Lovely weather

Most of the flowering plants are working to the normal schedule: the cold winter appears to have had little or no negative effect. Primroses have opened up all along the verge and ditch edges:

Primrose

The Barren Strawberry can be separated from the wild strawberry by the notch in the outer edge of the petals and also by the slightly glaucus appearance of the leaves:

Cow Parsley is beginning to show faster growth now, and already the fungal rust Puccinia chaerophylli is in evidence.

Puccinia chaerophylli on Cow Parsley

References say May-June, although I have found it in mid-April. I'm beginning to wonder if this is going to be an 'early year'.

Most of the early moths are showing up now:

Early Grey - a Willow pollen feeder

Early Thorn, found on many broad-leaf woody plants

Twin-spotted Quaker - another Willow feeder

Hebrew Character - one of our most widely-spread moths. Eats many plants.

Caddis flies are often mistaken for moths, but the wings are downy rather than scaled and the antennae are held in a forward-pointing position.

This specimen appears to be one of the Anabolea family, but it could be one of 25 different species.

Caddis fly larvae are usually aquatic and live in cases made from debris glued together and rolled into a tube.

Full swing

We've had a few days of sun now, and it's already getting difficult to keep up with the number of species I'm seeing.

Some water-walking insects are revealed by the shadows they project onto the base of the ditch. These 4-leaf-clover-type shadows are made by the water cricket Velia caprai. The insects themselves are present, but are hard to see as they scoot across the surface of the water.

A bit of refocussing (well, a lot really) and the insects themselves are revealed:

This Common Carder Bumblebee - Bombus pascuorum - was nectaring on the Celandine. I'm presuming she's also a queen, although they're a lot smaller than the other local bumblebee queens.

An excellent juxtaposition of two beautiful beetles: 7-spot ladybird and the leaf beetle Chrysolina staphylea:

Plenty more moths are coming to light, although this one didn't quite meet the friend it expected:

This is the Early Grey - Xylocampa areola:

And two colour forms of yet another willow feeder, the Common Quaker - Orthosia cerasi: