Tag Archives: Peckham

Spare us!

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So, the move to California for our errant honeybee Harry is not going so well. Adjusting to life outside of the Royal Hive has taken its toll. Not content with being a spare to the other males, he is droning on about not getting enough attention or support for his life outside the hive. Unable to make his own honey he has given to selling his life story instead. He lifts the lid on life in the Hive, exposes all the family secrets and tells of his fights with the firstborn drone. He even claims to killing 25 Asian hornets, though that figure has been disputed as there have only been 23 reported sightings in the country since 2016. And we hear of his anger at the muted response to him falling love with a solitary bee and their planned life together as “world-dominating humanitarian superstars powered by her Hollywood glamour and his royal stature”*.

A honeybee caught by a crab spider

As for Meghan, she has been cutting in her remarks about the Royal Hive, not accepting that marrying into the lifestyle of another species was always going to be difficult. She went on television to regale tales of having to bow to the Queen Bee, of the worker bees buzzing around her making her cry, and revealing overheard conversations about speciesism and what her larvae would look like.

The other insects are unsympathetic. They are tired of the bees always hogging the limelight when it comes to saving the world through pollination; that publicity around the countless bee-related projects rarely mentions all the positive benefits of an inclusive, well-rounded insect community. Their demands for Levelling Up, or to at least be included in the literature and on posters, and the replacement of “bee” for “insect” are growing louder.

And what now for our two troubled bees? More books? Spare us! At the very most they will be remembered in history as a small blip in the centuries-old tradition of a bee hive. The late Queen Bee is dead. How the new King is going to rule over a matriarchal society is anyone’s guess, especially as support for hives has begun to wan.

* Tina Brown. The Observer, 17 January 2023

The vaccine bug

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As seen in magazine A VOID Vol. 4 for Morbid Books

Mosquito

The mosquitoes of Peckham are feeling really miffed. At the start of the year, much fuss was made of the new Covid-19 vaccines and a call was made for helpers in the vaccination rollout. The mosquitoes, still in larval form, got wind of this and started congregating in the ponds, pools, and puddles of Peckham. They were excited as by the time they emerged as adults they were eligible to volunteer. Basically, they had the right equipment – a long proboscis acting as the thinnest of syringes, together with a light touch, and the ability to bite you in unlikely places. And they didn’t need PPE or to sanitise their legs or wear masks; they even knew that a large proportion of them would die splattered against a bedroom wall. A real kamikaze attitude.

They applied and were instantly rejected. “Not enough experience”. Not enough experience? the mosquitoes whined in unison. After all, they were experts at spreading diseases – malaria, dengue fever, Zika virus, yellow fever, West Nile virus – why not just load up with the vaccine and inject people? Some even tried to volunteer for the vaccine trials, especially as a lot of their friends had already escaped the swamps and were being reared in sterile white laboratories. Admittedly they were being subjected to genetic modification for other uses, but hey-ho, it seemed a small sacrifice.

The mosquitoes felt it was time to rebrand themselves as the good guys – how marvellous it would feel to be held up as the heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic rather than one of the most hated insects on the planet. They talked about saving the NHS millions of pounds, calculating if they all pulled together they could jab a whole country in a week given the right muggy conditions. They even had perverse ideas about how to dupe the anti-vaxxers by convincing them the swollen itchy needle hole in their arm is ‘just a mosquito bite’. Obviously, they would have to get around DDT and other nasty mosquito repellents, or flying too close to citronella candles; and those pesky nets are an obstacle. Nevertheless, they were experts at surreptitiously crawling up inside someone’s trousers or under a t-shirt, though they would have to quell their annoying whiny buzzing so as not to be squashed. But in their tiny minds, it could be done…

Warwick Gardens on BBC Springwatch!

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It was a Wednesday evening in June and the insects of Warwick Gardens were all a-fluster. It was the day they were going to be on BBC Springwatch. They were huddled around a window on a house on Lyndhurst Grove peering through the glass at the television.

And then it started. They watched in anticipation as they were taken on a whirlwind tour of Norfolk, northern Scotland and Northern Ireland. They ooo’d and aaah’d at the glorious habitats in these far flung locations and realised they’d never even seen the sea before. They laughed at the shelducks waddling out of a tree, booed at the hatching of grey wagtails, and the caterpillars celebrated the decline of the blue tits! They learnt about tracking pine martins (which they thought looked like the local foxes) and marvelled at otters. And they were staggered by the sheer amount of sea birds on cliffs and gaped in awe at the guillemots that looked like badly drawn penguins.

