Ards - Continued

Although the primary reason behind my visits to Ards is to explore the fungal flora, I always see a host of other things that attract my attention for one reason or another.

Ards is the only place where I have found the native Golden Rod. It has a distinct requirement for woodland, and the distribution maps tend to show a western bias, and you don't get extensive woodlands much further west in Donegal than Ards.

Native Golden Rod

Eagle eyes will have spotted the odd leaf at bottom right: it's a leaf of Honeysuckle that has been mined by Chromatomyia aprilina:

Honeysuckle leaf mined by Chromatomyia aprilina

When trying to track down leaf miners, the frass (dung!) pattern is a very good starting place. Note that the frass (thin black line in the white mine) is distributed in a line down one side of the mine. That's a clear pointer that this mine has been made by the larva of a fly, so we can ignore all the moths, wasps and beetles. That leaves us with just a couple of species of fly that mine Honeysuckle, and we quickly arrive at Chromatomyia aprilina by the shape of the mine.

Wood Sage is another plant that I only ever find in woodland:

Wood Sage

Drumboe in Ballybofey is another place to find it.

Just as I was taking the shots of Wood sage, a shadow passed over and I saw a specimen of Speckled Wood landing on a Rhododendron:

Speckled Wood butterfly

Notice that it's in absolutely perfect condition, so that makes it one of the few third-generation specimens for this year. I find fresh specimens in April, July and September, indicating that we have roughly 8 weeks between generations. Interestingly enough, next year's first generation will more than likely be the offspring of this year's summer generation, since a third generation doesn't always happen. It seems that we're seeing a transition from two generations a year to three as warming increases.

I was a little surprised to see Viola riviniana in flower:

Viola riviniana - Common Dog Violet

Sometimes, when conditions are right, our spring flowers can have a second push in autumn. Day length might well be an influence here, since we normally see Dog Violets just after the spring equinox and it's just after the autumn equinox now.

Devilsbit Scabious, on the other hand, is just at its best right now:

Meliscaeva cinctella on Devilsbit Scabious

The hoverfly is Meliscaeva cinctella, which feeds on aphids as a larva.

I rather like that picture.


I found this Oak Cherry gall on a fallen leaf:

Oak Cherry gall - Cynips quercusfolii

Galls are plant (or fungal) growths made by insects for their own benefit. The female lays her egg(s) and the plant is thereby stimulated into making unusual material growth on leaves, buds, twigs, seeds or roots. The larva lives inside the growth, feeding on the inside of it. Galls are a pretty good place for an insect to develop: there is protection plus a good supply of food. But wildlife is never that simple. There are other insects who know that the gall contains food, shelter and a larva. These burrow or drill their way into the gall and then one of three things occurs: either the incomer coexists happily with the gall-maker (an inquiline), or it kills the original larva as food either for itself (a predator) or it lays eggs inside the original larva as food for its young (a parasite). It doesn't stop there, however. Some parasites and predators target only the inquilines, and so we can have a changing population of larvae, inquilines, parasites and predators all existing within a single gall. The number of different species taken from inside a single gall specimen exceeds 50.

This spider was hanging vertically on a Hazel leaf. The abdominal pattern indicates the Common Garden Spider - Araneus diadematus, but the abdomen is much smaller than I usually expect to see. It's suspect it's a male:

Common Garden Spider - male

This flower looked a bit strange amongst a bank of normal specimens. I quickly worked out what it was. Can you?

Mystery flower

And I almost forgot this huge puffball that I found near the car park. It's Handkea excipuliformis, around 20 cm tall, with a 7 cm diameter cap:

Handkea excipuliformis

The cap will soon develop slits that allow the spores to be forcibly expelled when hit by raindrops or animals (or people with sticks)

Every cloud

The weather has been abysmal for several days, with bad light even when it has been dry. Today I saw blue gaps in the cloud, so I ran for the hills, where the Angelica is abundant.

This hoverfly got me rather excited, because I knew I hadn't seen it before. Several shots were rattled off and anticipation was high during the rest of the photography session. When I got the pictures back to the computer and opened the books, I was slightly disappointed to discover it wasn't a new species for me, but merely a new colour variation of one that I had seen once before. It's the orange and black version of the bumblebee mimic Eriozona syrphoides.

The bumblebee-mimicking hoverfly Eriozona syrphoides

Eriozona syrphoides is the only bumblebee mimic to have an obtusely re-entrant (curved) vein at the position indicated by the arrow.

Note. I have amended the identification of this hoverfly as a result of a much better set of photographs taken a few days later.

Here's a shot of it beside an ichneumonid:

Eriozona syrphoides (right) and ichneumonid (left)

Staying with ichneumonids, this one has a quite impressive ovipositor:

Ichneumonid with long ovipositor

I saw a few of those wandering over Knapweed flowerheads, so we know what that ovipositor is used for.

This large brown specimen looks to be close to the Ophion family:

3 cm. ichneumonid

Dungflies are voracious hunters as adults (they're probably making up for all the dung they eat as larvae.) This one is making a meal of a smaller sawfly:

Dungfly with prey

But this dungfly has fallen foul of a little cream-coloured spider:

Spider with dungfly as prey

Now that's a truly vicious circle.

I was quite surprised to find a pristine Red Admiral butterfly nectaring on the Angelica:

Red Admiral butterfly

It's absolutely pristine, with no wear whatsoever, so it's clearly one of the local offspring of the early summer migrants. These feed solely on nettles as caterpillars.

At this time of year I always look closely at clusters of aphids on Knapweed. The larvae of the hoverfly Syrphus ribesii consume large numbers of aphids, and the female always makes sure her offspring have an adequate supply:

Larva of Syrphus ribesii with aphids

Meliscaeva cinctella is one of the later hoverflies, usually to be found from August onwards. Its larvae are also aphid eaters, but solely on tree-dwelling species, such as the Wooly beech aphid.

Meliscaeva cinctella hoverfly

Fairy Flax is a very delicate little flower which I tend to find near the edges of forestry, or along forest paths:

Fairy Flax

Just as I was getting out of the car, this leafhopper flew over my shoulder and landed on the path in front of me. Click.

The leafhopper Cicadella viridis

Still on the Angelica

The Angelica is still our major nectar source, and it should still be in flower for the next two weeks, although the central umbels have now gone to seed. I wandered along the lane examining all the Angelica, but also glancing at other plants as I passed.

This shot required observation and anticipation: the Eristalis tenax hoverfly was wandering in a fairly straight line across the Ragwort, so I focussed on the flower and took the shot as it came up over the horizon.

Meliscaeva cinctella is one of the later hoverflies to emerge. The larvae are predatory on arboreal aphids.

The Nematoceran fly Sciara hemerobioides is all over the Angelica at this time of year. The larvae are fungus eaters, and the adults live for only a few days:

This Ichneuminid intrigued me. Why? It was only 5 mm. long:
Another new moth came to my window. It's the Antler Moth. Guess where it got its name from.

Good old Angelica

At the moment, I'm doing little else other than patrolling the Angelica plants: they'll be gone to seed soon enough.

A welcome return of one of the later hoverflies, Meliscaeva cinctella:

Ichneumonids of various colours and markings continue to nectar: every umbel has a couple.


The first (of many!) of this year's sightings of the effects of the parasitic fungus Entomophthora muscae. The fungus kills the female fly, after having forced her to climb to a high position, open her wings and extend her legs. This maximises the opportunity for spore dispersal once the fungus has erupted through the abdomen.


Traces of the pink fungus can be seen on the back of the abdomen, to the left. The spider's web is incidental, although the fly might well have crawled through it on her last journey.