Arboreal ladybird

01 Thursday Jan 2026

Tags

Arboreal ladybird, British ladybirds, ladybird, Rhyzobius chrysomeloides

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.

Y is for Yellow

30 Tuesday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ Leave a comment

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.

X is for Xyphosia miliaria

29 Monday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British flies, fly, Xyphosia miliaria

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.

W is for whites

28 Sunday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ Leave a comment

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!

U is for Urophora stylata

26 Friday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ Leave a comment

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).

Q is for Quercus

22 Monday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in fungi, insects, trees

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bugs on Oak trees, fungi on Oak tree, insects on Oak trees, Oak, Quercus species

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).

O is for Odonata

20 Saturday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Black darter, British dragonflies, British odonata, dragonfly, Odonata, Scarce chaser

As I mentioned earlier in this end-of-year countdown, 2025 has been a very good year for odonata finds. As well as the Norfolk hawker, the Common hawker and the Keeled skimmer I’ve already included in this countdown, I was privileged this year to see my first ever Scarce chaser (Lifer: Scarce chaser, 19 June) and only my second ever sighting of Black darters (Black darter, 23 August) (below).

Somewhat unexpectedly, I also saw a Scarce chaser on a subsequent occasion, a couple of weeks after my first sightings of them in Weymouth, this time in Tiddesley Wood near Pershore in Worcestershire, when I used Cheltenham as my base to explore several places in the surrounding area. That slightly kinky individual is the one pictured below.

M is for mite

18 Thursday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, plants

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British galls, Colomerus vitis, gall mites, gall-causing mites, galls, galls on grape leaves, galls on grapevines

When preparing this series of countdown blog posts, I revisited the two locations where I found Grape mites (Galls on grapevines, 26 July) earlier this year, hoping to take a new photo to accompany this post. Unfortunately, I’d left it too late, as the grape vines were both bare, their leaves dead and already dropped off or blown from their branches on to the ground below. My find of this miniscule mite was one of my ‘first for Wales’ sightings in 2025 and I’m quite surprised to note that no other sightings have yet been recorded though, on checking iRecord, sightings do look quite sparse across Britain so far. I’ve already made a diary note to check for the mites (Colomerus vitis) again next year, and will be on the lookout for their telltale signs in other locations.

L is for lepidopteran lifers

17 Wednesday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British butterflies, British skippers, butterfly, Isle of Portland butterflies, Lulworth skipper, Plebejus argus, Silver-studded blue, summer butterflies, Thymelicus acteon, Tout Quarry

The 11th of June was a red letter day for Lepidoptera! I was enjoying a mini break In the Dorset seaside town of Weymouth and had caught the bus to the Isle of Portland to look for butterflies in the unique habitat of Portland’s former stone quarries. I was specifically hoping to see my first Lulworth skippers, and I did (Lifer: Lulworth skipper, 16 June).

I was not expecting to see a second lepidopteran lifer that day, but I did, my first ever Silver-studded blue butterflies (Lifer: Silver-studded blue, 14 June). It was the stuff my dreams are made of!

K is for Keeled skimmers

16 Tuesday Dec 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British dragonflies, dragonfly, Keeled skimmer, male Keeled skimmers, Orthetrum coerulescens

Dragonflies feature in three of my countdown blog posts this year as I’ve been fortunate to have seen several new species, and others that I had only seen once previously. Keeled skimmers, blogged about on 26 August, were one of the latter species, and what a delight it was to watch them skimming back and forth around the ponds at Maesteg, a new site for me that I plan to revisit next year.