And then they were on. Iolo Williams introduced Penny Metal and the insects chirped in delight as they saw their friends on national television. They cheered when they saw the scarce fungus weevil, who they thought had left the park years ago, emerging from lockdown. They saw their park from above, shot via a drone, and those who couldn’t fly finally saw where they actually lived – the dragonflies were surprised that anything man-made could fly that high.

As usual the common green shield bugs were having sex, and the more modest gorse shield bugs covered their faces in embarrassment at the behaviour of the local chavs. Local superstar Myopa, already a Twitter celebrity who had previously appeared in a blog, in a book and in Time Out magazine, also made an appearance and now has primetime television to add to her CV.

And then the film finished and the insects were so excited to see Michaela Strachan holding the book they all starred in and she loved it! As she flipped through the pages they all saw themselves, and they couldn’t believe someone so well known liked them and was telling other people to look at them too. And they did! Ever since, they have been peered at and prodded and photographed by every passerby who has been looking in the bushes at Warwick Gardens.

To watch the episode: BBC Springwatch

To fly or not to fly

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Greenbottle – Lucilia caesar

The flies of Warwick Gardens are really perplexed by the latest government rules for flying. On the one hand their need to fly relates to work (pollinating and cleaning) but it seems they can’t fly off to meet friends in another part of the park. There is a red, amber and green traffic light system in place which offers a confusing list of where you are allowed to fly or not to fly.

It means the greenbottles in Poo Corner need to sanitise their feet of dog shit and get tested before they can go to the Log Quarter, but they also need to take a test to fly a few metres to the Railway Quarter despite the fact that part of the park is also full of dog shit. Even if they wanted to fly to the Log Quarter they will have to self-isolate on a leaf for 10 days, by which time their life-span will probably be over. The Football Quarter is an amber destination where you can only go ‘for some pressing family or urgent business reason’ but you will need to take two tests and quarantine, and most flies can’t be bothered as they know they will be eaten if they sit around in the same place for too long.

Marmalade hoverfly – Episyrphus balteatus

The hoverflies can fly to Greendale, which is on the green list, but not Peckham Rye Park (red list). They can’t visit red-listed Burgess Park, but Hyde Park, a destination completely out of reach to the average Peckham fly, is on the green list. And a trip to Goose Green (green list) is hardly worth it as there are no flowers there. They are rightfully anxious as the economy depends on them for pollination, and having been furloughed all last year are in danger of dying out.

Common orange legionnaire – Beris vallata

Meanwhile the soldier flies are being mobilised to survey the swathes of flies returning from amber parks, with the Home Secretary threatening ‘a knock on the door‘ to check they’re all obeying the rules. But it might take a while as the soldier flies have yet to emerge, once again showing how incompetent this Government really is.

Boris the brown-tail moth

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Brown-tail moth

Brown-tail moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea)

This is Boris the brown-tail moth. Don’t be fooled by his buffoonish appearance – his children by many mothers cause havoc by decimating our hedgerows and trees, destroying our public services and dismantling the social fabric of our country.  Found mainly in the conservative southern England constituencies, the oven-ready eggs, laid in batches, hatch into hairy caterpillars who weave webs of lies and deceit, their hairs causing intense irritation and rashes for anyone who comes into contact with them. In urban slang ‘brown tail’ means to have a shit. I fear Boris will brown tail all over us if he gets elected.

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Brown-tail moth caterpillars

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Leafing the nest

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In my porch, a leafcutter bee has decided to build her nest in a damp-proofing hole in the wall. First, she had to excavate the mess left by a previous tenant – a spider – by pulling out all the debris.

Leafcutter bee excavating and old spider nest

It’s early morning, and our bee has resumed her chamber-making duties. Her distant cousins, the ants, are running around eager to help. They are hoping for some pollen scraps. But it seems a password is needed to enter the nest – if you’re not on the list you’re not coming in. Luckily, our bee knows the secret code.

The ants have joined in

She starts to line the cavity with leaves, cut to size and usually harvested from a rose bush, carrying the leaf plugs to the nest between her mandibles. These are plastered to the walls with saliva, creating a cosy chamber. During the day she collects pollen, stored on the hairs of her underbelly. She likes ‘flat’ flowers like daisies, so she can wiggle her abdomen over the stamens to collect the dust. The pollen is stored in the chamber for the bee larvae to feed on once hatched. Then she will lay an egg and seal up the chamber, creating a bijou home for one of her young.

