend – frogs, birds, lizards and many bugs will happily keep snails in check for you. But if all else fails, you can always scare garden snails away with coffee grounds – they seriously dislike coffee. That’s probably for the best because the idea of fast-moving, twitchy snails is borderline disturbing.
On this earth, there are 300 pounds of insects for every pound of human flesh. They fly, they dig, they swim, they bite and sting and spray. And they can make more babies in their lifetime than the whole of humanity ever has. We’re outmaneuvered, outgunned, outnumbered and sometimes outsmarted too. Just something to keep in mind 🙂
One of the best things about creating a wildlife pond is watching new critters move in. This spry little slinkie – unfairly known, as I’ve learned, as the horse leech – has managed to find my magic little lake. And quite possibly, my new friend is exactly what these waters needed… because right now, they’re ruled by voracious dragonfly larvae who could use a good old-fashioned fear of God put into them… Dragonflies can murder their way through a sizeable batch of tadpoles in a disturbingly short time – a relatively well-known fact in the ponding world. But they will also actively stalk small fish, which is much less known about them. Supposedly, horse leeches hunt dragonfly larvae, so maybe nature will balance itself out.
Nastala je tako, da smo izkopali kotanjo za ribnik, ki pa ga zaradi lanskoletnih ujm nismo mogli dokončati. V izkopu se je nabrala voda, ki so jo naše rezidenčne dvoživke vzele za svojo in v njej naredile več mrestov. Za letos kaže, da bo to pač ostala mlaka, zato moram njene prebivalce nekako zaščititi. Lokalna termodinamika je taka, da nad nami kroži vse živo perjadi, nedaleč pa so reka, potoki in jezero, tako bo zagotovo prihajalo do plenilskih pohodov vodnih ptic. Na srečo nekaj malega varnosti zagotavljajo ujede, ki tukaj gnezdijo. (Pozorno oko bo na zgornji fotki opazilo kanjo, ki ravno inšpicira teren.)
Iz zgornje slike se da razvideti, da mlaka leži na dnu globokega dela kotanje, ki je na severu zamejena s strmim bregom, na jugu pa z nasipom. V bistvu je to zelo široka terasa s poglobljenim srednjim delom. Leži na sredini pobočja, ki se z vrha hribčka (420 m n.v.) spusti v grapo (320 m n.v.). Trenutno meteorne vode prosto tečejo v kotanjo. Teren je iz laporja, ki vsebuje nekaj gline in gleja, nasip, ki zapira kotanjo na južni strani, pa je iz mešanega materiala. Vodostaj, ki ga vidimo na fotografiji, je tista količina vode, ki vztraja ne glede na vreme. Viški pa hitro poniknejo, za moje pojme še prehitro.
Kotanja ob nalivih funkcionira kot polsuhi zadrževalnik, ki prestreže vodo s pobočja, da ta ne odteče prenaglo. Takole je bilo videti, ko so povsem sveže izdelan, skrbno oblikovan izkop za ribnik zalile in zverižile ujme. Če ne drugega, pa se vsaj ni vse skupaj odpeljalo v grapo, tako kot so se drugod po državi cele vasi, temveč je lepo počakalo, kjer je. Tudi to je ogromno vredno.
Kotanja je dolga vsega skupaj 30 m in široka 10 m, globoka do 2 metra. Mlaka (približno 3,5 x 8 m) je nastala v njenem najglobljem delu, ki je vkopan v glej, torej tisto modrikasto sivo glini podobno prst, ki jo vidimo tudi na levi strani fotografije; ta najgloblji del je vodotesen, preostalo pa očitno ne. Mlaka doseže globino približno 40 cm.
Prvi paglavčki. Na posestvu živijo krastače, žabe in močeradi, tako da ne bi bila presenečena, če bi v mlaki migotalo potomstvo vseh. Vse črno jih je bilo, a ko sem prišla čez nekaj dni, sem pa komaj kakšnega našla. Morda so se poskrili, morda pa so mlako obiskale race. Sumljiva mi je tudi odsotnost odraslih primerkov v bližini mlake, in upam, da jih ni kaj pojedlo.
Trenutno se sprašujem, ali je kakšna realna možnost, da se kotanja v doglednem času “samozatesni”. Prvotni načrt je bil zatesnitev s folijo, zdaj pa razmišljam, ali bi morda šlo po naravni poti. Seveda skušam ugotoviti tudi to, kako opremiti mlako in kaj zasaditi, da bo sistem čim stabilnejši in da bo omogočal osnovno varnost za svoje prebivalce (zavetje, kisik, kemijsko ravnovesje).
