Sunny August

In this shot I tried to show the extensive Fuchsia hedging that paints much of western Ireland red at the moment, but the very bright sunshine made a decent shot very tricky.

Fuchsia hedging at Mongorrey

Note the very straight road stretching all the way westwards to the horizon. I had always thought that these long straight roads must be Roman roads, but the Romans never got this far, and the roads are known as 'Famine roads'.

The white umbellifer plants at the front of the shot are Angelica.

Many of the wasps that can be seen slowly crawling over umbellifers at the moment are males:

Male Vespula rufa

Vespula rufa can be identified by a combination of features including the red areas on the abdomen, facial markings and stripes on the thorax.

This Chloromyia formosa soldier fly was happily nectaring on the Angelica......

Chloromyia formosa soldier fly

until a Tenthredo sp. sawfly decided it would make a good meal and jumped on it:

Chloromyia formosa escaping from a Tenthredo sp. sawfly

Even at 1/120th of a second, the fly is just a blur.

It's not only the flowers of Angelica that attract insects: leaf-miners are also present. Phytomyza angelicastri is one of two species that I find locally:

Phytomyza angelicastri on Angelica

The Hawthorn parasite Taphrina crataegi clearly has some special habitat requirements. This is the only tree that I have found to be infected on my patch:

Taphrina crataegi on Hawthorn

I have also found it in one location in Northern Ireland, and in each case the tree overhangs lying water, but I know of many Hawthorns in similar situations that are unaffected, so it must be something more subtle.

As I was searching along a verge, a shadow passed over me and I looked up expecting to see a bird, but it turned out to be a huge Common Hawker dragonfly which was hunting along the same verge. I followed it for a while and it eventually rested on a Willow, so I managed to squeeze in a few distant shots:

Common Hawker dragonfly

And nearby I saw a Common Darter landing on a grass stem. She tolerated me for quite a while before flying off:

Common Darter dragonfly (female)

Slender St. John's Wort is my favourite flower, so I made an artistic crop of this pair:

Slender St. John's Wort

Limestone

I live in an area of highly acid soil, so I'm always keen to visit limestone areas. Soil type largely governs which plants can be found in a particular area, and different plants support different insects, so I always expect to find something new or different on these trips. Lough Erne is also much closer to sea level, so it's probably 7-10 days earlier than my local area.

My local violet is the Common Dog Violet - Viola riviniana, but this area has both riviniana and Viola reichenbachiana. The most obvious differences are the narrower flower and more pointed leaves: 

Viola reichenbachiana

And the dark, straight spur behind the flower:

Viola reichenbachiana spur

Both violets were growing on a verge accompanied by Ground Ivy:

Ground Ivy

Bluebells were just starting to open:

And this Dock Leaf Beetle - Gastrophysa viridula - was either touring or lost: they are rarely seen far from Dock leaves.

I spotted my first Ichneumonid of the year. The size suggests that these will be looking for either large flies or small moths:

This flower is Cardamine pratensis, which is the main foodplant of the Orange Tip butterfly, but is also used by the Green-veined White:

The minute moth is Micropteryx calthella, which is associated almost exclusively with Buttercups in my area, but it clearly uses other nectar sources when they are available. I don't expect to see Micropteryx calthella for perhaps another 3 weeks on my patch (the buttercups aren't even in bud yet).

I was delighted to find a new hoverfly species on the same verge. This is Epistrophe eligans, one of the earlier species to emerge:

 Male Epistrophe eligans

Another plant that I only ever see on limestone is the Cuckoo Pint, a most wonderful member of the Arum family:

Cuckoo Pint

No matter where I find Holly, I always find its leaf miner, Phytomyza ilicis. I was always curious that only one species of miner lives in Holly leaves because it seems such a safe place for an insect to live. It turns out that Holly heals very quickly when damaged, and the plant considers the mine to be a wound. Phytomyza ilicis is the only miner that moves quickly enough to keep ahead of the healing process:

Phytomyza ilicis on Holly

Moth flies are a mysterious group of flies that run around on plant leaves like little planes trying to take off. The larvae live in cesspits, drains and compost heaps:

Moth Fly

Lough Erne is a large expanse of water, so I usually expect to find some water-based species.

Alder Fly larvae are aquatic, and I only ever find the adults near rivers, ponds or lakes. The Alder Fly Sialis lutaria has to be one of the least aptly named of all species. It isn't a fly (it has 4 wings and is related to lacewings) and it has no association with Alder:

Alder Fly Sialis lutaria

Talking of aquatic species, I spotted this Coot sitting on her nest:

Coot

A couple of fungi to finish.

Last year I found a rather rare fungal infection - Taphrina crataegi - on Hawthorn. The leaves are only just open, and this bush was already infected:

Taphrina crataegi on Hawthorn

This appears to be the first record for Northern Ireland.

April 23rd is St. George's day, and St. George's mushroom - Tricholoma gambosum - is traditionally found around this date:

St. George's mushroom - Tricholoma gambosum

The spores are minute, around 5 x 3 microns:

Very mixed bag

The 14-spot ladybird is very often overlooked: it's much smaller than the common 7-spot, being roughly the same size as a match head (and the same size as the 10-spot).

My last blog entry showed Taphrina alni, a fungus that alters the growth pattern of Alder cones. The Taphrina family is quite large and appears on different trees, always distorting leaves or cones in order to increase the spore-bearing surface area. As soon as I saw this curled leaf-edge on Hawthorn, Taphrina came to the front of my mind, and a quick look at the references revealed Taphrina crataegi:

No previous Irish records.

This is the time of year to examine the flowers of rushes for the tiny larval cases of the Coleophora micromoths:

The fungal season has certainly arrived. I think I'll visit Ards on Sunday. This is the very common Bolbitius vitellinus:

Staying with fungi, this is the very rare Suillus flavidus which I first recorded for Ireland about 5 years ago. It's a Pine associate, and is never found more than a few metres away from its tree:
It looks rather like a smaller and paler version of Slippery Jack (which can often be found close to it, since that is also a Pine associate). The two main identification features are the red jelly ring:
And the large angular spore tubes:
It would be worth checking your Pine trees to see if you can find it.

This Rosy Rustic came to light:
It's very common, presumably due to its very wide range of larval foodplants.