At 9.30pm on Friday July 6th a group of interested glow-worm enthusiasts met Forestry Commission Ranger Kate Wollen at Queen’s Wood near Kempley on the Gloucestershire / Herefordshire border. Kate had kindly offered to lead the walk in exchange for a donation to an environmental charity of her choice, which Severnprint were, of course, happy to do.

After a brief explanation of the glow-worm’s life cycle we moved off complete with ultra-sonic bat detector so we could tune into the many bats flitting about. We could clearly tune into Pipistrelle bats and hear the ‘raspberry’ sounds of them catching the flies. Later we heard the larger Noctule bat as it swept over the lake.

We walked to the lake area and as it was almost completely dark we soon begun to spot the glow-worms. There were a few dotted about the lakeside and as we walked back to the meeting point we spotted 20 or more hanging in the grass near the track or further back in the undergrowth bordering the wood.

The picture below, taken with a flash, shows a female glow-worm beetle hanging onto a piece of grass glowing waiting for a male to fly-by and mate with her. The females do not fly and hence use the glow as a way of attracting males:



The following picture illustrates the insects distinctive glow:



The walk finally finished at about midnight and we all thought it a very enjoyable few hours observing a little known insect.

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