Juniper

Storm Babet appears to be on its way out now, leaving a trail of destruction and several personal tragedies in its wake. Here the weather was pretty quiet today, with no repeat of yesterday's flash flooding, though the far end of the wild garden still had standing water in places. On the plus side, all our windfall cider apples have been neatly placed in two fragrant piles by the flood water, as it receded back within the normal boundaries of the brook.

I didn't spent too long outside because it was cold, and still quite dank. But I did knock a couple of tree branches to see what I could dislodge, which produced a huge number of woodlice and a handful of other, more photogenic, inverts, all of which were restored to their rightful homes either before or after being photographed. This is a Juniper Shieldbug, which came out of this Lawson cypress and was passive enough to be put back there straight away - if it had been warmer the bug would have either flown or scuttled away into the depths of the tree as soon as I released it, but today I was confident that that wouldn't happen.

This species used to be confined to juniper woodlands, where its larvae fed on the juniper berries, and it was regarded as uncommon in the UK, but in recent years its numbers have increased quite dramatically. In part this is because of the increasing popularity of juniper as a garden shrub, but the Juniper Shieldbug has also adapted its diet, and will now feed on the Lawson cypress as well. When we bought this house there was a large juniper in the garden, but over the years it became overgrown, and as soon as we began cutting it back it went into a terminal sulk and died. Luckily though, the stand of conifers that contained it is dominated by a massive Lawson cypress, so any Juniper Shieldbugs that were left homeless only had to relocate by a matter of a couple of metres.