Buzzing Spider Love

Buzzing Spider Love

A dark-tipped hairy leg tentatively pats out onto an Ivy leaf. Timidly a middle sized brown spider creeps out. 8 pairs of eyes gleam in the moonlight as a pale band leads down the centre of the Cephalothorax, channeled by two darker stripes. Attached, eight dotted legs touch the substrate, a coarse black hair darting off at intervals. A slightly more orange abdomen varies in pattern but has one defining feature, a pair of chevrons pointing directly forward. He is a Buzzing Spider, Anyphaena accentuata.

Male Buzzing Spider - Anyphaena accentuata

Waving his miniature boxing glove-like pedipalps in front of him, he scans the area. Spotting a female in the distance, his eyes light up and he lowers his abdomen onto the leaf. Suddenly, using specialised high-tension muscles, he raps his abdomen on the leaf in short sharp bursts. Such is the frequency of his movement, an excited little buzz is emitted. Darting from side to side he enthusiastically jumps off his leaf to find the female. Carefully he patters over and creeps up onto her leaf. Manoeuvring himself in front of her, he can finally see her properly. Similar in size to him she lacks pedipalps and has a slightly rounder and paler abdomen. However, she is quite selective and it will take more than a long-distance buzz to impress her!

Female Buzzing Spider

To garner her full attention he slowly raises his front pair of legs high into the air, watching her carefully he now begins to move jauntily from side to side. Working harder he stops and vibrates his abdomen on the leaf, buzzing optimistically. Still not happening, he attempts a more drastic dance. Moving erratically and waving arms, he taps his abdomen rhythmically on the waxy leaf surface. Punctuating his movements with regular buzzes, he sings to his spider love.

A vaguely interested female Buzzing Spider

Although now definitely interested, the female waits to enjoy the dance a while longer. Incredibly, he can keep up this energy consuming courtship behaviour for an average time of 62 minutes! The longest recorded courtship procedure is a mammoth 148 minutes, although some last just 4, depending on how choosy the female is. If deemed worthy he will be allowed to copulate with her.

The world of Buzzing Spider courtship is determined fully by the female’s choice. A study has shown that when previously mated females were introduced to virgin males, even if courtship continued for well over 2 hours, mating would never occur.

If you do go down to the woods as night has fallen in the next few weeks (end of February), keep an ear out for hopeful little buzzes.

Underground Inverts

Invertebrates of the Bronygarth Cave

Wren sits at the Cave entrance

The river Ceiriog rushes past, swollen after the latest rainstorm. Partially shrouded by leaves, a small fissure in the limestone rock opens into the cave.

While temperatures decrease in the valley as winter looms, within the cave they remain at a steady 10˚C or so. Wren the dog wandered down the steep bank, taking care not to slip on the fallen leaves and ventured, tentatively, into the stone mouth.

The morning’s moth trap had offered nothing but countless midges. However, metres inside the cave’s entrance a Herald moth hibernated!

Herald moth - Scoliopteryx libatrix

Sparkling with water beadlets, a group of 6 or 7 moths were huddled into crevices, hibernating through the winter months. On the floor of the cave a less pleasing sight was beheld, one unlucky Herald had succumbed to a fungal infection. Dead, it now sported a hugely impressive cauliflower shaped mass on which a small snail happily munched.

A fungi infected Herald

Further into the cave, a Common Striped Woodlouse peacefully rests on the rocky wall.

Common Rough Woodlouse - Oniscus asellus

Nearby, a wonderfully named Slightly Garlic Snail (Oxychilus navarricus) slides about, feeling the darkness with its eyestalks.

Slightly Garlic Snail - Oxychilus navarricus

Sensing movement, a large leggy creature scuttles across the wall. Long striped legs rest on gossamer thin strands of silk, waiting for unsuspecting mosquitoes to make a wrong move. Suddenly the creature darts out, snaffling the prey in an instant. Exposed on her web she proceeds to eat her morsel. She is a Cave Spider, Meta menardi, measuring almost 5cm across she is one of the UK’s largest spiders. Although common she is rarely seen, preferring to spend her life in caves, well away from bothering Humans.

Cave Spider - Meta menardi

Mosquito, potential Cave spider prey.

Back in the cave entrance, and next to a juvenile Cave Spider, three Eristalis pertinax hoverflies are huddled, spending winter in hibernation.

Hibernating Eristalis tenax Hoverflies

Wren, now hungry, meandered her way back home for tea.

Inside the cave, the temporarily clandestine invertebrates snore peacefully, waiting for the warm breath of spring to return.

The life of the Common Green Shieldbug

The life of a Common Green Shieldbug

Palomena prasina nymph

Pattering over the veined surface of a bramble leaf comes a mottled green creature. Her back, flat and shield-shaped, is dotted with a thousand pockmarks. Within each dimple lies a sensory receptor, allowing her to feel what is going on around her while maintaining the protective characteristics of her shield. She is, of course, a shieldbug, specifically a Common Green, Palomena prasina.

It is now late spring and she has just woken from her winter slumber. Using her mouthparts, long and thin for stabbing, she sips sap from the xylem of a bramble stem. More energised, she wanders off to begin the next stage of her life history; reproduction.

The waxy cuticle of the shield holds the key for reproductive choice. Males that have been supping on high quality sap are most likely to be the strongest and so will have the best genes. The high quality food they have been consuming is translated into a wide variety of hydrocarbons which are secreted onto the surface of their shield. The female now uses her well developed sensory apparatus (e.g olfactory sensilla on her antennae) to discern the most attractive male before allowing him to mate with her.

Common Green Shieldbug - Palomena prasina

A few days later she climbs to the underside of a leaf and lays 30 tiny lime green eggs, ordered into neat lines. As time goes by the eggs bleach white, presumably as the internal food source is used up, and, within a week, all 30 eggs hatch. One by one, tiny Common Green Shieldbugs emerge.

Shieldbugs undergo hemimetabolic development, that is to say there is no larval stage and so they emerge as miniature adults or nymphs. The young go through 5 stages of growth pre-adulthood and these are known as instars. The primary instar has dark colouration and the green colouration, caused by serrations in their exoskeleton refracting light, becomes more prevalent with age.

Remaining together through the action of a chemical known as the aggregation pheromone, the baby shields spend their first instar stage in a sibling group. As they grow, less aggregation pheromone is secreted and so the shields begin to disperse.

Early instar P prasina nymph

One small brown nymph, less than half the size of a ladybird, surrounded by a seemingly unending carpet of green, is feeling full. He finds a safe nook within the stem of the bramble and begins his moult (or ecdysis). His hard exoskeleton splits and a soft, pale creature squirms out. Quickly he consumes some of his previous skin, ensuring that his new body swells to a larger size. He also draws in more oxygen and increases blood pressure to fill the folds in his new skin.  He then finds a sunny spot where he sits, his new exoskeleton hardening in the sunlight.

4th instar P prasina nymph

Throughout the summer, he continues this process of feeding and moulting, whiling away the days enjoying the warm sun on his steadily more expansive shield. A dappled green sky waving above him as a soft, summer breeze ruffles the leaves in the canopy.

One day, looking up, the mottled sky has turned to a sea of orange and yellow. Autumn has arrived. The shieldbug is now in his 5th instar stage, body still slightly rounded, bright green, tinged with black, but much larger. He now also has a slightly angular pronotum, hinting at his final form.

5th instar P prasina nymph

Feeling full again he finds a sheltered spot in his bramble patch and begins his final moult. He emerges as his adult form, known as the imago. Angular, the pronotum is fringed by protruding pronotal margins. His abdomen extends before tapering to a rounded point. The abdomen also conceals his greatest treat gained from adulthood, wings.

P prasina (brown morph) morphology

When resting, the wings are visible only as a dark rhomboid shaped membrane, extending from the point of the triangular scutellum. Opening his elytra (wing covers), the wings unfold, enabled by sclerites that make up the wing veins. Warmed in the soft autumn sun, he flits with a rustle to the branch of an apple tree.

A month or so later, he awakes to a jewel encrusted landscape, light shimmering from every surface. A thousand diamonds refracting the dawn’s early light. The first frost signals a change in the shieldbug’s behaviour. He now needs to find somewhere to spend the winter.

The leaves have fallen around him now, a dark colour scheme reigns over his world. Like an emerald in a sea of pebbles, he stands out. However, the shieldbug has a further trick up one of his 6 tiny sleeves. As colder temperatures encroach his very colouration changes. No longer is his name, Common Green Shieldbug, quite so apt. His exoskeleton, from antennae to abdomen tip, has turned a wood-brown and he is perfectly camouflaged once again.

Colour gradients of the Common Green Shieldbug

Lethargic in the cold, he meanders and worms his way deep into the fork of his apple tree. His imaginary eyelids droop, head resting against soft lichen and he slips into a 5 month sleep. He’ll reawaken in late spring, restarting the cycle again.

A Study on Spiders

Do female Araneus diadematus spiders exhibit selective predation?

European Garden spider - Araneus diadematus

On the easterly tip of a small reservoir next to the university campus down here in Cornwall, a mass of knotted Bramble creates a habitat to a range of invertebrate species. At least 5 Shieldbug species (Pentatomidae) have been spotted, Thistle Tortoise beetles, as well as a host of solitary bees, bumbles, wasps and hoverflies. The arachnid contingent are also present with numerous Tertragnathidae sp., Wolf spiders (Lycosidae sp.), Crab spiders (Misumeninae) such as the beautiful misumena vatia, as well as Nursery Web spiders and European Garden spiders (Araneus diadematus).

College Lake

Gorse Shieldbug - Piezodorus lituratus 

Nursery Web Spider - Araneus diadematus

Misumena vatia

The last species in this list, the European Garden spider, is a fairly large spider - female body size varying in my study between 6mm and 13mm. They exhibit sexual dimorphism with the males being significantly smaller. Males are smaller due to the fact they have to rove long distances to find a mate and also potentially to look less appetising to females who are occasionally cannibalistic if the mood takes them. The more sedentary females build large orb webs between the bramble stems and sit in the middle, waiting for their prey to unwittingly join them.

Female Araneus diadematus

Interestingly, I noticed that although the spider was present in the web, the majority of webs had a number of prey items that had been left untouched. My mind mulled over this observation for a few days and eventually came up with this thought: does the amount of prey items left untouched vary with spider size and whether the spiders display a form of selective predation.

Selective predation is present in large apex predators such as Wolves and Jaguars. The predator will elect a prey individual that is weaker than the others, meaning the predator will expend the minimum amount of energy catching it.

A female A. diadematus preying on a Diptera sp. fly

Female Garden spiders need to obtain enough nutrients to ensure that they can produce enough proteins needed in reproduction. The females will produce 300-900 eggs and will continue to care for them until they hatch and balloon away. This is a semelparous (one large reproductive event in life history) event and so all of the female’s energy goes into providing her young with enough nutrients. She dies shortly after her children have floated off.

To begin to answer my question, I chose female spiders which had an intact web and were of a range of sizes, measured from tip of the chelicerates to the spinnerets. For each of the spiders found I would measure their body size before counting the number of prey items (predominantly Midges) left untouched in the web. As the graph shows, there was strong correlation between the size of the spider and the number of prey items left untouched. Smaller spiders left fewer prey items (avg 3.1) while larger spiders left far more (avg 24.2). I also measured the web size of every few spiders to see if that had an effect but that value seem to have very little correlation with that of spider size, the smallest spiders having a similar web size to the largest ones.

Araneus diadematus wrapping up a Chorthippus parallelus

While watching the spiders, a few of the small midges flew into the webs but the spider would ignore them entirely. However, on one occasion a Meadow Grasshopper (Chorthippus parallelus) hopped accidentally into the web of a large female A. diadematus, she darted across the web with great pace and proceeded to rapidly encompass the poor grasshopper in her silk. Once wrapped, the paralysed grasshopper was left to contemplate his fate.

Trapped Meadow grasshopper Chorthippus parallelus

The prey type that I found most frequently wrapped in webs seemed to be hoverflies or diptera sp. flies.

My study seems to suggest that the reason that more food is left untouched in larger A diadematus webs is down to energy content. A 1mm midge always contains a set amount of energy but as a percentage this energy is worth different amounts to spiders of different sizes. If the midge is 10% of the energy content a 6mm spider needs in a day then it is 5% of what a 12mm spider needs. As the spider requires energy to produce the silk needed to wrap the prey and also to produce and secrete the digestive enzymes, if the prey item is below an energy percentage threshold then it will not be worthwhile for the spider to consume.

The spiders studied seemed to exhibit selective predation, choosing which prey items they consumed based on their energy content. This selective predation would be a great advantage to the female spider as less energy would be lost and, therefore, more is available for reproductive purposes.

Further studies are definitely needed to test my 'energy content of prey items' hypothesis (i.e measuring energy content of midges and working up to other, wrapped, prey items).

Potential implications of this study include more efficiently utilising spiders as biological pest controls. Assuming spiders of all sizes catch a similar amount of prey (due to similar web sizes) the smaller spider’s webs may be more effective as they remain ‘invisible’ for longer as the spider removes more obvious prey items than the larger spiders. 

But for now, the spiders are left to go about their normal lives. Peacefully inhabiting a Cornish bramble thicket.

Caterpillars

Emerging from a tiny yellow/green egg a minuscule large white caterpillar (Pieris brassicae) clambers out into a world of green. As far as his compound eyes can see, a slightly hairy green carpet surrounds him. He lowers his head and uses his new mandibles to scrape off a layer. He likes it. Eating more, the tiny caterpillar continues to grow, surrounded by his brothers and sisters as they move about the leaf in a communal group. As the little caterpillar moults he grows larger and larger until eventually he sees bright orange flowers in his world. He is settled on a Nasturtium plant. He sees vague shadows of large creatures wandering by, students going about their business on the Penryn campus in Cornwall.

Large White (Pieris brassicae) caterpillar

Eventually the little caterpillar has gone through a series of life stages, called instars, and now doesn’t feel hungry anymore. He now feels like it’s time to move off the nasturtium bed and across to a nearby tree. Climbing up the tree he reaches a point at which he spins a special string of silk. With this silk he makes a small hammock for himself and attaches the ends to the trunk of the tree. He now begins the process of metamorphosis.

Knot Grass moth (Acronictus rumicus) caterpillar

Across the campus the same is happening to a lavishly decorated knot grass moth caterpillar (Acronictus rumicus) in the Walled Garden of the University.

Dot moth (Melanchra persicariae) caterpillar

On a shore path between coves near the seaside town of Falmouth, the cryptically camouflaged Dot Moth (Melanchra persicariae) caterpillar is sat on her Bracken frond, biding her time before pupating.

Eyed Hawkmoth (Smerinthus ocellata) caterpillar

Barely 5 miles from Land’s End a stocky Eyed Hawkmoth caterpillar (Serinthus ocellata) is climbing down a tree, ready to bury herself in the leaf litter until spring.

Inside each of these caterpillars, an amazing transformation is just about to occur.

During each instar the hormone ecdyson is released, triggering the caterpillar to shed its skin and grow larger. A second hormone - Juvenile hormone- prevents ecdyson from triggering full scale metamorphosis by inhibiting the ecdyson protein's active site preventing hormone receptor complexes from forming. The juvenile hormone is stimulated to be released when ecdyson levels become too high and, when ecdyson levels decrease, juvenile hormone stops being released in a process known as negative feedback. When Juvenile hormone runs out, the caterpillar undergoes full metamorphosis.

When metamorphosis begins the caterpillar's internal cells are digested by enzymes called Capases. Capases break down the caterpillar's cells into multiple copies of a single polypeptide. This polypeptide is the protein rich soup needed to fuel the rapid cell division needed to form all the features of an adult butterfly or moth.

This incredible process basically allows a caterpillar to turn itself into a protein rich soup and the reassemble itself into a creature with amazingly different characteristics and features!

The once little Large White caterpillar has now emerged as a butterfly. He fills his wings, flaps, and rises above his nasturtium filled world. He can see right across the landscape. From the university campus to the twin lakes to the glistening sea in the distance. He sets off to find a mate and to begin the cycle of the Large White butterfly again.

Large White - Pieris brassicae

Rockpooling

Pendennis Point

Just round the headland from the seaside town of Falmouth is a tiny beach situated on Pendennis point. A spike of fine yellow sand covers a small portion of a beach framed by slabs of rock covered in Barnacles. Tunnels are cut into the stone, some large enough to crawl into from the waves and explore. Shags stand regally on the rock tips, conversing and watching the ever-changing sea.

A Shag - Phalalcrocorax aristotelis

At low tide rock-pools appear and this is what Rachel, Ben and I were looking for.

Pale Common Shore crabs were fairly common, bumbling around in the seaweed, waiting for the tide to come back in to continue hunting.

