Benburb bioblitz

This bioblitz was based around Benburb castle, but also included the grounds of what is now known as Benburb Priory. The 17th century castle is being restored and the priory was formerly a manor house built in the 1880's.

The underlying geology is limestone and the site slopes downwards towards a river which is extensively engineered with cuts and sluices, and could almost be regarded as a canal. The riverside area has been allowed to run wild and is covered with Giant Hogweed, Bamboo, Japanese knotweed, Laurel and Himalayan Balsam. The grounds closer to the Priory are maintained as a decorative garden, but again, large areas are running wild, with a collapsed victorian greenhouse/orangery attached to outbuildings. This feature runs for some 50 metres and was clearly an important structure in its day. This is a shot of the old glasshouse:

Part of the glasshouse area with priory in the background

The south-facing glasshouse area contained a mixture of wild and cultivated plants, notably an overgrown herb garden, and attracted a huge number of hoverflies, butterflies, solitary bees and bumblebees.

Here's a shot of a Holly Blue on the approach path: 

Holly Blue butterfly

We made a quick survey to see where we should concentrate our efforts and it was clear that the riverside paths would be most productive. When I noticed that the area was limestone, we looked for Garlic Mustard, since this is a host plant for the Orange Tip butterfly and we immediately found an occupied flower:

Orange Tip egg on Garlic Mustard

We saw many Orange Tips, both male and female along the river bank. This female was nectaring on Herb Robert:

Female Orange Tip on Herb Robert

The same area yielded 14-spot Ladybird:

14 spot Ladybird

And a 10-spot ladybird with the rear spots missing. The 10-spot must be the ladybird with most variation in the spotting:

10-spot ladybird

Also from this area were the hoverfly Leucozona lucorum:

The hoverfly Leucozona lucorum landing on Bush Vetch

And I caught a glimpse of a huge pond skater down below in the cut next to the river. It's a poor shot, but there is only one pond skater this size. It's Aquarius najas, and is around 5 cm long from front foot to rear foot:

The River Skater Aquarius najas

New to my Species List.

We found a couple of leaf miners in the wooded area closer to the castle:

Phytomyza chaerophylli on Cow Parsley

And:

Phytomyza ranunculi on Celandine

Phytomyza ranunculi was also found on Creeping Buttercup.

Closer to the castle, I found a moth larva grazing on lichen on a fence post. It's Brussels Lace, Cleorodes lichenaria:

Larva of the Brussels Lace moth

That's a good example of the formal name clearly stating the nature of a species.

A final shot of Lords-and-Ladies or Cuckoo Pint, which I only ever find on lime:

Arum maculatum

Overall we submitted perhaps a hundred species on the day. This is far fewer than I would normally expect on a day's hunting, especially on a bright sunny day, but the habitat is essentially 'cultivated but abandoned', so the biodiversity could be expected to be low.

Old and new

The weather continues to be odd: very heavy showers interspersed with brief (and unexpected) blue gaps in the cloud.

Plants are making their usual growth, but insects are finding it hard to get going, since they must shelter from the rain and emerge only when it's safe to do so.

My first shot today is a hoverfly which is highly distinctive and new to me:

The hoverfly Chrysotoxum bicinctum

Chrysotoxum bicinctum is easily recognised by the wide yellow bands on tergites 2 and 4, with an occasional thin band on tergite 3. The front half of the wings are dark brown, although that's difficult to see from the shot above. The biology of Chrysotoxum sp. is largely unknown, but the larvae appear to be associated with aphids, particularly those in association with ants. There is a lot out there that we just don't know enough about. Handsome beast, anyway.

The next specimen is probably new to me as well, but without capturing the specimen I can't be sure.

Platycheirus ?fulviventris

It's certainly Platycheirus sp. but I couldn't get a good enough view of the front feet to confirm, although I did get a good view of the dark yellow/orange abdominal patches in flight. Looks to be Platycheirus fulviventris, but could be a couple of others.

The effects of rain are clear in this next shot of what appears to be the solitary bee Andrena cineraria (male):

Andrena cineraria (male)

Male Andrena sp. are very difficult to identify, but this one seems fairly safe, due to the ash-grey hair on the thorax. These have come to the end of their season, now.

There seems to have been a sudden hatch of Helophilus pendulus: I saw dozens today:

The hoverfly Helophilus pendulus (male)

Note that Helophilus sp. are different from other hoverflies, in that the eyes of the males don't meet in the middle. There is, however, a small kink in the leading edge of the eye, which is missing in the female.

This 14-spot ladybird caught my eye:

14-spot Ladybird

These are much smaller than the more common 7-spot, being roughly the same size as a match-head.

Finally, most people will be unaware that Cleavers - variously known by other common names, usually involving the word 'sticky' - has flowers:

Flower of Cleavers

Cleavers is a member of the Gallium family, which have 4 pointed petals. You can see the hooked seeds just behind the minute flower.

Today's colour is yellow

The 14-spot Ladybird is rather small - about the size of a match head.


Some flies just attract attention, and the very spiny appearance of this one makes it a Tachinid Fly. These are parasites that attack caterpillars in a similar manner to Ichneumonids, but instead of laying their eggs inside the caterpillar, they lay their eggs on the outside and their larvae enter and consume the caterpillar before pupating inside the empty skin.


Captive studies indicate that around 80% of moth and butterfly caterpillars are parasitised. I can certainly believe the figure is high, since I see a great many Tachinids and Ichneumonids every day.



For those of you able to watch RTE television, this website will be featured on RTE1 on Tuesday 26th May in the program 'Living the Wildlife'.