Clik here to view.
The glossy green fields are bathed in a hazy spring heat. Under the canopy of the oaks there is a cool shade, the ground swathed in a low fog of bluebells, here and there punctured by spikes of yellow archangel. High above, the bud-burst of the oaks has been a starting pistol for insects. Caterpillars dangle from the rustic branches, twisting on thin threads. The race is on to consume the soft, pale greenery before it hardens into the tannin-rich, dark leaves of summer. The oak is strong, but its achilles heel is exposed. Oak tortrix (fat, green, black-spotted) and mottled umber caterpillars (black, brown and yellow mottled) are abundant. Also present are oak sawfly larvae, many-legged and like milky translucent sausages: their green diet is mistily visible, and their skin armed with black, curved spines. Together this ensemble may strip the oaks bare. But they do not have a free run, they are relentlessly sought by a constant patrol of lithe, thin-bodied parasitic wasps. Their aim is to stab caterpillars and "impregnate" them with wasp eggs. If they spike enough caterpillars, the canopy will be spared.
Next to a pond, under a large disc of oak trunk, I find some special spiders. The cavity spider (Nesticus cellulanus) – only seen twice before in Surrey and not for 20 years. The female's abdomen is like a small pea, shiny as glass, pale olive green with paired black blotches down the middle; its long needle-thin legs are translucent pale olive and black striped. The male is distinct, a sesame seed abdomen, orange and black; the same legs, but amber not olive. He gently touches her legs, as if reassuring her about their new exposed situation, persuading her not to flee. Is this romance or aspiration? I lower their protective oak roof, hoping that they can continue from the point at which I had disturbed them.
