One remarkable incident occurred while my relatives and I were crabbing in Newcastle, County Down. One of the shore crabs we caught had an interesting feature: a barnacle situated just beneath its mouth. Unexpectedly, this anomaly did not disrupt the crab’s feeding, enabling it to continue eating the fish bait hooked in its claws while my nephew had it in his grasp. Shore crabs undergo the process of moulting their shells to make room for their enlarging bodies. Large male crabs, however, might stop moulting, entering a period known as anecdysis, to heighten their reproductive capacity. This phase could be lengthy enough to let barnacles appear on their shells, yet these growths don’t affect their eating practices.
Furthermore, my daughter clicked a picture of what we believe to be an oak eggar moth on our larch gable. The moth in our picture is thought to be a female oak eggar, which tends to be larger and lighter than its male counterpart. Post mating, she scatters her grey eggs indiscriminately on the vegetation below. The caterpillar offspring emerge in September and go into hibernation quickly. They revive in the spring to feed on oak or other tree leaves, including willow or hawthorn, and then pupate in June. Adult moths emerge between July and August.
Most recently, upon clearing greenery from my new home to reach a stream, I found a peculiar sac suspended from a slender thread. Indeed, it is an egg sac of a distinct species, the cave spider or Meta menardi, which favours dark, damp environments. According to Myles Nolan, an arachnid expert, these spiders’ egg sacs are sometimes found under large rocks or similar shaded niches, replicating the dim conditions of their preferred caves. The National Biodiversity Centre has only 13 cave spider sightings on record, emphasising the rarity of the species. The spider itself is seldom spotted in the open, with most reports originating from their unique egg sacs.
Lastly, a snapshot through my friend’s kitchen window overlooking a rural landscape in July has me puzzled. The bird in the frame could be a yellowhammer or a stray canary.
The male yellowhammer bird, in its full vibrant yellow colour during breeding season, is well-known for singing atop bushes or posts in open farmland. The species, formerly abundant in areas involved in mixed farming with cereal crops, has seen a substantial decrease in the last three decades. The need for ploughing in stubble even in cereal growing sectors has adversely impacted the food supply for this seed-devouring bird during winter, although a modern provision permits farmers participating in the Acres Scheme to defer stubble ploughing until February.
Whilst weeding, I stumbled upon an eccentric little creature that seemed like an albino earwig – a first for me. Sara Montgomery, from Co Meath, questioned its identity.
Three types of earwigs exist in Ireland, but the prevalent one is simply known as ‘the common earwig.’ Instead of a pupal stage, these insects shed their skin as they grow, and their new layer of skin takes a bit of time to harden and darken. Freshly shed skin gives the earwig the white appearance encountered by Sara. And contrary to their moniker, earwig habitations do not include human ears, unless the ear is teeming with their preferred diet of flower petals and insect larvae.