New camera and other stuffs

So I bought myself a Canon 70D. The EOS 350 had served me well for nearly 10 years, so it was certainly time for an upgrade.

The 70D has far too many features to discuss here, but it has a few that I am already finding indispensable. Firstly, it has a revolutionary new focussing system, which enables it to more or less instantly decide which direction (nearer or further) to go when focussing. The 350 was fast, but the 70D is near-instant, which is crucial when photographing insects. A fully-articulated rear screen enables me to take shots above my head or down at ground level. 20 megapixels means I don't have to get so close, so depth of field can be better. It can operate over wi-fi, so uploading images means less wear and tear on memory card transfers from camera to computer and back again. Video mode means I can tag images with a piece of voice annotation.

Here are a few shots:

This is the 10mm. micromoth Celypha lacunana, which is out in very large numbers on my local hedgerow:

The micromoth Celypha lacunana

 And this is the strange-looking hoverfly Xylota segnis:

The hoverfly Xylota segnis

The first time I saw it running quickly over leaves, I thought it was a wasp of some kind with those long, grasshopper-like rear legs.

Formica fusca is the ant which is most numerous in my heathy area, and they can often be seen climbing Willow bushes to 'milk' their aphids. This one was behaving very strangely, cropping the fine hairs from a Bramble leaf. I have absolutely no idea why it was doing that.

Formica fusca, an ant

Orchids started flowering last week, so now is the time to see them at their best.

Common Spotted Orchid, with a touch of Heath Spotted

'Cleaner' Common Spotted Orchid

I also took a record shot of the white version of Bush Vetch, which is still slowly expanding its range along a ditch:

White variant of Bush Vetch

 It's still early days for the camera, but I think the results are shaping up well for the future.

'foreign' trip

I'm just back from a few days in my native Scotland, and it was very interesting to compare the wildlife in my old stamping ground with that on my local patch.

This Comma flew in front of me as I walked along Haddington Place in Edinburgh:

(Yes, my camera is to hand at all times).

I had just emerged from MacNaughton's bookshop where I bought a pristine copy of the wonderful "Things a Lady Would Like to Know": a cookbook from 1875 (although it's inscribed 1874). Here's a shot of the cover:

It has recipes for complete dinner menus for each day of the year, plus special banquets for each month, so perhaps 2000 recipes in all. Anyway.....

The place where I spent my teenage years has a very interesting set of hoverflies: perhaps more species close together than I would find at home. This is Myathropa florea, which needs older broad-leaf trees for its larvae:

Leucozona glaucia is our only hoverfly with blue patches on the abdomen:

On my patch, this would be Syrphus ribesii, but I wouldn't like to take this identification any closer than Syrphus sp. without some more detailed examination:
A decent shot of Xylota segnis. These run very quickly over leaves, picking up bits of pollen as they move:

And Cheilosia illustrata, which I have only ever found on umbellifers. This was on Hogweed:

The fungal season is about to start, and I found quite a few specimens of Sweet Vernal Grass which had been infected with the rather toxic Ergot:

This is the very common puffball Lycoperdon perlatum:

Back home, a couple of new moths came to light. First the rather handsome Rosy Minor - Mesoligia literosa, which feeds on various grasses:

And a pristine specimen of the Foxglove Pug, which feeds on......Foxgloves:

Hoverflies and legs

Volucella bombylans is another bumblebee mimic. This is the white-tailed variety: Volucella bombylans var. plumata, which is reckoned to be a good mimic of Bombus hortorum and B. jonellus. Pity I don't have either of those on my patch.

The larvae of V. bombylans feed on detritus in the nests of wasps and bumblebees, which leads me to wonder just how important the mimicry is, since I have plenty of these hoverflies, but neither of the similar bumblebees.

This grasshopper gives me a nice lead-in to another two hoverflies. It's the Common Green Grasshopper - Omocestus viridulus:

The first of the hoverflies is Xylota segnis, which runs very quickly over leaves looking for pollen grains. The first time I saw it, it took me quite a while to realise that this fast-running, grasshopper-legged creature was, indeed, a hoverfly:

The second set of legs belongs to the hoverfly Syritta pipiens, which has inflated rear thighs that resemble pollen baskets. As a bee mimic, that would be fine, but there is no bee of a comparable size (about 8 mm. long) that collects pollen in baskets; most of the smaller bees gather pollen in abdominal or thoracic hair.

Small stuff

I knew this micromoth was new to me, but I had to get back to the web before I could name it. Micropterix aruncella. 3mm long! What a handsome beast.



Another micro, but a much larger one, at 12mm long. Timothy Tortrix - Aphelia paleana. I found a new larva of this the other night, so it's clearly around in all of its stages.


One of the Snipe Flies - Chrysopilus cristatus.



The hoverfly Xylota segnis is highly atypical of hoverflies: it runs very quickly over leaves, brushing its head from side to side, gathering pollen. Those legs are made for jumping - bizarre!

Nice shadow.