The first leaves are brought in

Once the first cell has been sealed up, she starts the whole process again. Depending on how long the cavity is, leafcutter bees will make enough chambers to fit. She could probably fit four chambers in a damp-proofing hole. Female eggs will be laid first, the male eggs last.

The nest building has begun

Closing the nest up can be a tough job. It gets harder to fly in with a leaf, and the pesky ants are still in the way. Discarded leaves litter the ground below, unsuccessful attempts at negotiating a way to shove a leaf into a nearly full hole. Sealing the nest takes time and a lot of leaves and saliva to make it watertight and safe from predators. The young bees will emerge in spring, the males flying out first followed by the females.

The nest is finished

 

Party in the Park

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‘Tis the season to be merry. The office parties are in full-swing, tinsel and baubles adorn all the shops, and there is a general panic in the air over what presents to waste your money on for those relatives you only see once a year. On the telly its all happy families enjoying Christmas in soft focus, surrounded by so much food you could feed a continent. Most of the insects of Warwick Gardens have the right idea – they have gone into hibernation.

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Yellow dung fly

Over in Poo Corner the dung flies are having their Christmas parties. Looking rather dashing in their yellow fluffy attire they really standout against the dark brown satin sheen of newly laid dog turds. These steaming castles of poo are the place to gather in numbers to meet other like-minded flies, perhaps find someone to mate with, and to generally hang out and get drunk on the blood of tiny insects.

Not for them lurking with mosquitos in a sweaty corner at a gig in the Bussey Building, or vomiting up stale beer with the bluebottles at the back of Bar Story, nor a lively evening with the house flies flitting around the lights above the pool tables at Canavans. No, these guys really love a shit party and there are shit parties popping-up all over the park.

Wexit

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It’s the middle of August and ever since the Referendum there has been a quietness to the park. Not much is happening, and many residents have decided to go some place else where they feel welcome. The social wasps are out and about, attracted by the ripening fruit in the orchard. But there is a wariness in the air as an article has to be triggered and everyone is waiting to see what happens next. The Queen common wasp has started her nest in a loft in Lyndhurst Grove and already built up an impressive entourage of loyal workers. She is an incidental queen, put into power because her predecessor chose to fly off when the going got tough, having made a pigs-ear out of the silly referendum. This new queen enjoys making life uncomfortable for insects: cracking down on the rights of free buzzing, a stiff policy on non-native species allowed into the park, and stinging anyone who isn’t a well-paid pollinator. She is snappily dressed, all yellow and black stripes, with a formidable weapon in her tail which she has already admitted she will use if threatened. She rules over a strong and stable nest of conservative identikit workers who tend to her every need, except one who is a bit wayward, rather rude and untidy with no sense of tact who has insulted many insects in the park. For some bizarre reason, he has the job of representing the nest.

Vespula vulgaris and Vespula germanica

Vespula vulgaris and Vespula germanica

On the other side of the park are the industrious German wasps. Though not big on presentation their nests are impressively constructed by a studious workforce, having honed their skills in engineering which are the envy of the hymenoptera world. Queen Vespula Germanica rules her realm in a somewhat christian and democratic way, often dealing with skirmishes that break out between neighbouring nests in her role as a de facto leader of a union which has grown so large no one quite knows who’s in charge. Identified by a 3-dot Merkel-Raute stamped on their faces, the workers are not best pleased with their queen and her ratings have plummeted. She will soon be up for election.

Before long our queens will have to meet to discuss the common wasps leaving the park. The German wasps are understandably hummed off as their dream of the union is beginning to fall apart. They will have to negotiate who has the rights to harvest the juice from the plums and pears, with access to the common orchard being the biggest priority, and who will have buzzing rights over annoying the humans. There are worries about the open border policy, fearing swarms of hornets, forcibly smoked out of Dulwich Park by the Council a couple of years ago, could be given free access to Warwick Gardens. And real concerns about the Asian hornets, seduced by a warmer climate, who are threatening to come over ’ere and kill all our ’oneybees. If it doesn’t go well, the common wasps may be cast out, left with making a go of it alone with only the blackberries to trade with. What a mess.

