Strange holes

[Fiona Ward]

Whilst out walking on Thursley common last weekend we encountered a lot of small holes in the sandy soil. They were about a finger width in diameter.Would anyone know what made them? I am assuming an insect.

[rob158]

Mayby some sort of mining bee, But I think its early for most of them to be about.

Some mining bee holes I seen last year.

[Janec]

I'm probably totally wrong but could it be where a green woodpecker has been probing for ants?

[Fiona Ward]

Thanks ROB158 that is what they looked like.

[tristanba]

too early for mining bee activity

[Bobbobthebob]

Any chance it's Typhaeus? There's potentially enough deer about on some bits of Thursley for them. But I don't know whether they take to burrowing in sandy soil?

Finger width holes are fairly massive for most of our insects.

[Klaas Reißmann]

I'm with Bobboetc. As long as temperatures are as high as they are in the moment, Typhaeus typhoeus is more or less active and digging its holes. To separate the holes of Typhaeus of those of mining bees you just need to take a look at the sandheap: bees digg angular forward and throw the sand behind them, so you get a small elongate sandheap on one of the sides of the hole. Typhaeus is digging upright down and leaves the send around its hole so you get a much bigger sandheap (because they dig much deeper and leave much more send outside of their hole) with a hole more or less in the middle of it. It looks a little like a very small molehill.

Regards
Klaas

[Matt Smith]

Plus Typhaeus digs a hole with a diameter 2-3 times more than the largest mining bee!!, a pencil sized burrow would be big for a bee. Untill the sallows start flowering there will be almost no mining bees active unlees we get an seasonaly unualy warm spell for a few week, as happened in the past.

Not all bees push their excavated soul to one side, thats mostly seen in wasps making horizontal or semi-horizontal burrows. The common Tawny Mining Bee Andrena fulva that flies in early spring and nests in lawns makes burrows where the excavated soil looks like mini-volcanos, little conical mounds of soil with a vertical burrow down the middle.

[Fiona Ward]

That's fascinating-I think I will have to go back and look at the soil mounds. My fingers aren't all that big though There were plenty of them.