Cambridge Walk - hotspot during 2005, 2005_0606

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There were many sightings of Lucanus cervus along the brick wall on the left, particularly just below the area with graffiti where a female hid in a crevice for 21 days.
Early in the season stag beetles were seen climbing and fighting on the hornbeam Carpinus betulus trunk where a female once hid in a hollow up there. At dusk male stag beetles would come down the the wall from the lower buildings to the right of the tree.
These observations were not repeated in subsequent years.
The property the other side of the wall is a block of flats, built in the 1960s in an old garden. Between the flats and the wall there is a driveway and the remaining garden is a very narrow strip along the wall and it is there that two old trees have been cut; one in 2003 and the other in May 2004, respectively a horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum and a field maple Acer campestre, both drilled and injected with Jeyes fluid.
The field maple stump is between the hornbeam and the vine; when it was cut it showed considerable decay at the base, 50% of the trunk was affected; removal was approved by the Colchester Borough Council on the condition of "like for like replacement".
The horse chestnut stump is further to the left; it is decomposing much faster and has obviously been colonized at least by lesser stag beetles Dorcus parellipipedus and rose chafers Cetonia aurata.
In 2009 several L. cervus corpses were found in the area, particularly worn female corpses at the end of the season by both stumps.

The other hotspot for 2005 was around a couple of front gardens, photos of the fights which took place in that area, June 9 and 13, have been posted here.
Coincidentally, in one of the front gardens two common laburnum Laburnum anagyroides trees had been cut in the previous year, and that is where the first fight occurred.
Again, these observations were not repeated in subsequent years. However, by one of the laburnum stumps, remains of a worn female L. cervus were found in early May 2008 thus suggesting activity during the previous year when D. parellipipedus were sighted there.