Just a slow walk with Monty today between 2:30 and 4:30, through the housing estate to Marshall Gardens and across to the River Bourne to the West via Hope Meadow, then back South down to Mill Close and East back to School Lane and home. I should have taken some landscape shots, but they will have to wait until another day.
As I walked from Marshall Gardens to the Paddock alongside the horses grazing in Williams Field (amongst all the ragwort!) I saw my first hoverfly of the day, a gorgeous possible Leucozona, a species I've never seen before, but as I was still in the housing estate I didn't have my camera to hand, so no confirmation and no pictures! Botheration, but never mind!
The wheat field must be so close to harvest now, with the ears rattling in the wind. The land is dry and there is very little moving apart from Greenbottles on the path, present for obvious reasons. The first signs of nature apart from the occasional weed such as hedge mustard came when we reached the first ditch, trickling down the side of the valley from Spring House. A small patch of Figwort and Greater Willowherb in the bottom of the ditch was full of bees, wasps and flies, pollinating away like mad. All the activity made the surrounding wheat look a bit lifeless in comparison.
A median? wasp feeding from a figwort Scrophularia nodosa flower
Well on the way back and coming up the sheltered holloway of Mill Close from Hope Mill on a sunny sheltered bank of ivy, bramble and other flowers I suddenly spotted a bee flying in a fly-like fashion - golly, yes it really was the bumblebee mimic I have been hoping to spot for quite a while now, the hoverfly Eristalis tenax, the drone fly. Focussing in on it, the obvious fly features of the eyes, antennae and the V-shape of its wings confimed that certainly wasn't the bumblebee it superfically remembers. How nice to be able to recognise an insect for the first time from its photographs in books and on the web!
As we came up along the School Lane path approaching the back of the house, I saw a small thin hover on the leaves at about waist height, and got a few shots of it from different angles as it seemed quite relaxed - Syritta pipiens another new species for me (or have I seen it once before?), said to be very common, but a little beauty. I couldn't see any orange bar on the hind femur as described in Stubbs & Falk, but this is a variable character anyway. This male fitted most characteristics quite well, and was really nice to see, and exciting to identify!
The swollen hind femurs are more obvious in the photo below taken more from the side.
And home at last! What a nice thing to find Syritta so close to the house!
As I walked from Marshall Gardens to the Paddock alongside the horses grazing in Williams Field (amongst all the ragwort!) I saw my first hoverfly of the day, a gorgeous possible Leucozona, a species I've never seen before, but as I was still in the housing estate I didn't have my camera to hand, so no confirmation and no pictures! Botheration, but never mind!
The wheat field must be so close to harvest now, with the ears rattling in the wind. The land is dry and there is very little moving apart from Greenbottles on the path, present for obvious reasons. The first signs of nature apart from the occasional weed such as hedge mustard came when we reached the first ditch, trickling down the side of the valley from Spring House. A small patch of Figwort and Greater Willowherb in the bottom of the ditch was full of bees, wasps and flies, pollinating away like mad. All the activity made the surrounding wheat look a bit lifeless in comparison.
A median? wasp feeding from a figwort Scrophularia nodosa flower
Well on the way back and coming up the sheltered holloway of Mill Close from Hope Mill on a sunny sheltered bank of ivy, bramble and other flowers I suddenly spotted a bee flying in a fly-like fashion - golly, yes it really was the bumblebee mimic I have been hoping to spot for quite a while now, the hoverfly Eristalis tenax, the drone fly. Focussing in on it, the obvious fly features of the eyes, antennae and the V-shape of its wings confimed that certainly wasn't the bumblebee it superfically remembers. How nice to be able to recognise an insect for the first time from its photographs in books and on the web!
As we came up along the School Lane path approaching the back of the house, I saw a small thin hover on the leaves at about waist height, and got a few shots of it from different angles as it seemed quite relaxed - Syritta pipiens another new species for me (or have I seen it once before?), said to be very common, but a little beauty. I couldn't see any orange bar on the hind femur as described in Stubbs & Falk, but this is a variable character anyway. This male fitted most characteristics quite well, and was really nice to see, and exciting to identify!
The swollen hind femurs are more obvious in the photo below taken more from the side.
And home at last! What a nice thing to find Syritta so close to the house!
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