Category Archives: insects

257/365 Ivy bees

14 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, insects, nature, plants

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I heard them before I saw them.

190914 ivy bees (7)

I’d been smelling the ivy flowers all day, as I walked one of my local circuits, though Cosmeston along to Lavernock and back to Penarth along the coastal path. But I hadn’t noticed any open flowers until I heard the loud buzzing coming from the ivy ahead of me on the path. It was alive with various species of bee and fly and hoverfly. And then I spotted what I was looking for – the ginger fluff and black-and-yellow-stripes of Ivy bees (Colletes hederae), my first for 2019.

You can find out more about these handsome creatures in my previous blogs here and here.

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254/365 The bramble lovers

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, insects, nature, plants

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190911 red admiral (1)

I think everyone would agree that blackberries, the fruit of the bramble bush, are delicious. I’m not one of those people who risks the almost obligatory scratches to go blackberrying at this time of year – I prefer to leave them to the birds and minibeasts. But, at Cosmeston yesterday, I’d been walking longer than I anticipated and my stomach was rumbling so I thought I’d grab a few to keep me going.

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Well, if looks could kill, I would never have made it home because these Red admiral butterflies were absolutely certain the blackberries belonged to them. And they weren’t going to relent, letting me get my hand really close to them without moving a millimetre. One even flew out and ‘buzzed’ me before re-settling on its chosen fruit. I got the message and left them to their feast.

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253/365 Tachina fera

10 Tuesday Sep 2019

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Flies are fascinating!

This bristle-backed orange-and-black beauty, Tachina fera, is commonly seen in Wales and England any time between May and October. These flies produce two broods over the summer months but their life cycle is perhaps not what you might think. Like almost 300 other fly species in Britain, these are parasitoids – the eggs they lay on plant leaves hatch as larvae that burrow their way inside the bodies of other larvae, the caterpillars of several species of moth, which they then proceed to eat to death. It’s a larvae-eat-larvae world out there, folks.

190910 Tachina fera (1)

251/365 Sericomyia silentis

08 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers

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It looks a bit like a wasp but this black-and-yellow-striped minibeastie is a hoverfly with the rather tongue-twisting name Sericomyia silentis. Perhaps Bog hoverfly would be easier but, in my opinion, its common name doesn’t do this little beauty justice.

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I spent a couple of hours today at Lavernock Nature Reserve, where the Devil’s-bit scabious is looking simply stunning and is attracting myriads of insects. I took lots of butterfly photos but thought to post one of the other little critters today. The Devil’s-bit is usually a lilac colour but some at Lavernock are this subtle shade of pink instead. Its nectar obviously tastes just as good!

250/365 Black and white

07 Saturday Sep 2019

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I know the Large white butterfly is the bane of gardeners who like to grow their own cabbages, cauliflowers and broccoli but you can’t deny how lovely it is – or, rather, she is: the two spots and a dash on the upper forewings mean this is a female. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Large white with such black markings before – she must be newly hatched, which means she may be from a third brood. She was simply perfect!

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247/365 On the menu

04 Wednesday Sep 2019

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Today’s lunchtime snack for this Southern hawker dragonfly had a sting in the tail: it was a wasp. The dragonfly, though, started its meal from the other end, first devouring the head, then removing the wings, before steadily munching its way down the body.

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This was obviously not good news for the wasp but it was good news for me, as this was the first Southern hawker that’s stayed still long enough this year for me to grab some photos.

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246/365 On the scabious

03 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers

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190903 devil's-bit scabious (1)

At this time of year, the delicate lilac tinge of Devil’s-bit scabious casts its imperial purple shadow across the meadows at Cosmeston and at Lavernock. I love it, and I’m not the only one.

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It’s proving extremely popular as a late-summer early-autumn source of nectar for all manner of bees, butterflies and hoverflies. Here are a few I’ve seen in recent days …

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245/365 Bush-basking cricket

02 Monday Sep 2019

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I’ve been back to the field where I saw Friday’s ‘grappling grasshoppers’ to investigate the other interesting insects I noticed. This is one of them, a gloriously ‘armoured’ Dark bush-cricket (Pholidoptera griseoaptera).

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According to the Buglife website, you ‘must creep up on them to see them properly’ but, luckily, I had my zoom lens, plus this creature was probably quite confident in its ability to out-leap me if necessary and was too happy basking in the sunshine to be bothered about me.

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242/365 Grappling grasshoppers

30 Friday Aug 2019

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‘Aw, isn’t that sweet?’ I thought when I spotted this couple of Meadow grasshoppers today. ‘He’s got his arm around her.’

190830 Common green grasshopper (1)

Of course, there was a bit more going on than that and, as I watched, another part of his anatomy swung around her body to make contact with her vital parts. No wonder he’s got a glint in his eye!

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240/365 Brown is beautiful

28 Wednesday Aug 2019

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I am sometimes guilty of overlooking the ordinary but this photo, which I am very pleased with and now have as the desktop image on my laptop, reminds me of how truly lovely is the ‘ordinary’ Meadow brown butterfly. I tend to overlook it in favour of more colourful or unusual species, yet it is a butterfly that continues to grace the local meadows even now, when many of the other butterflies have gone for the year. I am rebuked by its beauty!

190828 meadow brown