We have lift-off

This is the second day of sunshine and everything has leapt into action.

Along the sheltered ditch I found:

Lesser Celandine:

Lesser Celandine

Coltsfoot:

Coltsfoot

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage:

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage covers the rear wall of ditches and wet banks around here. Here's a habit shot from the back wall of the stream:

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage on the ditch wall

I also checked the Greater Stitchwort plants just a little further along, but they're still pretending to be blades of grass:

Leaves of Greater Stitchwort

I also hunted for 7-spot ladybirds along the sunnier side of the track and found this single specimen just before the end:

7-spot Ladybird

Back home and I spotted this female Eristalis tenax hoverfly on Dandelion:

Female Eristalis tenax nectaring after emerging from hibernation

Females of Eristalis tenax are the only members of the family to hibernate. Other Eristalis species overwinter as pupae and won't emerge for a few weeks yet. So although the puparium will offer some protection from the cold, the female E. tenax has survived the exposure and now has a head start on getting her eggs laid.

Mixed weather

We're having sunny spells, showers and heavy rain in waves these days. Still, it beats the perma-rain of the last two years.

I really liked this shot of the 7-spot Ladybird. These are voracious predators of aphids, and if you look closely under the left-hand side of the leaf, you can see the antennae of its dinner.

"It's behind you"

This young Rabbit has taken up residence in the ancient Hawthorn hedge at the bottom of my garden: it seems to like being near the hens. I'm happy with all of that, but I'm rather keen that it doesn't find my vegetable plot, which is perhaps another 10m on the other side of the coop.

Young Rabbit

New to my Species Index.

Most beetles have wings which are folded away under the two elytra, which themselves are actually modified wings. The wings can be inflated at incredible speed, and you have to be very quick to catch the unfolding process taking place. I watched this Click Beetle flying from plant to plant and managed to anticipate the moment of launch:

Click Beetle preparing to fly

Leucozona lucorum is a hoverfly that is around in great numbers at the moment. They are very flighty (and will be until the mating season is over), so shots have to be taken very quickly:

The hoverfly Leucozona lucorum

Orange Tip butterflies were very late this year - at least 4 weeks and maybe 6 weeks later than I would expect. Their season is timed to match their foodplant (Cardamine pratensis in this area), and once the eggs have been laid, the adults fade away over the next week or two and won't be seen until May next year, when the next generation hatches.

Male Orange Tip butterfly

Fortunately, I have found a few larvae feeding on the seedpods:

Orange Tip larva on Cardamine seedpods

This is a strange visitor to our area. Salad Burnet - Sanguisorba minor - is a lime-loving plant, and we are are on strongly acidic soil. A few years ago, I limed part of my vegetable plot and I think this came in with a salad mix that I sowed around the same time.

Salad Burnet - Sanguisorba minor

New to my Species Index (although I think it's a bit of a cheat).

For a few years, I have been following the fortunes of a patch of pure white Bush Vetch that I found near the high heath. Many sports don't last long, but this patch is increasing in size and seems to have no problems attracting bees to pollinate it.

White version of Bush Vetch

I have read that a few plant species with blue flowers can occasionally throw pure white sports, mainly in the West. I suppose the ultraviolet parts of the flower still work, even though it's purest white to our eyes.

The signs are there

We have rain forecast for the next few days, so I took the opportunity to see what signs of spring I could find.

7-Spot Ladybirds hibernate as adults, so in theory they can be seen at any month of the year if the weather is warm enough. But I like to think that the first sighting of the year is a sign of things to come:

7 Spot Ladybird

Many plants are still in their purely vegetative state, but quite a few are making flower buds or new growth. I always consider Barren Strawberry to be the first true flowering plant in each year. True, Celandines will always flower first, but since they can flower any time from November onwards, the Barren Strawberry is my 'first flower' in any given year:

Barren Strawberry flower bud

The plant at top right of that shot is Germander Speedwell which had a very good year last year:

Germander Speedwell

The lowest stem in that shot shows the diagnostic paired lines of hairs that run along the stem.

Bush Vetch is also pushing through the dead fronds of last year's Male Fern:

Bush Vetch

It will be another 4 months before Slender St. John's Wort is in flower, but already the new growth is forming:

Slender St. John's Wort

I cropped this shot of Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage to show the rear wall of the ditch covered in liverworts and mosses:

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage with liverworts and mosses

The main liverwort is Conocephalum conicum ('Snakeskin Liverwort') and the tiny moss is Plagiomnium undulatum.

A few years ago, one of the few local areas to have wild Reedmace was excavated to see if it would be suitable for building a house (it isn't!). Most of the Reedmace disappeared, but some has now made a recovery:

Reedmace - Typha latifolia

Typha is the sole host family for many insects, including some moths and hoverflies. I examined quite a few specimens of the Reedmace for any signs of those species, but none were found. I wonder how long it will take for them to return (if they ever do).

No time is ever wasted in nature: the leaves of Lesser Celandine are hardly full-grown and already the fungal rust Puccinia ranunculi has taken hold.

