The Jewel of York and the pride of Rawcliffe Meadows has ended its winter hibernation underground. During a site meeting with Vicky from Buglife to show a number of proposed projects relating to the beetle we found that one big population had woken up, was surfacing and had started copulating in large numbers, it was the beetle equivalent of an orgy! The site has a number of areas where the beetles breed but this one is probably the driest and sunniest and hence probably the one where they have woken up first. It is a bit later than usual so they’ll have time to make up before they produce the next generation that goes to ground in September.

A pair of tansy beetles making more