Country diary: There's reason to love the unpopular cranefly | Phil Gates

Deerness Valley, County Durham: So many of these insects succumb to the rolled-up newspaper, but they are worth a closer lookAn old pasture with a few sheep, bordered on two sides by woodland, is usually unremarkable, but not today. A flock of starlings, 80-strong, erupts from spiky, olive-green rushes around the poorly drained margin, and for one angelic moment, their translucent primary wing feathers flash gold in the early morning sunlight. They circle, glide past us, land and are lost from view. Thirty seconds of magic in a mundane agricultural landscape.We can see what brings them here; the evidence flutters in the undergrowth - an emergence of craneflies, mostly Tipula oleracea. The starlings are probing the ground for leatherjackets, craneflies' subterranean larvae that feed on grass roots. Starlings' long dagger beaks evolved to feed these to their young, not to squabble at a garden bird feeder and hack at suet balls. Continue reading...