07 Wednesday Jan 2026
Deep-diving in leaf litter has become a favourite pastime when the days are short, the birds aren’t showing themselves, and the insects are few … except in the wet muddy depths of the decaying leaves where so many spend their winters as larvae, and where adult springtails abound. This springtail, Orchesella cincta, which had crawled from the leaf litter on to a metal fence, was a new find for me in December.
05 Monday Jan 2026
Posted in insects
Tags
Anthocoris nemorum, Anthocoris nemorum adult, Anthocoris nemorum nymph, British bugs, Common flower bug
The two ladybird species (Arboreal ladybird and Kidney-spot ladybird) I’ve already blogged about weren’t the only new insects I happened to find at the end of last year. Common flower bug may be its common name but, apart from a tiny red nymph I spotted last summer (pictured here with an aphid, which will give you an idea of how tiny it really was), I’d never seen an adult Anthocoris nemorum until mid December.
The British Bugs website cautions that this is a difficult genus of bugs to identify so, if possible, you need to get clear images of the various key features: reflective forewings, entirely black pronotum, mostly orange-brown legs, etc. Fortunately for me, my little bug didn’t scurry away too quickly, and my photographs were enough to get a positive identification from the national recorder. The adult Anthocoris nemorum bugs can be seen all year round so I’ve been on the look out for more but, given our current chilly weather, I think they’re probably hiding away in the undergrowth, trying not to freeze.
03 Saturday Jan 2026
Posted in insects
As my flat faces south, I’m sheltered from the often strong, always bitterly cold nor’easterlies that blew relentlessly every day for the final week of 2025, and so my window ledge was the perfect spot for a basking Red admiral to soak up the sun’s warmth, although I couldn’t get a clear shot without disturbing it. I think 27 December is by far the latest date in the year I’ve ever seen a butterfly, though those species that overwinter as adults frequently do emerge from their version of hibernation (called diapause) when the temperatures are warm enough.
02 Friday Jan 2026
Who knew I would finish off 2025, an already great year for new bugs, with even more new finds, especially in December? Yesterday I brought you my first sighting of an Arboreal ladybird and, today, here’s my first sighting of a Kidney-spot ladybird (Chilocorus renipustulatus), once again the result of checking the local park railings as I walked past.
I first saw this lovely little ladybird on 14 December, then had a second sighting, remarkably of the same ladybird (I can tell from the shape of its spots) in approximately the same location two days later. At just 5mm in length, the Kidney-spot is one of the smaller ladybirds, and has a black face and body, with a vivid red spot on each of its wing cases. It is usually associated with well-wooded locations, as it feeds on the scale insects that live on the bark of trees.
01 Thursday Jan 2026
Happy New Year, everyone!
Since I bought the book Micro ladybirds of Britain and Ireland: A guide to the smaller species of Coccinellidae (Maria Justamond and David W. Williams, Field Studies Council, 2025) earlier this year, I’ve been hoping to find one of the species listed within its enticing pages. And, on 7 December, I finally did.
I can’t take any credit for actively searching for and finding this little ladybird; my only credit is for realising how great a location my local park railings are after wet and windy weather, which is when I find a diverse range of tiny insects sitting on and tootling along on top of them.
This adorable little creature is my first Arboreal ladybird (Rhyzobius chrysomeloides), a tiny insect between 2.5mm and 3.5mm long, reddish brown in colour with distinctive brown markings on the elytra (wing cases), and usually found on a variety of trees (pines, cypresses), shrubs (Pyracantha, Viburnum, Euonymus) and ivy. It can be confused with another Rhyzobius species, the Meadow ladybird, but I am fortunate to follow and be followed by both the authors of the Micro ladybirds book, so was able to get almost immediate confirmation of my find.
30 Tuesday Dec 2025
Posted in insects
Tags
Clouded yellow, Colias croceus, female Red-veined darter, immature Red-veined darter, Misumena vatia, Scathophaga stercoraria, Sympetrum fonscolombii, yellow crab spider, Yellow dung fly, yellow insects, yellow-colour wildlife
Yellow is such a cheery hue, the colour of so many beautiful wildflowers but also of many of the small creatures that share our world with us, like …
The migrant Clouded yellow butterfly (Colias croceus), which I was lucky enough to see several times in 2025.
