Goldfinches

I suppose the continuing (relatively) warm weather is responsible for the apparent lack of migrant fieldfares and redwings – though there’s plenty of time left for cold weather! Meanwhile most of the resident species seem to be thriving, and it’s a bumper year for goldfinches: I often see flocks of 40 or more. (If the video link doesn’t work, click through to Flickr and view full-screen HD)

Happy New Year!

Hawthorn feast

This time last year, cold weather brought redwings and fieldfares to the local hedgerows. No sign of these migrants here yet, but the huge crops of haws and sloes are there to be enjoyed – mostly by blackbirds, greenfinches and chaffinches.

Snail night

It’s been raining all evening, and the snails are having a great time:

Ladybirds and leafhoppers

In June, I listed the 10 native ladybird species I’ve found locally. Here’s another, the Larch ladybird (Aphidecta obliterata):
Meanwhile, it’s been a good season for leafhoppers – maybe because of the warm weather:
Zygina flammigera, colourful and quite common

Another Zygina sp., possibly Zygina angusta:

a newcomer to the UK, Acericerus heydenii

and Zyginella pulchra, a leafhopper that so far has been seen on Sycamore. This one’s on Field Maple:

And here’s a snail – much maligned, with amazing variety of colour and patterns – can’t see why people don’t like them:

Spider time

At this time of year the garden is full of spiders, feasting on crane-flies and other seasonal goodies:

This green spider, Nigma walckenaeri, has become common round here in the last few years. It spins a web across a leaf, and waits for lunch to attempt a landing:

Meanwhile a rarely-seen leafhopper, Ledra Aurita – the Horned Leafhopper – turned up. It’s very hard to spot in its usual habitat (lichen-covered branches, usually oak).

Summer highlights

It’s been a while since I posted anything here – I’ve been away on and off, and haven’t taken a lot of photos, but here are a few things I hadn’t seen here before:

Brown Argus butterfly: I found what I though was a mating pair of Common Blues at Butts Piece:

but I discovered later that they were the closely-related Brown Argus (which I had never seen before). No sign of Brown Argus on the next visit, but a few days later I found one:

Cinnabar Moth caterpillars
There has been ragwort around here for as long as I can remember. It’s toxic to cattle and horses, especially if it gets into hay used as winter feed, but it is a food plant for many insects including the colourful Cinnabar Moth (which I gather is sometimes used to control ragwort because of its voracious appetite for the plant). Cinnabar Moth caterpillars are unmistakable:

Emerging ladybird
I read somewhere that all ladybirds are yellow when they emerge from their pupae. This one’s probably a Harlequin:

Leafcutter bees
I’ve seen leafcutter bees and their signature cutouts from rose and maple leaves, but this is the closest I’ve got to one:

Bush-cricket colony?

It looks as though the Roesel’s bush-crickets are colonising the long grass round the woodland at Butts Piece (if they haven’t already). These two were too busy to worry about the camera:

Four ringlets and a rabbit

It’s Big Butterfly Count time, so I thought I’d see what was flying at Butts Piece. Dark skies and recent showers didn’t help, and there was no sign of the Common Blues or Marbled Whites that were there recently, though there were large numbers of Gatekeepers and Ringlets. Here are some of the butterflies there in the last few days:

This year’s Scarlet Tigers

Nature’s timing is just right for these moths: in March, the caterpillars munched the comfrey into oblivion. Now it’s regrown and is flowering, the moths are emerging to feed on the nectar.

Shieldbug success

In May I found a patch of Green Shieldbug eggs and hoped to see them hatch, only to find them parasitised by a tiny wasp. These Hawthorn Shieldbugs have been luckier, surviving to moult and move on: