Discovering an alien world in Castle Bromwich

OSOS is given an insight into the alien world right under our nose – and beneath our feet – during a visit to Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens...

THE creature’s skin glints like metal in the sun.
It has great bulging eyes and a cluster of sharp bits around its mouth parts, ideal for grinding apart its prey.
This formidable predator may sound like something from a science fiction story, but you may be surprised – and slightly alarmed – to discover that you could find one at the bottom of your garden.
Before you get too worried you should know that this perfectly engineered killing machine is a couple of inches long and will be known to schoolchildren around England as a dragonfly.
The species that we’ve stumbled upon is the Common Darter – a bright orange specimen that hunts midges and other small insects.
Despite their fearsome appearance, the insects are entirely harmless. Although one should remember that when the creatures first evolved – more than 300 million years ago – they were truly enormous, with wing spans of around two feet.
These prehistoric terrors died out long ago, but it’s hard not to be impressed by the fact that the creatures’ distant ancestors once hunted in the same swamps where dinosaurs roamed.
Today the dragonflies are hunting in the rather less tropical surroundings of Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens, where a group of us are being led around by insect expert Steven Falk.
The naturalist, who recently featured on an episode of BBC’s Countryfile, is an ideal guide to the creatures which swarm and multiply, often unseen, in flower beds and hedgerows across the country.
In a shady spot not far from the pond, another minibeast stirs.
If the dragonfly, with its iridescent armour and bristling jaws, bore a passing resemblance to the xenomorph from the Alien films, this creature’s long legs bring to mind the tripods from HG Wells’ War of the Worlds.
At first glance you assume you’re staring at a spider, until you notice the legs are so much longer and the body more bunched than the scuttling things you tend to find in your bath tub.
The harvestman is in fact a type of arachnid, but it doesn’t spin webs or produce venom. Instead it snares prey with hooks at the end of its stilt-like legs and when threatened can produce a foul-smelling liquid. I make sure not to threaten it...
While Steven’s expertise seems to extend to almost any kind of invertebrate, his true passion – and indeed the focus of today’s walk – is bees. Fuzzier and, it has to be said, rather friendlier insects than wasps, the gardens’ flower beds make this something of a haven for the pollen collectors.
Incredibly there are 250 different species in the UK, with only 10 per cent of these the bumblebees which people are most likely to be familiar with.
With a quick sweep of his net, Steven is able to snare one of the insects so we can get a closer look and, indeed, feel.
“It won’t sting you – I promise,” he tells one youngster, who looks ever so slightly terrified by the suggestion that he stroke the bee. It turns out that only females have a sting.
The truth is of course that, as is often the case, humans are creating far more problems for insects than they are for us. The same week of the walk there were more reports in the press of the harm that pesticides are doing to Britain’s bee population.
The chemicals used on certain crops have caused numbers across the world to plummet.
Throw in the threat of foreign invaders – harlequin ladybirds have decimated the native varieties – and it’s a sobering thought to take away as we arrive back at the entrance to the gardens.
This alien landscape is not only vast and complicated, it is also remarkably fragile and there’s always the danger that tomorrow’s children won’t have the chance to enjoy it.