28 Friday Jul 2023
Posted in insects
This was my Monday tweet: Critters were hitching rides today! First, Freddy froghopper tickled its way up my left arm.
Then, Jiminy Dark bush cricket started crawling up my leg (bit freaky!) and jumped on to my arm when I pulled back my trouser leg.
Next, Freddy’s cousin Fergus popped on to my right hand.
27 Thursday Jul 2023
Posted in insects
Tags
British dragonflies, British odonata, dragonfly, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, Southern hawker, Southern hawker ovipositing
She was my first Southern hawker dragonfly of the year and she wasn’t making life easy for herself. There must have been a male Southern hawker in the vicinity as this lovely lady had already mated and was busy laying her eggs. However, she picked a very difficult location for ovipositing, underneath the wire netting that secures the wooden edge of the dragonfly pond at Forest Farm Nature Reserve. This did mean she was almost a captive subject for my lens, though the wire obscured her quite a bit, and the location wasn’t exactly easily accessible for her – I heard her wings rubbing against the wire as she entered. Her body was also squashed, making it a little difficult for her to manipulate herself in to the best position to place her eggs. I took a few photos and left her to her awkward endeavours.
26 Wednesday Jul 2023
Posted in birds
How delightful is this juvenile Reed warbler?
It was watching its parent’s every move, waiting for the next tasty titbit to be delivered.
25 Tuesday Jul 2023
Posted in insects
Tags
British butterflies, brush-footed butterflies, butterfly, four-footed butterflies, Nymphalidae, Red Admiral, vestigial forelegs
I learn something new every single day and this is something so blindingly obvious that I can’t believe it hasn’t occurred to me before now. I was reading the entry about the Nymphalidae family of butterflies in my copy of Peter Eeles’s Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies when I came across this
the forelegs in both sexes are vestigial and useless for walking, and this family is sometimes referred to as the four-footed butterflies. The brush-like appearance of the forelegs has also resulted in the other common name for this family – the brush-footed butterflies.
Of course, I’d noticed that many species of butterfly sit on four legs (the skippers, for example, as well as most of the browns and the fritillaries, and the Red admiral pictured below) but I hadn’t realised that their forelegs are essentially useless for locomotion. And, indeed, according to an entry I’ve just read on Ray Cannon’s Nature Notes website, in some species of butterfly those forelegs have, during their long evolution, been adapted to function as sensory organs. Butterflies continue to amaze me!
24 Monday Jul 2023
Posted in insects
Tags
Apamea monoglypha, British flies, Dark arches, endoparasitoid fly, fly parasite of moth, Nowickia ferox
I found a new fly! Okay, you may not be as excited about that as I am, but I’m always excited when I find something new, and it’s a bonus when I’m able to identify it quite easily because of its distinctive markings. So, meet Nowickia ferox, a bristly brute, with a less-than-appealing endoparasitoid life cycle – its larvae grow inside and eat the larvae of the Dark Arches moth (Apamea monoglypha), emerging only when ready to pupate.
23 Sunday Jul 2023
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
With their roots in the water along the edge of a local canal, these Yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris) plants were so exuberant and lush I initially thought they were some other species. They had obviously found the damp niche that suited them best.
Though I would never advocate the use of herbal medicine (just being cautious about matters I don’t understand or have knowledge of), Yellow loosestrife did, apparently, have a large number of traditional uses as a medicinal plant, from treating diarrhoea and haemorrhaging to cleaning wounds and being used as a mouthwash. And the First Nature website reports on other common uses:
Yellow Loosestrife tied around the necks of oxen was reputed to keep irritating flies away from them. In the distant past these and several other kinds of ‘loosestrife’ plants were also used to get rid of infestations of flies in houses. The plants were dried and burned indoors, and toxins in the smoke drove out the flies (and no doubt also any human occupants).
22 Saturday Jul 2023
Last Saturday’s weather was rather different to today’s constant rain – there was rain, but interspersed with warmer, sunny spells, and I managed to coincide my visit to local Dingle Park with one of those. This was my third time standing staring at the park’s Wych elms, and it was definitely a case of third time lucky.
Previously, the White-letter hairstreaks had stayed high in the tree but, this time, one little beauty came down lower, wandering slowly across the leaves, all the while with its tongue out, licking up the tasty honey dew.
Initially, it was quite distant but my patience paid off as it flitted from one cluster of leaves to another until it was really quite close. White-letter magic!
21 Friday Jul 2023
First I saw one distantly in the Oak trees opposite Lavernock Nature Reserve, and I was glad.
Then I saw one very close in the Oak trees at Casehill Woodland (as it flitted right on to the leaves in front of me), and I was overjoyed.
They’re Purple hairstreaks, of course, and they are beautiful, and I was very lucky.
20 Thursday Jul 2023
Posted in birds
I timed yesterday’s arrival at the second hide at Forest Farm Nature Reserve perfectly – some birders sit patiently in the hide for hours waiting for a Kingfisher to fly in and perch on the strategically placed stick.
And, in fact, I was doubly lucky as I later had two Kingfishers streak past as I walked along the canal path. They are the most gorgeous birds!
19 Wednesday Jul 2023
Posted in insects
By sheer coincidence, on the very morning I got the email notification that I had correctly identified my first Graphopsocus cruciatus species of barkfly, found on 4 July at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, I went out and found two more of the same species. And it was particularly nice to find one that was sitting next to its clutch of eggs, kept secure beneath a net of silken threads.
These are tiny flies that I never even knew existed until late 2021 (A Barkfly, 24 November). Many are quite common but you need to turn over leaves to spot them lingering underneath – or, at least, that’s where I find them. I’m sure they spend time on tree trunks too, hence the name. You can read more about them on the National Barkfly Recording Scheme website, where there is an excellent gallery of photos that makes identification much easier.
earthstar 
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