Author Archives: sconzani

Three little shieldbugs

01 Tuesday Aug 2023

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When the sun’s shining (which, admittedly, hasn’t been very often in the last couple of weeks), the patches of bramble and low scrub seem to be full of shieldbugs of various sizes and stages, basking in the welcome warmth. Two I’ve seen recently have been new to me:

230801 bronze mid instar

Although I’ve seen Bronze shieldbugs (Troilus luridus) before, I’ve not seen this particular variation, which is a mid instar, halfway between egg and adult.

230801 Eurygaster testudinaria tortoise final instar

You might remember the lesson I learnt back in July 2022 (Blackberries, yum!) to always check a Blackberry before putting it in my mouth. Well, that held true again recently: I was about to pluck this luscious-looking berry when I noticed its occupant. This little critter is the final instar of the Tortoise shieldbug (Eurygaster testudinaria), a new shieldbug for me.

230801 red-legged shieldbug

And this last bug is not new at all but I liked the way it was posing, and the fact that I was able to get some shots of the lovely speckling on its belly. This is an adult Red-legged shieldbug (Pentatoma rufipes).

Jersey cudweed

30 Sunday Jul 2023

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A year ago, one of my local birding acquaintances, who is also a keen botanist, discovered a small area of Jersey cudweed (Gnaphalium luteoalbum) growing along the edge of the Cardiff Bay walking and cycling trail. Though he quickly reported his find to Cardiff Council in an attempt to protect it, their contractors soon obliterated the plants in a typical ‘kill the weeds’ operation. So, I didn’t get to see this new plant then but I made myself a note to check back in a year’s time, which I did, last week, and was very pleased to see the plants have reappeared.

230730 jersey cudweed (1)

The NatureSpot website notes that Jersey cudweed is likely to have been ‘an ancient introduction’ to Britain that then ‘became almost extinct’ but is now bouncing back (despite the anti-weed brigade!). And, though traditionally a plant of sandy fields and dune slacks, it is now adapting to life as a pavement plant in our towns and cities.

230730 jersey cudweed (2)

Lifer: Goshawk

29 Saturday Jul 2023

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This is probably the worst photo of a Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) you’ll ever see but it’s my photo of a Goshawk, a raptor that’s been my bogey bird ever since I started birding seriously. I’ve had a lot of false sightings – more hope than skilled identification – but, finally, last Wednesday, my Goshawk time had come. As our county recorder and a local birding expert both told me, the key indicators here are its size (I initially thought Buzzard, then realised it wasn’t flying like a Buzzard), the broad bulging shape of the inner wing, the broad hips, the rounded tail and, finally, the heavily dark-streaked belly of a juvenile Goshawk. Although Goshawks don’t bred locally, the juveniles tend to wander quite widely once they fledge so now is a good time to see/look for them.

230729 goshawk

Awkward oviposition

27 Thursday Jul 2023

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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.

230727 southern hawker

Four-footed butterflies

25 Tuesday Jul 2023

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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!

230725 four-footed butterflies

Fly: Nowickia ferox

24 Monday Jul 2023

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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.

230724 Nowickia ferox

Yellow loosestrife

23 Sunday Jul 2023

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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.

230723 yellow loosestrife (1)

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).

230723 yellow loosestrife (2)