Tag Archives: Natural History Museum

International Wildlife Gardening Conference – 23rd November

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20160702_100724An International Wildlife Gardening conference is to be held at the Natural History Museum in London on 23rd November this year, organised by the Wildlife Gardening Forum.  The theme is:  “What European wildlife and nature gardeners can learn from each other” – very apt in these post-Brexit times.  The cost is £50 for the day (including lunch) and you can book by following this link.

Here is the programme for the day:

10.00 Registration and tea/coffee

10.30 Introduction and background; The Forum and the Wildlife gardening movement in England and Wales – Dr Steve Head (WLGF)

10.50 Nature gardening in Germany: an historical view from the start to today. How useful is the concept of native plants for wildlife? – Dr Reinhard Witt (President of Naturgarten e.V. [Nature Gardeners’ Association], Germany)

11.25 Naturgarten e.V.: nature-oriented design in gardens, educational institutions and public space in an era of climate change – Ulrike Aufderheide (Naturgarten e.V. [Nature Gardeners’ Association], Germany)

12.00 Lunch and networking (optional guided tour of the Wildlife Garden)

1.30 Biodiversity path in a heritage park: a case study – Jérôme Constant and Carole Paleco (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) (Afternoon Session Chair: Andrew Salisbury)

2.05 Looking for oases – Marianne van Lier and Willy Leufgen (Stichting Oase [Oasis Foundation], Netherlands)

2.40 Tea/coffee

3.00 Looking after our roots and the brown stuff – Sarah Rubalcava (Ireland)

3.35 19 years of Garden for Life: working together to promote wildlife gardening in Scotland – Dr Deborah Long and Juliette Camburn (Garden for Life Forum, Scotland)

4.10 Panel session with speakers (led by Adrian Thomas)

4.30 Summing up and Close

(Please note; this programme may be subject to late changes)

Identifying British ichneumonid wasps: an introductory guide from the NHM

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Tanzania ichneumonid P1000757

The ichneumonid wasps (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) are a fantastically diverse group of insects that mostly share a similar parasitic life history: they lay their eggs in or on a host insect.  Around 24,000 species have been described, and estimates for their full diversity range between 60,000 and 100,000 species.

In Britain there are approximately 2,500 species, almost 10 times our bee diversity. Many species visit flowers, particularly umbellifers, and they can therefore be quite significant (though under-studied) pollinators of things like Wild Carrot (Daucus carota) and its relatives.

With so many species to deal with, identifying ichneumonids can be a daunting task. However the Natural History Museum (London) has produced a free beginner’s guide to identifying them – here’s a link to it.

Although it only covers 22 commonly encountered species (i.e. less than one hundredth of Britain’s species diversity) it’s nonetheless a useful introduction to a fascinating group. However you’ll not be able to identify the species pictured above – I photographed that in Tanzania a few years ago!