A bit warmer

We had a couple of weeks when the wind was blowing from the east, and I agree that it's "fit for neither man nor beast". I reckon nothing happened in wildlife terms during that period, so I'd say we are currently running about 4 weeks behind what I have come to expect on the patch. Now that we have reverted to the prevailing westerlies, we have to dodge the rain showers. Ho hum.

Now that Willow catkins have opened, a few insects have started to pollinate. This hoverfly is Parasyrphus punctulatus:

The hoverfly Parasyrphus punctulatus

Parasyrphus punctulatus is one of the earliest hoverflies to be found, although I rarely find it in large numbers. The main identification features are the semicircular yellow markings on the abdomen, which are strangely described in the standard reference as 'hemispherical'.

I have seen plenty of queen bumblebees searching for a place to nest - both Bombus terrestris and Bombus lucorum - seemingly in larger numbers than I have seen before. Perhaps the searching season has been compressed by the weather. I first found Bombus pratorum - the Early Nesting Bumblebee - in a fairly wild area in 2006, but I have seen several workers appearing on the hedgerow in the last few years: apparently it is becoming increasing urbanised due to the removal or loss of its usual habitat.

I found this queen - one of two queens that I have seen for the first time this year - crawling slowly around, so I suspect she had just emerged, since she is shiny clean.

Queen Bombus pratorum

Bombus pratorum is one of our smaller bumblebees, with queens the size of the workers of larger species and workers not much larger than a pea. Identification of the queen is based on size, the orange/red tail and the two-tone yellow bands on thorax and abdomen. You can see the worker here, and the male here.

A couple of moths came to light. The micros were worn beyond identification, but the March Moth is always very easy to identify due to the very triangular shape of the wings at rest:

March Moth

This is a good 6 weeks later than I normally see.

A few more flowers have opened, the most notable being Common Fumitory:

Common Fumitory

The Fumitory family (which is large and complex) gets its name from the glaucus ('smoky') colour of the leaves.

The 1k square challenge list now sits at 295 species. The list can be seen here.