What to watch out for in July
July is the perfect time to sit outside and enjoy
the garden in the evening. On mild, dry nights, hide in a quiet corner to keep an eye out for nocturnal creatures springing into action. The most active part of your garden will be the pond. If you have one, look out for foxes and hedgehogs coming to drink at the water’s edge. Pipistrelle bats can congregate at ponds, flitting above the water to catch insects such as mosquitoes. If your pond is large enough, you may attract Daubenton’s bats, which scoop insects from the surface with their hairy feet.
Shine a torch into the water to see backswimmers (Notonecta species) hunting for invertebrates, and spot amphibians such as newts.
You may spot…
Common field grasshopper (Chorthippus brunneus)
The common field grasshopper is brown, with mottling and stripes in anything from orange to purple. Found in long grass from June to August, the males woo females by rubbing their legs against their wing cases to make their familiar chirruplike song, known as stridulation.
Grasshoppers go through what is known as an incomplete metamorphosis – a three-stage lifecycle of egg, nymph and adult. After mating, the female digs a shallow hole and lays around 50 eggs. These hatch into nymphs, which go through four or five moults before finally reaching the winged adult stage. It can take around eight weeks for the nymphs to become sexually mature adults, but the lifecycle can be broken by changes in the weather. Therefore, eggs laid in late summer might not hatch until the following spring. Both adults and nymphs eat grass.
Grasshoppers and crickets are often mistaken for each other
– crickets have longer antennae and they stridulate by rubbing just their legs together, rather than both their legs and wing cases.
Also lookout for…
Butterflies such as the peacock, red admiral and small tortoiseshell. The second generation of adults is hatching now.
Baby frogs, toads and newts leaving the pond. Make sure there’s plenty of long grass and low-growing plants for shelter.
Swifts, swallows and house martins, which are still nesting. House martins may continue nesting until September.