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Earlier in May I visited Rainham Marshes with Tristan and Malin. This was my second visit to the marshes after previously visiting in March. We were fortunate to have a lovely sunny day and saw plenty of insects.

Rainham Marshes is nature reserve managed by the RSPB. It is located to the east of London and is fairly easy to travel to on the train (the nearest station is Purfleet, about 10 minutes walk away).

Rainham Marshes

We mainly were hunting for insects, although we did see some interesting vertebrates too:

Water Vole, Arvicola amphibius

Marsh frog, Pelophylax ridibundus

It was my first time hearing the marsh frogs and I thought it was quite nice to hear them, although they were very loud!

The invertebrate highlights included seeing my first lace bug (Hemiptera: Tingidae), bishop’s mitre (Aelia acuminata), woundwort shieldbug (Eysarcorus venustissimus), a cream-spot ladybird and a pair of Larinioides cornutus having what looked like a violent mating ritual.

Deadly embrace - Larinioides cornutus

Cream-spot ladybird, Calvia 14-guttata

Bishop's mitre, Aelia acuminata

I have had a busy past few days. I went insect hunting on Saturday and Sunday, spent a day taking cicada photos at the museum on Monday and had my MSc graduation ceremony on Wednesday.

On Saturday I met with Tristan to explore Rainham Marshes. This was the second time I had visited the marshes and unsurprisingly, they were much more lively than they were in March. I will write another post to cover what we saw at the marshes.

I spent Sunday at Imperial College’s Silwood Park campus with Malin and saw lots of hoverflies that I am yet to identify. We picked some nettles (Urtica dioica) to make nettle soup which was very tasty. We used a recipe from ‘Seaweed and Eat it: A Family Foraging and Cooking Adventure‘ by Fiona Houston and Xa Milne. I have not read any other wild food books for comparison, but it seems a reasonable book with anecdotes, history and folklore. We hope to try one of the seaweed recipes soon.

Finally, I wish to share a wonderful tool that Alan Phillips introduced me to: Grab a Grid Reference by Keith Balmer. If you do recording and need a quick site to look up grid references then this is the tool for you! It is easy to use and is much better than any other sites I have used (including the OS site). Thanks Alan!