Category Archives: nature

Torymidae parasitic wasps

28 Friday Aug 2026

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This stunning little creature was another find from my favourite fleabane field last Sunday. I’m fairly sure she’s one of the Torymidae, a large and diverse family of parasitic wasps that are characterised by the metallic sheen of their bodies, the long ovipositors of the females, and the large size of their hind coxae (the first segment of their legs). They are also very small, ranging between 1 and 7mm in length.

As I watched, this particular wasp probed the Common fleabane seed head, searching with her ovipositor for gall-fly larvae to parasitise. On Monday, at a different location, I found another female, pictured in the two images below, who was also probing fleabane flowers.

From what I’ve been reading, the many Torymus species use different forms of parasitism but the majority are ‘ectoparasitic idiobionts of various concealed hosts’, meaning they first paralyse or kill their hosts to prevent them escaping, then lay their eggs on the outside of the host’s body, so that, once the wasp’s eggs hatch, they consume their host from the outside, rather than living within it. From a human perspective, it’s a very unpleasant practice but parasitism is quite common in the insect world.

In this particular case, I assume the hosts are the larvae of gall-causing fruitfly species like Myopites inulaedyssentericae that I blogged about last week, and I had hoped that might narrow down the possibilities for the Torymus species I’ve found, but I haven’t yet managed to put an exact name to them.

Juvenile Black tern

27 Thursday Aug 2026

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It was first spotted on Monday morning, 24 August, and, fortunately, remained for at least a couple of days (I haven’t heard whether the bird is still there today), long enough for me to catch the train to north Cardiff’s Llanishen Reservoir Tuesday morning for a look.

The bird? A stunning little juvenile Black tern (Chlidonias niger), a bird that only rarely breeds in the UK and so is mostly seen during Spring and Autumn passage. In the 11 years I’ve lived here, we’ve been lucky to have these terns stop off in the Cardiff area at least twice before, at Lamby Lake in September 2022, and at this same reservoir in late September 2024.

Black terns are small; the RSPB website gives their length as 22 – 24cm and their wingspan as 64 – 68cm. I’ve included a couple of photos so you can see this bird’s size relative to the Carrion crow that harassed it as it was feeding over the water, and to a Black-headed gull, as the tern sat preening on the muddy edge of the reservoir (the mud exposed due to a lack of water, caused by this summer’s drought).

My camera was not good enough to capture clear, close photos of the Black tern in flight – a mesmerising sight! – as the camera has neither the zoom range nor the sophisticated focussing software of more expensive models. Fortunately, this Black tern was alternating its time between 15 minutes flying, plucking miniscule invertebrates from the surface of the water, and 10 minutes sitting on the mud right in front of the visitor centre, so I was able to get good views of the bird preening, and took a little video clip, which I’ve loaded on YouTube. Enjoy!

On Common fleabane: bugs and crickets

21 Friday Aug 2026

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The subjects of today’s blog about those insects managing to survive this over-heated summer by feeding on Drought-tolerant Common fleabane are bugs, and two examples of one cricket species, because I managed to find both male and female. Let’s begin with bugs …

Two Lucerne bugs (Adelphocoris lineolatus), pretty little things but both trying to hide from me.

I actually saw quite a few Common froghoppers (Philaenus spumarius), and in several of their wonderful variety of brown-and-cream pattern variations.

Clad in its brown armour-like skin and looking ready for a fight, a Dock bug (Coreus marginatus).

An adult Hairy shieldbug (Dolycoris baccarum). (I’ve found quite a lot of nymphs of this species recently and feel they deserve their own blog – you’ll see why soon.)

And now for the crickets. These are Long-winged cone-heads (Conocephalus fuscus), a type of bush-cricket. I’ve just realised that this species has only featured on this blog once before, in July 2020, when I included a photo of a nymph in the post 202/366 More misc minis. The first photo shows a female, though, unfortunately, her impressive ovipositor is mostly obscured; the second image is the male, with a much smaller appendage.

Fruitfly: Myopites inulaedyssentericae

18 Tuesday Aug 2026

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This was the second new species I found last Sunday when walking around a local wildflower field, staring intently at all the Common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica). Despite all that staring, I’m amazed I noticed these, as they’re tiny. But, having said that, I was checking out fleabane on today’s walk and found another of these at a different location – and that really did amaze me as there are only three records of these in the Welsh national biodiversity database. Perhaps their tiny size means they’re easily overlooked.

As the blog name indicates, these are fruitflies, of the species Myopites inulaedyssentericae, which is a bit of a mouthful so perhaps you’d prefer their common name of Fleabane gall-fly, so called because their larvae create galls inside Common fleabane flowers. They can be identified by the pattern on their wings, and are on the wing during July and August.

Only two bugs

10 Monday Aug 2026

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One of the highlights of last year’s many hours spent staring at vegetation and leaf-fossicking was the number of bugs and beetles I found, many of them new sightings for me. You may have noticed that this year my blog posts have hardly included any insects, which is because I’m just not seeing many. To give you an example, this past weekend I spent about four hours, totally focused on looking for bugs and beetles. The two shieldbugs shown here are all I found, the Parent bug (Elasmucha grisea) on Saturday, the Common green shieldbug (Palomena prasina) yesterday.

As with so many other things, I’m beginning to think this is due to our over-heated summer. It may be that some insects are unable to survive the heat, or perhaps the plants they rely on for food are either not providing their usual levels of nourishment or have died in the dry conditions. It’s also possible that those insects that have survived the heat and drought are being heavily predated by hungry birds, and other predators, that are struggling to find enough sustenance. Living in Wales I never thought I’d be saying this (and I hope I’m not jinxing the coming winter’s weather) but we really need rain!