Common Shore Crab - Carcinas maenas

The wonderfully named Hairy Porcelain Crab Porcellana platycheles is covered in green/brown hair making it supremely well camouflaged against the rocks. The crab also has long hairs on his claws which are used rather like a Blue Whale’s baleen. He positions himself on the side of a rock before wafting his claws through the water in front of him. He then pulls the hair through his mouth, removing the microscopic plankton stuck in the hair.

Hairy Porcelain Crab - Porcellana platycheles

The Velvet Swimming crab is a fairly aggressive species and it is this with it’s red eyes that has gained it alternative names such as the Devil Crab and Witch Crab. Flattened legs act as oars, allowing the Velvet swimmer to scoot quickly through the water.

Velvet Swimmig Crab - Necora puber

Perfectly disguised as a strand of seaweed, a Straight-nosed Pipefish meanders through the rockpool. Having tiny fins the Straight-nosed Pipefish propels itself through the water rather like a snake.

Straight-nosed Pipefish - Nerophis ophidion

Under a rock lies a Cornish Sucker, or Shore Clingfish. Feeding on small crustaceans the Cornish sucker has a distinctive duck bill shaped snout with bulging eyes on top of it’s head. To protect itself from predators the small fish moves in a rapid darting motion or bury itself in the sand to hide.

Cornish Sucker - Lepadogaster lepadogaster

Cornish Sucker's Sucker

Mendip Invertebrates

My Grandma lives on the edge of the Mendip hills overlooking the Somerset levels, Glastonbury to the sea and South Wales across the Bristol Channel. The South facing slopes absorb the summer sunlight, the grassy hills are ablaze with the colour of butterflies and day-flying moths while a cacophony of insect noise fills the air.

Following an overgrown path through a small wood I clamber over a stile and into a grassy meadow. Quickly surrounded by Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers investigating this newcomer into their territory, I wander towards the corner with a mass of Clover, Majoram and Bramble. My attention is momentarily distracted by a lemon yellow Brimstone flying determinedly towards the opposite hedgerow.

Looking down the long grass is flattened in front of me by some nocturnal creature, probably a badger, snuffling about on the hunt for earthworms. This patch of the field, being irregularly shaped, has been left unploughed and uncultivated for generations.

The pretty little day-flying moth, Pyrausta purparalis, flickers between the tiny pink cups of majoram flowers, sipping daintily at each one as she passes. A Marmalade hoverfly suddenly lands on her flower head. Startled, she flicks open her wings revealing further yellow spots, scaring off the hoverfly.

Pyrausta purparalis

A flash of orange signifies the arrival of a Small Copper butterfly. Briefly alighting for a nectar refill on the majoram flowers he unfurls his proboscis and sips at the the sugary solution pooled in the flower’s base. Suddenly a Common Blue appears and the territorial butterfly sets off in hot pursuit, speeding across the grasses ducking and weaving in rapid, undulating flight. Taking matters into his own hands the Common Blue occasionally becomes the chaser and the two butterflies dart forward and back.

Small Copper - Chrysophanus phlaeas

The female Common Blue is a darker creature than the male but more interesting in decoration. Her dark wings are coloured with orange and white crescents at the wing fringes while a splash of blue surrounds her abdomen and thorax as if she has been dabbed with a blue powder brush.

Female Common Blue

Potentially confused with a female Common Blue is the Brown Argus. The wings of both sexes are painted with uniform brown fringed (forewings having a dark spot) with orange crescents and outlined by brilliant white.

Brown Argus - Aricia agestis

A deep buzzing fills the air as a large female Vestal Cuckoo Bumblebee arrives in search of a drink. She lands on a purple thistle head and warms her wings against the hot afternoon sun. The season for taking over Bumblebee nests is almost over now as most are reaching the end of their working lives. This female is beginning to boost her food reserves before digging down into the soil in autumn to hibernate until springtime.

Vestal Cuckoo bee - Bombus vestalis

On a neighbouring thistle a white Crab Spider, Misumena vatia, lies in wait. Capable of taking smaller bumblebees such as the Common Carder, the ambush predator has to keep very still in order to avoid detection. The cunning spider has another trick up her many sleeves and this is her ability to alter the pigments in her skin to better match the colour of her ambush spot. This individual however must have recently moved to this thistle as she her white colour is in obvious contrast to the purple thistle.

