Sun continues

While much of the UK has been under water for the past month, I'd hazard a guess that April was one of the driest on record in Co. Donegal. Although we've had a lot of sun, the wind has been easterly and that keeps things cooler.

Butterflies are out and about, though, and I've had Small Tortoiseshell, Speckled Wood, Green-veined White and now Orange Tip.

The male Orange Tip is unmistakeable, with those bright orange wing-tips:

Orange Tip butterfly - male

The males emerge a few days before the females in order to establish their territory, which they will defend against any moving white object, including pieces of paper. The females will be out next week and then I'll be looking for eggs on their host plant - Cardamine pratensis.

Green-veined White is usually the first of the spring-emerging butterflies on the patch. The males have fewer black markings than the females:

Male Green-veined White butterfly nectaring on Herb Robert

Male Green-veined White butterfly

Here's a shot of the female for comparison:

Female Green-veined White butterfly

Interestingly enough, the Orange Tip and Green-veined White share a common foodplant, but whereas the Orange Tip larvae eat the seedpods, the Green-veined White larvae eat the leaves.


Tachinid flies are parasitic on the caterpillars of larger moths, and are readily identified by their extremely bristly appearance:

The Tachinid fly Gymnocheta viridis

Judging by the number of Tachinids I encounter, it is clear that they are serious population controllers.

The Clouded-bordered Brindle moth is normally found from late May onwards. This is fully a month early, so the heat has brought the overwintering larvae on a bit more quickly than usual.

Clouded-bordered Brindle moth

The moth above is rather unusually marked: the central white 'kidney mark' is missing. Compare with this one from a couple of years ago. http://donegal-wildlife.blogspot.com/2010/06/busy-time.html


Breaking news: the recent mystery eggs that I showed in Juncus rush appear to belong to a leafhopper, rather than a sawfly. Full details in the next post.

Busy time

The burst of good weather has produced lots of new photographs (which bring associated research), and I have been working on a new project doing wildlife surveys with schools in the area, so things are a little busy.

The leafmining fly Agromyza minuscula mines Meadow Rue as well as the Aquilegia in my garden. I have no Meadow Rue near my patch - it tends to be coastal near here - so the flies have travelled quite some distance to find this alternative food source.

Foxgloves tend to creep up on you. One day, they're a rosette of leaves, the next they're in full bloom the whole length of the spike:

Last week, I showed a male Bombus lucorum; this one has found a new queen:

I'm amazed at the size difference. The males will now die off, and the new queens will go back to their nests and act as workers until next year when they go off to make their own new nest. The queen is certainly Bombus Lucorum s-s, which confirms my belief that I have both B. lucorum s-s and Bombus cryptarum on my patch.

Meadow Vetchling has added a lot of yellow to the verges, now. The various Cinquefoils are next, followed by various St. John's Worts and the Birds-foot Trefoil.

I often think the people who gave names to various species in the 1700's and 1800's had a sense of humour (or they needed some light relief from their intense work). This is the wasp-mimicking hoverfly Sericomyia silentis, which has to be the noisiest hoverfly around. It's certainly louder than the bumblebee:

There are plenty of moths around at the moment (sorry, Weaver). This is a male Golden Swift:

I did quite a bit of research on this image because I have often seen these bright orange phoretic mites, and always on Limoniidae Crane Flies:

Limoniidae are often aquatic as larvae, but some feed on fungi. These phoretic mites are also known to feed on fungal spores, so it looks like these mites (which belong to the spider family) are simply using the Limoniidae as transport between fungi.

Finally, some more moths that came to light:

Clouded-bordered Brindle - Apamea crenata - which feeds on grasses as a larva:
Common Marbled Carpet - Chloroclysta truncata - which feeds on woody plants:
And Dark Arches - Apamea monoglypha - another grass feeder:
New to me.

I also updated my species index.