The Yellow dung fly (Scathophaga stercoraria) is one of those flies that seems always to be around, often just sitting on a leaf observing its surroundings and the antics of passing humans.
The crab spider Misumena vatia that can change colour to match the flower upon which it sits … or not.
Named for the colour of the male’s attributes but the female/immature Red-veined darter (Sympetrum fonscolombii) is a glorious golden colour.
I would very much have liked to have been able to include Yellow-browed warbler in this selection of yellow-coloured fauna but I managed not to find the one local visitor, despite three times standing staring at the trees where it was meant to be. Oh well, there’s always next year.
29 Monday Dec 2025
Posted in insects
It can be tricky to find a subject for the letter X in this countdown but this year it was made easier when I found a new fly last July (see Fly: Xyphosia miliaria, 31 July). Here is that little cutie.
28 Sunday Dec 2025
Posted in insects
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, Large white, Large white butterfly, Large white larvae, Large white pupae, Marbled white, wasp parasitising Large white pupae
In this 2025 countdown, W is for white, as in white butterflies, specifically Large white and Marbled white butterflies. When I found my first Large white pupae this summer, I had no idea that those finds would also lead to an interesting if rather gory tale of parasitism, of both the Large white larvae and the pupae being prey to parasitic wasps and to those wasps also becoming the prey of another species of parasitic wasp. If you dare, check out my posts: Large whites and parasitism , part 1, 23 June, and Large whites and parasitism, part 2, 24 June.
On a more positive and, for me, absolutely delightful note, this was a fabulous year for Marbled white butterfly sightings, from my first of the year seen during my first mini break in Weymouth (The Marbled white and the Skylark, 21 June); to a day wandering around Leckhampton Hill near Cheltenham, bewitched by the sight of more Marbled white butterflies than I’d ever seen before (An exuberance of Marbled whites, 8 July); and, a couple of days later, seeing even more of these stunning butterflies during a wonderful day Roaming Rodborough Common (11 July). Simply magical!
26 Friday Dec 2025
Posted in insects
Tags
British gall flies, Bulb thistle gall fly, Cirsium vulgare, gall fly on Spear thistle, Spear thistle, thistle gall flies, Urophora stylata
As each of the seven species of Urophora gall flies found in Britain has its own distinctive wing pattern and is mostly plant-species specific, this is one of the few genera of flies to be relatively easy to identify (I write ‘relatively’ as some wing patterns can look similar if you don’t manage to get clear photos, and you’d want to be a good enough botanist to tell which thistle or knapweed species you’re looking at). Fortunately for me, Urophora stylata has a unique wing pattern and almost always uses Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare) as its host plant, so I was able to identify my first flies of this species when I saw them this summer (Urophora stylata gall flies, 2 July).
22 Monday Dec 2025
As I know I’ve stated on this blog many times before, the various species of Oak tree (Quercus species) play host to a huge number of organisms of many types, forms, and colours. These are some I’ve been lucky to see this year: two species of fungus, the Oak mazegill (21 November) and Black bulgur (Fungi: Black bulgar, 24 October); several species of bug that have all featured in this update already (B is for bugs and beetles) but are worth another mention as they spend all or most of their lives on Oak trees: Cyllecoris histrionius, adult and nymph (12 May), Rhabdomiris striatellus (10 June), and Bug: Megacoelum infusum (12 September).
I also managed to find several Common quaker (Orthosia cerasi) caterpillars on a single Oak (included in Cool cats, 2, 5 June); the gorgeous lacewing shown above that has since been verified as Hemerobius micans and is found especially on mature oaks (Two lacewings, 4 September); the folded-over Oak leaf lobes created by a gall midge (Galls: Macrodiplosis pustularis, 2 June); and the stunning little Acorn weevil, shown below, that lives in Oak trees and lays its eggs inside acorns (Weevil: Curculio glandium, 1 August).
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.