03 Saturday Apr 2021
Tags
One of the many definitions of the word hole is ‘an animal’s burrow’, and some of hole’s many synonyms are cavity, chamber, cave, cleft, cranny, den, lair, nest, shelter, and tunnel. These photos show a few such places, possibly but not definitely created and occupied by Great spotted woodpeckers, rabbits, voles and/or shrews, bees, and beetles. What amazes me is how perfectly engineered so many of them are.
31 Wednesday Mar 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, butterflying, Large white butterfly, Small tortoiseshell, Small white butterfly
‘Stay near me – do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!’
These are the opening lines of William Wordsworth’s 1802 poem ‘To a Butterfly’, lines I can easily identify with, thoughts I also utter often – though not in Wordsworth’s exact words, of course.
Fortunately, the butterflies occasionally, and unknowingly, heed my pleas and stay long enough for me to take photographs, like these recent new sightings for 2021, the beautiful Large and Small whites, and Small tortoiseshell.
26 Friday Mar 2021
Tags
British fungi, British insects, Daldinia concentrica, King Alfred's Cakes, springtail, woodlouse
King Alfred’s been back in the kitchen but a Great British Bake Off winner he is not. His cakes, otherwise known as Daldinia concentrica, even when you can peek inside their blackened exteriors, never look palatable. With these I found in the woods this week though, Alfred has certainly produced some creative shapes.
And, even if inedible, they are sturdy enough to provide a home to tiny creatures, in this case a woodlouse and a springtail.
22 Monday Mar 2021
At this time of year the ornamental cherry tree outside my flat is awash with blossom, of a warm white shade flushed with the merest tinge of pink.
It looks glorious, especially on sunny days, and, at a time when there are few flowers in bloom, it’s a magnet for newly emerging, hungry insects of the flying kind.
Yesterday, as well as a few Honey bees, I spotted half a dozen, all Buff-tailed, bumblebees doddering from one flower to the next, before lurching haphazardly to the next branch, dislodging the delicate petals as they passed.
19 Friday Mar 2021
Posted in insects
First, I read that there are around 4000 species of beetle in Britain. But I remained optimistic and figured I might be able to narrow it down by location – it was bumbling along on the ground, so perhaps it was a ground beetle (the Carabidae). Next, I read that there are 374 species of ground beetle. But I continued to be optimistic and thought I might be able to narrow it down by shape or colour. Then, I looked through the gallery of photos on the Coleoptera website and also on the Nature Spot website, and realised that these creatures are a whole lot more difficult to identify than I first thought. So, here’s a beetle, a rather gorgeous beetle with a metallic green sheen, but a beetle none-the-less.
18 Thursday Mar 2021
Tags
7-spot ladybird, British ladybirds, Coccinella septempunctata, Seven-spot ladybird, Spring colour
A tiny spot of red caught my eye, and then, close by, another – my first ladybirds of the year, both Seven-spot ladybirds (Coccinella septempunctata).
If you’re lucky, you may have had these little beauties hibernating in your garden shed but, in this case, these two are countryside dwellers so have probably spent the winter inside a plant stem, or perhaps tucked securely within the dense branches of ivy, or maybe in a deep crack in tree bark. A few sunny days and warmer overnight temperatures will have triggered their emergence from hibernation, and produced another spring treat for me to enjoy!
17 Wednesday Mar 2021
Though yesterday’s weren’t my first butterfly sightings of the year (I’ve seen two different species fly rapidly past in recent weeks but haven’t managed photos), they were simply splendid. A walk around Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park produced five (!) Brimstones and, though most were patrolling their chosen territories at speed, I waited patiently for one to stop for a rest and managed to get close enough to get some good images. I can’t tell you how truly wonderful it feels to be sharing my air space with butterflies again. They are such magical creatures!
10 Wednesday Mar 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
Andrena bees, bee parasites, British bees, British insects, male Stylops emerging from bee, parasitic relationships, Stylops
These photos had the entomologists on Twitter getting excited when I first posted them Monday evening. Though I didn’t realise it at the time, what I was seeing was a parasite emerging from the back of the bee’s body. The parasite is a Stylops, a species that has a rather gruesome but incredibly fascinating lifestyle.
The female Stylops lives permanently in the body of its host, often, as here, one of the Andrena species of bee. Her head and thorax poke out of the bee’s abdomen so she can release male-attracting pheromones and mate. I managed to photograph these and blogged about them in April 2020 (Wild word: stylopised). When the resulting larvae emerge, they pop out onto flowers the bee is feeding on, so they can then hitch a ride with another bee, burrow into it, and start the process all over again.
Some of the Stylops larvae are male, with wings. They do not have mouth parts for feeding as their only purpose is to find a female and mate. It is one of those emerging winged males that can be seen in my photos and, apparently, this process is rarely seen. Unfortunately, someone came walking along the path where I was watching this bee and I had to move to one side to allow them to pass at a safe distance. When I looked back, the bee had disappeared.
If you want to read more about the Stylops, there’s an interesting article on the Royal Entomological Society website – the male Stylops has the distinction of appearing as the emblem on the society’s official seal and logo.
06 Saturday Mar 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
British hoverflies, Episyrphus balteatus, Eristalis tenax, hoverfly, Meliscaeva auricollis, spring hoverflies
These three are often the first hoverflies seen in the springtime as they all over-winter as adults, so it’s no surprise that I’ve now seen these three species as well my first for 2021, the Melanostoma scalare I blogged about 10 days ago (First hoverfly, 25 February). We’ll need a bit more sun and warmer temperatures before more hoverflies are out and about though.
Episyrphus balteatus
Eristalis tenax
Meliscaeva auricollis
01 Monday Mar 2021
Tags
Agromyzidae, Chromatomyia scolopendri, Hart's tongue, leaf mine on Hart's tongue, leaf miners, leaf mines, leaf-mining fly larvae
Another week, another leaf mine – in fact, lots of mines in the glossy, lush leaves of Hart’s-tongue ferns (Asplenium scolopendrium).
I have actually blogged about these before (Leaf mine in Hart’s-tongue, January 2018) but those finds were made in Somerset and I’m now finding lots of these mines in my local area in south Wales. The mines are made by the larvae of the fly Chromatomyia scolopendri, one of the Agromyzidae family of flies, and their long, winding gallery mines are unmistakeable.
You can read more about these flies on the newly launched Agromyzidae Recording Scheme website, and, if you’re interested in finding out which leaf mines to look out for and when, the scheme has a page that lists which species are most commonly recorded each month. Can you find Chromatomyia scolopendri mines in your area?
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.