Ards Grassland

Ards has extensive areas of grassland and dunes leading down to the estuary. As we approached the area, the sun began to filter through the clouds and insects popped up from their hiding places.

The Peacock butterfly is emerging in large numbers at the moment, no doubt helped by the warm weather in July, when the larvae were feeding on nettles:

Peacock butterfly

The Silver-washed Fritillary is a large, fast-flying species, usually seen near high woodlands. A couple were nectaring, but were very fast and flighty (as usual):

Male Silver-washed Fritillary

This specimen is a male: you can see the four long, dark open scent glands on the forewings.

New to my species list, although I had seen high-flying specimens at this location before.

I found a single Fox Moth larva crawling through grass, although they feed on Heather, Bilberry and Willow in this kind of environment.

Larva of Fox Moth

New to my species list.

Hoverflies of the Sphaerophoria family are usually quite difficult to identify in the field, but the semicircular markings on the short abdomen make this Sphaerophoria interrupta:

Sphaerophoria interrupta, male

New to my species list.

I also spotted this bee, but I haven't identified it yet:

Bee on Ragwort

It has the look of a male about it, and it might well be an Andrena male, in which case that is the id closed.

One thing I noticed about the Ragwort was the small size of the petals. In my own locality, the flowers are perhaps 30mm across, whereas these were less than 20mm, although the central portion was the same size as usual. The habitat was very sandy, so perhaps these small flowers are all that the impoverished nutrition can support. It certainly didn't affect the attractiveness of the plants in any way: there were many hoverflies nectaring on them.