Wow - a month since my last post - there has been no shortage of wildlife to write about, just no 'spare' time to do the writing. However, the paid stuff is quiet for a few days at least, so I thought I'd share some observations of the small and hidden, to be precise what I found lurking within a used-and-the-young-fledged robin's nest.
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| The robin's nest before dismantling. |
You never know what'll be hiding in a nest (whether bird or mammal) - there's always the possibility of some under-recorded parasites, plus the array of small invertebrates that simply use the structure as their own. So, a white tray, various tweezers and pins and some time later, this is what I found, along with quite a few Collembola (springtails) and Psocoptera (barklice) which I didn't collect on this occasion as I knew I would have time to work through the identification.
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| One of three similar pupae a few mm long, currently in my hatchery. |
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| Another pupa, also a few mm long. |
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| A very young spiderling, highly active and I think one of the wolf spiders (Lycosidae) |
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| A tiny dead wasp, probably one of the Pteromalidae, possibly predated by a spider. |
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| The exuvia (skin) of, well, I'm not sure... |
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| Alive and active, the larva of what is probably a 'carpet beetle' (Dermestidae). |
So, not much in the way of definite identifications - with juvenile stages, that tends to be difficult, though if any are successfully raised to adulthood, I will as ever update the post. Also, no parasites, but there was good evidence of a thriving community of small invertebrates potentially living out their whole life cycle in the structure of the nest with larvae, pupae, evidence of emergence, predators and prey.