Crab Spider - Misumena vatia

The bright black and yellow caterpillars of the 6 Spot Burnet have long since pupated and emerged as fairly lethargic red and black moths. These moths cling to the thistles, soaking up sunbeams and feeding almost all of the day, their distinctive markings acting as adequate protection from predators.

As night falls over the South West the quiet country roads are lit up by tiny green pinpricks of light. Closer inspection reveals the source of the light is that of the female Glow Worm. ‘Worm’ is not a correct way of describing this creature as they are, in fact, beetles. The adult males have wings with which they fly on the lookout for a mate. The females do not have wings but instead are endowed with a beautiful lamp. Only the females have the characteristic bright green lamp and they use this to attract males. She lives, as an adult, a rather ephemeral life; as soon as she has mated she turns out her light, lays eggs and dies. I count 10 pinpricks of light as I wander down the lane, a fairly low number in comparison to previous years but then it is late in the season. The bright stars above are mirrored by the glow worms below.

Glow Worm - Lampyris noctiluca

The morning’s moth trap contained a good haul; Lesser Broad Bordered Yellow Underwings with their beautiful green faces and subtle reds on their forewings, a Blood Vein with his characteristic red stripe, a Pebble hook tip with his angled wingtips, a large Pebble Prominent with buff eye-like markings and a Brussels lace who is an immigrant from the continent with his subtle green tones. A tiny tortrix species Pammene aurita was also found, its jewel like wings shining in the early sunlight. Perhaps the most exciting for me was a pair of Oak Eggar moths, male and female. These large moths are rather gentle giants and will quite happily sit on you while being recorded without the need for any kind of holding chamber. Their small faces are surrounded by a mane of buff coloured, fur like, hair giving them a lion-like appearance while their wings are of a warm brown; the male being darker than the female. I release them into the long grass at the edge of the field where they quickly scurry to find more adequate shelter before waiting for darkness to fall again.

Pebble Prominent - Notodonta ziczac

Oak Eggar - Lasiocampa quercus

Male and Female Oak Eggars

Above the house and to the left lie Draycott Sleights, a small nature reserve on the edge of the Mendips. Steep sheep tracks head purposefully up the slope, the path bordered by great slabs of grey slate. The air is filled with the harsh stridulation of the Common Grasshopper, the more melodious trill of the Bush Cricket and the rhythmic ‘tak tak’ of a territorial Wren.

A pale blue butterfly alights on the yellow Bird’s Foot Trefoil that has sprouted from the shallow, chalky soil. This butterfly is one of the rarer British species that is a local speciality, the Chalk Hill Blue.

Chalk Hill Blue - Polyommattus coridon

On the crest of the hill a number of insects have gathered on the Wild Carrot flower umbrellas. On one such flower head the Noon fly (Mesembrina meridiana) basks surrounded by parasitic ichneumon wasps and dainty hoverflies.

Noon Fly - Mesebrina meridiana

A large Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) sits on a rock. She raises herself on her front legs and orientates herself to face the sun. Here she stays, warming her body until she has enough energy to return to feed.

Painted Lady - Vanessa cardui

Small Skippers rest on seed heads in the grassy meadow, their angled orange wings facing the sun. Common Blues join them, making the most of the evening light. 

Small Skipper - Thymelicus sylvestris

Common Blue - Polyommatus icarus

Female Common Blue - Polyommatus icarus

Mottled Grasshopper - Myrmeleotettix maculatus

Near the base of the grass stems a tangle of gossamer thin web has been hung in a rhomboid-like shape. The creator is a female Nursery Web spider. She carries her egg sac around with her until they are just about to hatch. Just before hatching she constructs this tent like web where she gently places the egg cocoon. She now stands watch over the cocoon, opening it slightly so the spiderlings can clamber out. A watchful, caring mother she now guards the spiderlings until they have left the nursery web and dispersed into undergrowth to start their lives.

Female Nursery Web Spider - Pisaura mirablis

A Nursery Web Spider guarding her young

Walking home past an ivy covered wall a Great Green Bush cricket crashes into me and rebounds onto the wall where she sits patiently amongst the green ivy. Long orange antenna fidget restlessly as she surveys the area, the dusk light illuminating the green veins of her wings.  

Great Green Bush Cricket - Tettigonia viridissima

As the velvet cloak of night wraps itself around the Mendip hills and the pipistrelle bats hunt their prey, all is silent to human ears.