Enough for a page

At last I have enough to fill a page.

The Angelica is sadly going to seed now, and I only managed a few visits in dry weather. This is one of the many male wasps that have been thrown out of the nests to forage for themselves:

Male wasp on Angelica

These males can be recognised by their long, droopy antennae and their slow movement over the flowerheads.

Leucozona glaucia has certainly been scarcer this year. I'm not sure if this has been caused by last year's excessive rain or this year's excessive rain.

Leucozona glaucia hoverfly

Amblyteles armatorius is one of the few Ichneumonids that can be identified without microscopic analysis:

The Ichneumonid Amblyteles armatorius

There are many similar species, including Ichneumon extensorius, which has the same colouration, but is half the size, at around 10-15mm long.

One of the problems with identification of Mirid bugs is that some of them change colour in the later part of the season, so there are different confusion species at different times of the year. Stenodema holsata is brown in its first season, but will be green next year:

Mirid bug Stenodema holsata

New to my Species Index.

Compare with Stenodema laevigata (which is longer and thinner) on this earlier post.

I was working a line of Alders tonight and found this mine:

Mine of the Agromyzid fly Agromyza alnivora on Alder

Agromyza alnivora is a rarely-recorded fly with a wide distribution range, and I have only found it twice. Alder is a very common tree, so there must be some reason for its scarcity. I notice that the mine is very long and tortuous, starting near centre-right and wandering roughly clockwise twice before descending down the right-hand side to the crescent-shaped exit point (bottom centre).  This is a very much longer mine than I would expect to see from a miner of this size, so I can only assume that it is a very inefficient feeder (Alder is clearly a very nutritious plant, given the number of species that feed on it). This, in turn, will increase opportunities for competing organisms to dominate and for parasites/predators to attack. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that this is a species that is relatively new, or is on the way out.

The Peacock butterfly relies on Nettles for larval food, so I'm always a bit puzzled that I see most of my local specimens in an area where there are no nettles (that I know of) for hundreds of metres in any direction.

Peacock butterfly

This area is at the edge of recently-harvested coniferous plantation, so perhaps there is some 'memory' of nettles in previous decades.

Moths to light include:

Large Yellow Underwing (a clear sign of the progressing year):

Large Yellow Underwing

Rosy Minor:

Rosy Minor

The extremely variable Common Marbled Carpet:

Common Marbled Carpet

And a new (to me) micromoth:

Epinotia nisella

Epinotia nisella is a Willow feeder. This specimen is not of the usually-illustrated form, but is more like the mainland European specimens.

New to my Species Index.

What's that yellow thing in the sky?

Sun! We had almost four hours of continuous sun today, so I made a bee-line for the Angelica.

I took around 200 shots of whatever looked good, and these are the highlights:

The Peacock is a butterfly that I see quite rarely. I'm not sure if there were a few of them on this woodland ride today, or if the same one was flying along overtaking me from time to time. The Peacock is a nettle feeder and the late summer generation is emerging now. These will overwinter as adults, emerging in spring as soon as it's warm enough:

Peacock butterfly

Sicus ferrugineus is a conopid fly that can often be found crouched on knapweed flowerheads waiting for a bumblebee to land:

The Conopid fly Sicus ferrugineus

These are parasitic on worker bumblebees, but although I saw a good number of Bombus pascuorum workers today, none of them landed near the fly.

Leucozona glaucia is one of the most colourful hoverflies that we have. The combination of blue abdomen, yellow scutellum and shiny brown thorax is quite striking.

The hoverfly Leucozona glaucia

I caught a few glimpses of its duller relative, Leucozona laternaria, which I hope to show soon.

Sawfly larvae can be distinguished from moth and butterfly larvae by counting the number of prolegs. But I can generally pick them out quite quickly by their very round-shouldered appearance:

Sawfly larva on Ribwort Plantain

This close-up shows the semi-translucent nature of the body:

Close-up of sawfly larva

I went through the checklist of sawfly larvae and their host plants, but the only one specific to Ribwort Plantain doesn't match. That probably makes it a generalist polyphage, so the only way to find out what species it is would be to breed it through and identify the adult.

Caddis Flies are often mistaken for moths, especially when they come to light at night. The main distinguishing feature is the forward-facing antennae (although some of the longhorn moths also have this feature, in which case the Caddis Flies are recognised by their almost parallel antennae). This specimen is a female, identified by the greater number of jointed segments (5) in her mouthparts:

Caddisfly, member of the Limnephilidae family

That's the first Caddis that I've seen nectaring.

Caddis larvae are aquatic, living inside a case made from stones, shells, twigs or leaves, so the adults are usually seen close to water.

