All's well that ends well.

Aside from coppicing and hedge laying, we have been helping to complete an orchard restoration project at the same nature reserve. It had lain neglected for at least thirty years and over the past two winters the dead fruit trees have been removed, the remaining ones have been pruned and the thicket of brambles cut back and half a dozen new Sussex Heritage apple trees planted. There was one last push before the end of last month to get it done before the nesting season start on the 1st March. 

On this part of the site we're very near Chesworth House, a Tudor mansion which was the childhood home of Catherine Howard. Within the orchard [where there is no public access] there is an old well which we speculated might once have been used by the house. These days it's been capped off, but the stone top has broken so we couldn't resist moving it to one side just to see how deep it was. One of the chaps spotted this beetle swimming in the water and scooped it out as he didn't fancy its chances otherwise. Said beetle wasn't very thrilled at this human intervention and showed us so by raising its abdomen aggressively like some sort of scorpion. To my knowledge I've never seen one of these for real, but I knew from others' photos that it's the Devil Coach Horse Beetle.

This species doesn't have the best of reputations. Whilst it won't kill you, it can certainly deliver a nasty bite and it can throw out an evil smelling substance if it feels threatened. To be honest I think it would rather get out of our way as quickly as possible instead. It doesn't fair much better in the folklore realm either because it's claimed that it ate the core of the forbidden fruit or that it pointed its tail in the direction of Jesus to allow Judas to find him. The Irish call it the coffin cutter. However, don't believe all this bad press. They may not be pretty like the ladybird, but they are good to have in your garden because they and other carnivorous beetles enjoy eating slugs!

Have a great weekend.

꩜Aril꩜