Puccinia ranunculi on Lesser Celandine

Last year there seemed to be a very wide-ranging absence of fresh mines of the micromoth Stigmella aurella from its main foodplant, Bramble, and I certainly found very few.  So it's good to see a good number of fresh mines (fresh mines are white, whereas old mines from previous years are brown) on the host plant this year:

Mines of the micromoth Stigmella aurella

There are 4 mines on that leaf, all of which appear to have grown to full size. I'm always entertained by the way the mines progress without falling out of the edge of the leaf and also how they seem to detect other mines and take avoiding action before they intersect them (or their own!), especially when older.

catching up (2)

In my last post I mentioned that the 7-spot Ladybird pupates with a series of very quick abdominal stretches. Today I managed to record that brief moment in a series of shots:

The rear end has been attached to the leaf, and the whole body is thrust violently backwards in an attempt to split the outer skin:

The larva then slowly returns to its resting position:

In these last two shots, you can clearly see that the skin has started to split along the yellow line:

I don't know how long the entire process takes, but this one was observed for perhaps 20 minutes without making much apparent progress.

Catching up

The good weather has continued, which means that I'm taking hundreds of photographs. Identifications and image selection are taking up a lot of time, so I have quite a backlog.

But tonight I got a very rare opportunity to make a feature of a single species in my post, so here it is:

Ladybirds start off as eggs and then hatch into larvae that go though 3 - 4 stages (instars), shedding their skin as they grow. Their sole food is aphids, so judging by the number of larvae and pupae I found tonight, a vast number of aphids have been consumed this spring.

Early larvae of the 7-spot ladybird are dark with yellow or orange spots:

7-spot ladybird larva, early instar

The final instar larva is, however, grey:

Final instar 7-spot ladybird larva

When the larvae are fully grown and ready to pupate, they begin to curl up with the head down and the tail tucked in:

7-spot larva about to pupate

The larva then begins to change colour as it pupates:

7-spot larva during pupation

(note the yellow under-colour shining through the thin skin)

The outer skin is shed and pushed to the rear of the pupa by means of several quick thrusts of the entire body (the shed skin can clearly be seen at the rear of the pupa):

Fresh 7-spot ladybird pupa

After a short time, the pupa hardens and takes on a darker colour:

7-spot ladybird pupa

And after a few days:

Adult 7-spot Ladybird

I have never seen such a wide range of stages of one species in one place at one time. Our exceptional spring weather has clearly been beneficial to the 7-spot at least.

Usual suspects and others

We've had around 6 days of wonderful spring sunshine, and suddenly everything is moving. I would expect to see Primroses:

Primrose

 And Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage:

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage

But a 7-spot Ladybird was a pleasant find:

7 spot ladybird

The leaves of new season's Cow Parsley have been developing for a few weeks, and already the parasitic rust Puccinia chaerophylli has appeared:

Cow Parsley, with Puccinia chaerophylli rust

And a new species of micromoth for me:

Agonopterix sp. micromoth

I know it's new to me, but sadly I don't know exactly which species it is. It's either Agonopterix heracliana (90% chance) or Agonopterix ciliella (10%), but sadly I didn't know to catch it to examine the separating features. A new species to me either way. Both are Umbellifer feeders.

Gap in the rain

Normal service has been resumed after wonderful weather in March, and I have been sitting (no, standing!) glowering at the rain for the last few days. I spotted a short burst of sun, so I rushed off to the most likely spot for a few moments.

The patches of Celandines are all fully open in the middle of the day, so the insects were making the use of the gap in the weather, too. The following shots of hoverflies illustrate some of the difficulties we have in making accurate identifications.

This is a male (eyes meet in the middle) Melanostoma species:

Male Melanostoma mellinum on Celandine

The (relatively) short abdomen leads me to Melanostoma mellinum, because the alternative, which is Melanostoma scalare, has a much longer abdomen in the male.

Notice the very slender front feet.

Next we have a male Platychierus sp. (notice that the front feet are much wider and longer than those of the Melanostoma). The legs also appear to be more robust than those of the Melanostoma.

Male Platychierus sp.

If I was a gambler, I'd say Platychierus albimanus, but I'd like a look at the abdominal stripes before committing.

The next is quite a different beast altogether. It's a female (eyes don't meet in the middle) Cheilosia sp. Cheilosias are darker, chunkier and larger than the two previous families, and although it's difficult to detect from this shot, the wings have a bronze tint to them. Other shots leave me quite convinced that it's Cheilosia albitarsis, and the size is ok for that, too. 

Female Cheilosia sp.

This male Eristalis pertinax was basking on a Buttercup leaf:

Male Eristalis pertinax

Given the absolutely pristine condition (clean feet, shiny wings, clean hair, no pollen), and the fact that the wings look a very little on the small side, I'd say this had just emerged and the wings still have to finish inflating.

And this is also an emerging specimen: the first Common Carder Bumblebee - Bombus pascuorum - of the year. This has to be a queen, although these are much smaller than the queens of the darker bumblebees that we have around here.

Emerging Bombus pascuorum queen

This 7-spot Ladybird was running around leaves and flowerheads looking for aphids. Given the speed of the chase, this was a very difficult shot. No time for basking in this case:

7-spot Ladybird

It's really full speed ahead on all fronts at the moment. This Common Dog Violet - Viola canina - is also just opening: the petals still have to rotate to their final positions.

Viola canina

I've included a side shot to show the pale, notched, spur that identifies this species:

Hartstongue fern is usually the first to unravel. I have 15 or 16 different species of ferns on this stretch, so we should be able to follow the sequence of these as they open up:

Not bad for about 10 -15 minutes.