A week later I visited Friends in Wilton. Maria is a brilliant conservationist and conversationist!
She set up a villiage conservation trust that has the backing of her local council, she’s infectious in her enthusiasm.
Anyway due to the Corona virus its been hard to meet up and as I was intending an evening visit and as its a trek from my home she let me sleep in her garden shed! Actually its more of a summer house with glass sides.
After a catch up we went Swift counting for Salisbury and Wilton Swifts. We were allocated our section and Maria explained that within a half an hour period we had to count as many as we could see in one go. No mean feat when they are wheeling and screaming around buildings and trees before they group together and fly up high to sleep on the wing. Like dolphins they shut off half their brain to sleep but keep moving, obviously othwise they’d fall out of the sky! They scream as they get close to nest sites and have trial runs at landing in the nest holes. So Maria bwas keen to see if we could spot any holes they were aiming for on the roofs. We were joined by another person Maria had not met before but, as she was also wheeling around looking at the sky on a perfect summer evening, she had to be counting swifts too.
After this back for a cuppa before dark and our glow worm counting.
My friends garden is alive with insects, Maria has sown natives amongst her plants so the meadow behind her house is now part of the garden.
Ive never seen so many honey bees and its a bit of a mystery as I have a hive in my garden and my bumble bees far outweigh the honey bees. I wonder if their tastes differ?
Maria, her dog and I wandered up to the field behind the house and started our count, mostly tucked at the edges and some under the trees. Maria showed me the male glow worm, much smaller than the female and winged. I found out later the adults don’t have mouth parts as their sole purpose is to breed. The larvae are carnivores and look a lot like the female, they glow too faintly but I can’t comment as I’ve never seen one. Strangely we didnt see any on the Down proper but a few scattered on a protected verge which is were I got the pictures on the previous blog.
Back to the garden and I to my sleeping bag in the shed, where I did a good impression of a green grub. I watched the stars and fell asleep listening to owls and creatures of the night.
This wasn’t my last Glow Worm experience. I took friends two nights running on night walks in the following days to the site I originally saw them. After a rather spectacular sunset and and the dark settled and we started counting.
It’s fair to say I pretty obsessed with them that I’ve been back several times now, with or without friends to admire the little glowing insects!
The Travelling Bee 