The Great Diving Beetle is also aquatic, and I found this one lying dead near a dried-out puddle:

Great Diving Beetle

The Angelica is already running to seed, so I suppose I might have another two weeks of it left. It's certainly a major source of nectar for insects, and I found hundreds of hoverflies, dungflies, sawflies and other assorted insects nectaring on it today. This ichneumonid caught my eye, due to its very long ovipositor:

Ichneumonid on Angelica

Where to start?

At the beginning, I suppose.

(Keep your eyes peeled for hidden insects....I'll be asking questions at the end.)

Earlier on, I was over on Weaver's blog identifying a pincushion gall, and this is the first shot I took this morning:

It's a gall caused by the plant louse Livia juncorum on Juncus rushes. Galls are abnormal growths caused by insects or fungi for their own benefit: usually food and/or shelter. Other insects know about these benefits and some galls attract lodgers (inquilines) and, of course, predators and parasites. The record number of species found inside a single Oak Apple gall was over 50!

The Marigolds at our front window attract plenty of hoverflies and this sunny morning saw the wonderful Eupeodes luniger:

I also saw Leucozona glaucia on the last of the Angelica:

This all-black hoverfly made my heart flutter a bit, but after a lot of analysis (finally concluded by detailed examination of the wing veins) I determined it was just a very dark Eristalis tenax:

This more usual version was conveniently to hand so that I could show the comparison:

As some of you will know, I've been carrying out a study of sawfly larvae on willows for the past few years, and I thought I would check to see if any Nematus pavidus sawfly larvae were in evidence. Just as well I did, because this lot hatched yesterday:
So this is officially DAY 2. I'll be tracking these larvae and their parasites for the next month or so. They're a bit earlier than usual, so it will be very interesting to see if the parasites are correspondingly early.

This is the next batch ready to go:

It's amazing what catches your eye, even from a distance. This is the larva of one of the Pug moths:
These are very difficult to identify as larvae and the best way of finding out what they are is to breed them through and then identify the adults (which, unfortunately, is also difficult with Pugs!)

On the same Willow as the Nematus pavidus larvae, I found this Baetid Mayfly. I have no idea why it has emerged so late in the year:

Ok.......hands up who spotted the Frog Hopper in the centre of the Livia juncorum. (easy)

And who spotted the bright orange Tephritid fly larva at the bottom right corner (very carefully cropped) of the image of the Pug moth caterpillar? (difficult)

'foreign' trip

I'm just back from a few days in my native Scotland, and it was very interesting to compare the wildlife in my old stamping ground with that on my local patch.

This Comma flew in front of me as I walked along Haddington Place in Edinburgh:

(Yes, my camera is to hand at all times).

I had just emerged from MacNaughton's bookshop where I bought a pristine copy of the wonderful "Things a Lady Would Like to Know": a cookbook from 1875 (although it's inscribed 1874). Here's a shot of the cover:

It has recipes for complete dinner menus for each day of the year, plus special banquets for each month, so perhaps 2000 recipes in all. Anyway.....

The place where I spent my teenage years has a very interesting set of hoverflies: perhaps more species close together than I would find at home. This is Myathropa florea, which needs older broad-leaf trees for its larvae:

Leucozona glaucia is our only hoverfly with blue patches on the abdomen:

On my patch, this would be Syrphus ribesii, but I wouldn't like to take this identification any closer than Syrphus sp. without some more detailed examination:
A decent shot of Xylota segnis. These run very quickly over leaves, picking up bits of pollen as they move:

And Cheilosia illustrata, which I have only ever found on umbellifers. This was on Hogweed:

The fungal season is about to start, and I found quite a few specimens of Sweet Vernal Grass which had been infected with the rather toxic Ergot:

This is the very common puffball Lycoperdon perlatum:

Back home, a couple of new moths came to light. First the rather handsome Rosy Minor - Mesoligia literosa, which feeds on various grasses:

And a pristine specimen of the Foxglove Pug, which feeds on......Foxgloves:

Ancient Deciduous Woodland

I have been looking for the Bracken leafminer Chirosia histricina for a few years, now. It's clearly very choosy about where it lays its eggs: A long stretch of Bracken was empty apart from a very shaded section under a Beech. Maybe they like tightly-controlled temperature or humidity.



One of my favourite hoverflies - Leucozona glaucia:



A much more developed case of the fly-killing fungus Entomophthora muscae:

I'm already seeing dead flies on most Angelica plants now. (The fungus is the orange/pink area on the abdomen).


The fungal season has started quite early this year, so I'll show the first images in the next post.

TV filming

I just spent the last two days filming for a new TV program. Filming involves a lot of walking, talking, real photography and pretend photography. I took 650 shots, and have about 45 keepers, with around 15 to show. I'll break them down over the next couple of days, hoverflies first.

In no particular order we have:

Epistrophe grossulariae:

Leucozona glaucia:

Syrphus sp. (female)