A summer of Clouded yellows

09 Sunday Aug 2026

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Since I spotted my first Clouded yellow butterfly in mid June I’ve seen many more – more, in fact, than I’ve ever seen before.

During a wander around Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on 19 July I saw 8, and I didn’t walk every possible path so I’m sure there were more than that total.

Five days later, on 24 July, at the same location, I counted 11.

And, during almost every one of my daily walks since then, both at Cosmeston and at other locations, I’ve seen at least 1 Clouded yellow.

Their golden presence in our local fields might well be the only positive thing about this summer of record-breaking temperatures, continuing heatwaves (our fifth of the year is forecast for this coming week), and now, officially, drought conditions.

Migrant hawkers are in flight

04 Tuesday Aug 2026

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It was 23 July and I’d taken the train to north Cardiff for a morning wandering around Forest Farm Nature Reserve. I was hoping for dragons along the Glamorgan Canal but thought I’d take a look around the orchard pond and fields before heading that way. There were quite a few blue-coloured damselflies around the pond, a female Emperor that was egg-laying amongst the vegetation, and a couple of Common darters – all nice to see but nothing to get the heart pumping, and a walk around the orchard and nearby field didn’t produce a single dragon. I decided to head for the canal but, as I was passing the old farm buildings (now used by Cardiff Park rangers and a couple of conservation organisations), I decided to detour along a path behind those buildings. And I’m so glad I did because I had only just turned on to this path when a large dragon flew up. I immediately froze and, fortunately, for me, it settled again on a nearby plant. My first Migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta) of the year!

Since that day I’ve seen at least ten more, though only one stopped long enough for a distant photo, only good for recording purposes. Last Saturday, five of these gorgeous dragons were flying together over a single back garden just a short walk from where I live – they can often be seen in groups like this, constantly flying back and forth. And later that same day I had another three patrolling a path along the edge of a Cardiff park – I watched for perhaps 15 minutes but none stopped flying and it was too hot to linger longer.

Cymus glandicolor nymphs

13 Monday Jul 2026

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Back in May 2024 I wrote about my difficulties in identifying a New bug: Cymus glandicolor.

In the intervening two years, I’ve rechecked the seed heads of other Pendulous sedge plants, and the same plant on which I first found this bug, many times but have never seen other populations or, indeed, any single specimens of this ground bug, until a week or so ago.

On the same plant where I first spotted them, I located lots of these Cymus glandicolor nymphs. As they are about the same size as the sedge seeds and a very similar colour, they are almost inconspicuous but, after I’d noticed the first one, I soon realised they were quite numerous, just difficult to pick out.

While handling the seed heads, one of the little nymphs climbed on to my hand, giving me the opportunity for an even closer look at it. At about 3mm in length, they really are quite tiny, and easily overlooked, which is presumably why there are not a lot of records of this species on iRecord, though the British Bugs website states they are widespread in England and Wales.

Galls: Cecidophyes nudus

07 Tuesday Jul 2026

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As a wise person once said (I’m looking at you, Theresa Green), ‘there’s never nothing to see’. So, during the latest record-breaking heatwave, on a day when I had limited my walk to an hour in the very early morning, I still somehow managed to find a new-to-me species as I walked through my nearest park.

The plant is Geum urbanum, also known as Wood avens and Herb Bennet, and those are galls on its leaves. Now, I’m not sure I’d said this before but I love galls. And the reason I love them is that, for the most part, they are plant specific, which makes them easy to identify, which means I don’t have to spend ages searching through books or pages on the internet to try to put a name to what I’ve found. A quick google of ‘galls on Geum urbanum UK’ and Bob’s your uncle: these galls are caused by the miniscule mite Cecidophyes nudus.

Gall-causing mites are so tiny that most people, including me, have never seen them so I was particularly pleased to find the Dorset Nature website, which has a photo of one of these. A quick check of iRecord showed that these galls are not very common but, as I suspect even the most diligent observers rarely stare at leaves as much as I do, the galls are very probably under-recorded.

Weymouth trip birding roundup

28 Thursday May 2026

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The main reason for my trip to Weymouth and Portland from 7 to 14 May was to celebrate a BIG birthday and, for me, there’s no better way to celebrate than to spend time in Nature, watching the birds, butterflies and other creatures that make my heart sing. The fact that I was able to add eight new bird species to my 2026 list was a welcome bonus but certainly not a necessity – I get just as much pleasure from seeing the ‘ordinary’ birds (the Skylarks and Stonechats and the Pipits feeding their families) as I do from seeing those I don’t get to spot on my home turf. And, in fact, I didn’t even see one of the biggest birding highlights of this trip, a Bittern that was booming from deep in the reed beds during two of my visits to RSPB Lodmoor. I didn’t manage to get many great photos of the birds I saw but here are a few …

One of the artificial islands used for nesting by Black-headed gulls and Common terns (and, it seems, the occasional Canada goose). The air around these little islands is always alive with birds coming and going, and the noise is often raucous.

Though Reed and Sedge warblers and Reed buntings sang constantly from the reed beds, they were rarely visible. I got a lucky fleeting glimpse of this Sedge warbler.

Each time I went to Lodmoor, I was treated to Swallows like this one, as well as House and Sand martins zipping about overhead, and also coming down to gather mud and bits of vegetation to help build their nests.

On several days, at both Lodmoor and Radipole, I watched Marsh harriers flying back and forth, sometimes soaring, often just skimming the tops of the reeds as they hunted for food.

From the coastal path above Portland’s west cliffs, I spotted Guillemots and Razorbills, several gull species and Gannets, as well as these Kittiwakes, an adult on the right and a juvenile below left.

If you’re interested, the birds that were new sightings for me were Common tern, Bar-tailed godwit, Sanderling, Little tern, Whimbrel, Kittiwake, Great white egret, and that booming Bittern.