....and no, I'm not talking about a lovely woman I know. I mean the plant!
The mature ivy which grows around our Visitor Centre at Old Moor is fantastic for wildlife. As I walk past the buildings at the moment, I keep hearing rustling coming from the ivy on the wall, only to look up and see a hungry blackbird filling itself with a tasty meal! Isn't it wonderful, that just at the end of the winter, when most of the other berries have gone and the temperature is dropping further, the ivy is coming into it's own and providing a much needed meal. I think I read somewhere, that one ivy berry provides as many calories as a chocolate bar. No wonder they're so popular!
There really couldn't be a plant with better timing, from the blackbird's point of view!
If you cast your mind back to autumn, the ivy was a mass of late butterflies, like tortoiseshells, red admirals, etc, and queen wasps. In October and November, it was in flower. That was timed perfectly for those butterflies which hibernate and the queen wasps, who will do the same. It offered a valuable meal to give them the energy to keep them going until the spring comes and they can wake up again.
Perfectly timed, once again, this red admiral gets a meal when many other flowers have finished blooming.
As we come into spring, the ivy will be helping more wildlife. Not only does it often provide sheltered sites for the nests of birds like wrens, but it will also be dotted with another beautiful butterfly. The holly blue will have over wintered in the shelter of the leaves as a chrysalis. As the warmth of the sun increases in March, they will start to hatch out and become the first blue butterfly species which we will see of the year.
The holly blue (here, a female, with more black on her wing tips than the male) can be distinguished from the common blue by the grey underside to the wings.
The holly blue has an interesting life cycle in that there are 2 broods of young per year. The adults which hatch on the ivy this spring, will go in search of a mate and then the female will lay her eggs on holly leaves - the plant she is on in the picture here. When those caterpillars pupate and hatch out later in the year, in August and September, they will lay their eggs on ivy, because that is the food of the second brood. How strange is that?! I'm sure that there is a very clever reason for this change, but I have to confess that I don't know it! If anyone could let me know, I'd be very interested to learn.....
So if you want a climber with evergreen leaves to provide a shield or barrier against a wall or fence, do consider ay ivy. It will take 20+ years for it to mature enough to flower and fruit, but even young plants offer valuable cover for many insects and birds.
A wonderful plant indeed.....
:)
Wonderful pictures and agree with you that the Ivy is very important for nature :)