Buggered off

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Its the middle of July and Warwick Gardens is looking a bit worse for wear, reflecting the vibe of the country after voting to leave the EU. The foxes have flattened the foliage; the bindweed, with their delicate white trumpet flowers a foil for the hidden intentions of domination, has spread insidiously over the nettles and brambles suppressing any hope of freedom of growth; and the daisies are looking a bit weary with having to regrow after being constantly mowed down. The yarrow, hoping to host their annual festival of pollen and nectar, have popped up in an empty venue.

Red capsid bug

Red capsid bug creeping around

Last year this place was buzzing. It was noisy and full of life – a showcase of the sheer diversity of invertebrates in the park. But it seems that this year is one festival too many; the insects are preferring a more boutique ‘meadow-style’ festival offering a mélange of flowers and a more discerning flavour of nectar, sown especially to add colour and variety to bland parks. Everything is really quiet. The Roesel’s bush-crickets, normally hired to chirrup up business, chose to leave the park believing it was overrun with migrant species, a cynical lie perpetrated by unscrupulous anti-orthopterists; and the remaining grasshoppers have gone on strike, aghast that the crickets were lied to. The flies, patriotic and always up for a fight, are flitting around making nuisance for the non-natives. A few red capsid bugs are creeping around, anxious not to be mistaken for a Pokémon Go character, but all the while wishing that they could be found and appreciated as a real living thing. Even the mirid bugs got bored waiting for the party to start and just buggered off. And the weather hasn’t helped. A dull wet spring and cool temperatures have exacerbated and confused many residents about when and where to start a family. Its like nobody cares, exhausted at the changes around them.

The mottled shield bugs have had their lilac habitat ripped away by someone ‘wanting a better view of the park’, and having arrived in Peckham only a few years ago feel rather rejected. The hawthorn shield bugs, with their brightly coloured coats of majesty, have had their ancestral home savaged by cuts, the lower branches lopped off to make it cheaper to maintain. And the parent bugs and birch catkin bugs got ousted from their favourite independent tree in the multi-species part of the park, chopped down by someone ‘wanting more light in their garden’. They had to relocate to the big corporate birch trees on the other side of the park. Unfortunately it seems they didn’t ‘fit in’ as they have disappeared, leaving the planthoppers with no one to play with. Or, as this is the main constituency of the rather moderate birch shield bug, maybe the birch catkin bugs, with their left-wing ideals about ‘rights to live on the same tree – we share the same host plant’, were viewed as a threat to the stability of the community, fuelled by pedantic catkin politics, forcing a campaign to stop them taking over.

Common green shield bug nymph

Common green shield bug nymph – the only shield bug in the park

At least the green shield bugs, the hard-working bugs of the park with no obvious affiliation to any plant, are holding on. Those green shield bugs who everyone knows so well that they are prefixed with ‘common’ and generally taken for granted by the conservationists. The bugs who spend their days dutifully sap-supping, impervious to the strange weather we are having, almost neglected until someone prods them too far and they revert to their chav name of ‘stink’bug’. How long before they realise they are the only prey for the bigger enemy – the solitary wasps with a taste for shield bug nymphs on the hunt to stock their nests with the fattest, juiciest specimens to feed their offspring.

 

 

A proper geezer

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The distiguished stag beetle

The distinguished stag beetle

If ever there was a character that represents old Peckham it has to be the stag beetle. A proper south London geezer, dressed up to the nines in a sharp, shiny suit tinged with purple, brandishing a fine set of red antlers held aloft with pride and demanding respect as Britain’s largest beetle. With an ancestry going back to when the Great North Wood covered the area, he favours the old haunts in Peckham – those dusty, rotting log piles hidden at the end of gardens owned by people who have lived here for years and understand how the neighbourhood works. The trend for tidy gardens with paving, minimal planting and a complete lack of soul which are currently monopolising our streets are utterly useless to him. The stag beetle needs the perfect nursery – piles of old logs where their grubs can chew rotten wood to their hearts content and grow fat without being disturbed for the next few years until they are ready to morph into adults.

Like any dandy the stag beetle is almost hopelessly unfit to do anything other than hang around looking cool. Cumbersome in flight they look faintly ridiculous flying around, antlers waving, on a warm spring dusky evening, trying their absolute best to find a lady to flirt with. On a night out with the boys they can get into fights where a test of strength with their antlers will win the day. Unfortunately all that bravado can’t stave off fatal attacks by wide-boy corvids, hipster cats or under the feet of humans who have no respect for anything other than themselves.