Category Archives: insects

81/366 Number 3!

21 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by in insects, nature, spring

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Yesterday’s walk around Cardiff Bay didn’t only bring nice birds, it also produced my second butterfly species for the year, a Small tortoiseshell. Unfortunately, the wind blew it away so quickly, twice, that I didn’t manage a photo. But I did get a couple of shots of today’s third species, this lovely Peacock. And I also saw number four, my first Brimstone, a male that was so intent on flying back and forth along the footpath trying to find a female that I only got a blurry shot of it. In these troubled times, it makes my heart sing to see the butterflies emerging again.

200321 Peacock

71/366 A Spanish fritillary

11 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by in insects, nature

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

I’ve never purposefully gone butterflying anywhere in Europe but I have taken photos if I’ve seen interesting butterflies – or any other critters – on my very occasional visits. And this is one such, taken in the botanical gardens in Madrid in June 2014. I believe this is a Cardinal fritillary (Argynnis pandora), and, given the prominent scent brands on its upper wings, I can confidently say it is a male.

200311 cardinal fritillary (2)

According to the UK Butterflies website, the Cardinal, which they call the Mediterranean fritillary, has twice been seen in Britain: near Tintagel in Cornwall in August 1911 and in Lulworth, Dorset in August 1969, though the website also notes ‘This species is considered a very rare immigrant that is, undoubtedly, mistaken for a Silver-washed Fritillary and is therefore under-recorded.’

200311 cardinal fritillary (1)

62/366 A flying start

02 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in insects, nature, spring, wildflowers

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

A little bit of sunshine and a sheltered spot, plus a few blooming wildflowers – in this case, dandelions and Alexanders, alongside a south Wales coastal road – and out came the flying critters: solitary bees a’buzzing, various species of flies a’flying and hoverflies a’hovering. Spring is off to a flying start!

200302 flying critters (1)


200302 flying critters (4)

57/366 WWW : Colombian butterflies

26 Wednesday Feb 2020

Posted by in insects, nature

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

These gorgeous butterflies were in the botanical gardens, the Jardín Botánico, in the Colombian city of Medellin, a treasure trove of beautiful flowers, lush plantings, and exotic creatures.

Owl (Caligo illioneus) : this is such a lovely butterfly and it’s easy to see how it got its common name, with those enormous eye-like markings on its lower wings. Presumably, those eyes are meant to scare away any potential predators.

200226 Monarch

Monarch (Danaus plexippus) : I’m sure everyone will recognise this beautiful creature – it’s probably the world’s most recognisable butterfly, and most people know of its mass migrations in North America. I know of the Monarch, as it’s also found in New Zealand, where it’s considered a native because it self-established, a remarkable feat when you consider how far New Zealand is from the Americas.

200226 Rusty-tipped page

Rusty-tipped page (Siproeta epaphus) : It took a while to find (through googling) the name of this butterfly. It’s a pretty little thing – if you click on the link, you can see photos that are rather better than mine.

55/366 Three mini-beasties

24 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by in insects, nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

During yesterday’s brief interlude of sunshine, when I was out searching for wildflowers, I happened across these three little mini-beasts – I’m sure there’d be a lot more out and about if we just had a little more of that precious sunshine.

200224 Marmelade hoverfly

The tiny critter above is a Marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus), and the two below are, I think, Yellow dung flies (Scathophaga stercoraria). I think I can safely say there will soon be more Yellow dung flies flitting around.

200224 Yellow dung flies

53/366 A new leafmine

22 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in insects, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

I was a woman on a mission today, and these are what I was looking for. They are the leafmines of the larvae of the moth Ectoedemia heringella, found on Evergreen Oak.

200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (1)

You’ve probably never heard of this moth and neither had I, until yesterday, when I read a tweet by George Tordoff, Senior Moth Ecologist with Butterfly Conservation here in Wales, that he had found its leafmines on an oak at Barry Island. His find was only the third record for the county of Glamorgan – the first two were found by County Moth Recorder Dave Slade, in Cardiff’s Bute Park. It made sense that the mines might also be found in locations between Cardiff and Barry, so today I went looking and found them on every Evergreen oak in Penarth’s Windsor Gardens. And my fellow Penarthian, Gareth, also went looking today and found several mines on the trees at nearby St Mary’s Well Bay. Success!

According to the UK Moths website, Ectoedemia heringella only arrived in Britain (in Greater London) from Europe in 1996 and has slowly been spreading out from there. The adult moths don’t appear until mid summer, and I may never see one, but at least now our records can help track their spread across the country.

200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (4)

46/366 Sunbathing

15 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in insects, nature, winter

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

Obviously, these photos were not taken today, as Storm Dennis is currently blasting the British Isles – though, in truth, here in south Wales we are not getting quite as much rain as I expected, nor are we being battered as severely as we were by the fiercely gusting winds that accompanied last weekend’s Storm Ciara, for which I am extremely grateful.

200215 common green shieldbug (1)

My photos of this Common green shieldbug (Palomena prasina) were taken a week ago, on a warm (for the time of year) sunny day. And, as I have just read in a tweet by SEWBReC, our local biodiversity records centre, that ‘Now is a good time of year to spot shieldbugs sunbathing on (rare!) sunny days’, I thought I would make this little sunbather my critter of the day.

200215 common green shieldbug (2)

37/366 My first hoverfly larva

06 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in insects, nature

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

When I first saw this creature, I thought it might be a butterfly or moth larva but I was wrong – nothing new there!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Thanks to a Twitter pal, I now know it’s a hoverfly larva and, with some excellent help from an entomologist who specialises in flies, I also now know it’s one of the Platycheirus family of hoverflies but not which of their 25 British species.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Apparently, little is known about the larvae of some species of hoverflies: their larvae have not yet been fully examined or described, so you really need to rear a dormant larva through to adulthood to be sure. Not knowing that, I left this one in the woodland where I saw it, but next time …

31/366 Empty pincushions

31 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in insects, nature, plants

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Robin’s pincushions are the amazing gall structures created on Dog roses by the larvae of Diplolepis rosae, the Bedeguar gall wasp.

200131 Robins pincushions (1)

I’ve seen the bright red galls many times during the summer months but I’ve not looked for them in the winter, so it was interesting today to find these and to see the very obvious holes where the adult wasps have hatched out. If it hadn’t been raining, I would have broken one off and brought it home for a closer look inside … maybe next week.

200131 Robins pincushions (2)