About 2:30 I got up to Dene Park and tried out the 500 mm as well as the 300 mm on the new monopod/head combiniation - thanks for this to Phil Willcocks, my stalwart friend and supporter.
There seem to be fewer insects to find in some areas - I couldn't see any solitary bees, flower beetles or malachite beetles on the grassy area, although there were good patches of buttercup, hawkweed, heath speedwell and heath (I think) bedstraw in flower. This grassland area I think is rather valuable within the area as a whole, and it is nice when there are good numbers of insects here. However there were some bumble bees, firstly on the clover:
There were also a couple of marmalade hoverflies, Episyrphus balteatus, the first one being rather dark, and the second one much lighter:
and this male hoverfly, which I wasn't sure of, but is Meliscaeva aurocollis according to my use of the marvellous plates in Alan Stubbs' book, and later confirmed from these photos on ispot:
The scutellum is vaguely yellowish, making it a member of the Syrphini. The yellow spots on tergites 3 and 4 sweep forwards towards the middle, making the black bars behind look a bit triangular. The yellow spots on tergite 2 are definitely rounded rather than pointed towards the inner edge, hopefully reducing the possibility of this one being Melangyna cincta.
I walked into the wood, turned left and spent the whole of my available time walking slowly along the path towards Knights Park Wood. There were quite a few bumble bees and some other insects. I saw two examples of Myathropa florea, one of my favourite hoverflies. This is the first sighting, a male, and here you can see the action of the pharynx, seemingly sucking on the anthers first to its left and then to its front. I wonder if it is taking pollen as opposed to nectar? There could be nectaries on the anthers of course.
This is the second sighting. One of the things you can see in these photos is that the legs tend to be coloured differently on one face and the other - most easily picked out when you look across the insect, and are seeing the outside of the near leg and the inside of the far leg for example.
Along the Knights Park path, I saw my first Volucella inflata, at least of 2012.
I posted this on ispot although I was reasonably sure of the ID. Its the first posting of this species on ispot, perhaps because although it is nationally scarce with a very Southern distribution, everyone else is more confident in their identification skills than I am!
I was really very pleased to find this hoverfly, which is confined to heavily wooded areas in the SouthEast. The larvae have been found in sap runs, which the adults seems to like as well. There is said to be a strong association between this species and over-mature trees and/or ancient woodland. This larval habitat is most unlike all the other members of the genus, which demonstrate a complex relationship between their larvae and the nests of social insects.
There seem to be fewer insects to find in some areas - I couldn't see any solitary bees, flower beetles or malachite beetles on the grassy area, although there were good patches of buttercup, hawkweed, heath speedwell and heath (I think) bedstraw in flower. This grassland area I think is rather valuable within the area as a whole, and it is nice when there are good numbers of insects here. However there were some bumble bees, firstly on the clover:
There were also a couple of marmalade hoverflies, Episyrphus balteatus, the first one being rather dark, and the second one much lighter:
and this male hoverfly, which I wasn't sure of, but is Meliscaeva aurocollis according to my use of the marvellous plates in Alan Stubbs' book, and later confirmed from these photos on ispot:
The scutellum is vaguely yellowish, making it a member of the Syrphini. The yellow spots on tergites 3 and 4 sweep forwards towards the middle, making the black bars behind look a bit triangular. The yellow spots on tergite 2 are definitely rounded rather than pointed towards the inner edge, hopefully reducing the possibility of this one being Melangyna cincta.
I walked into the wood, turned left and spent the whole of my available time walking slowly along the path towards Knights Park Wood. There were quite a few bumble bees and some other insects. I saw two examples of Myathropa florea, one of my favourite hoverflies. This is the first sighting, a male, and here you can see the action of the pharynx, seemingly sucking on the anthers first to its left and then to its front. I wonder if it is taking pollen as opposed to nectar? There could be nectaries on the anthers of course.
This is the second sighting. One of the things you can see in these photos is that the legs tend to be coloured differently on one face and the other - most easily picked out when you look across the insect, and are seeing the outside of the near leg and the inside of the far leg for example.
Along the Knights Park path, I saw my first Volucella inflata, at least of 2012.
I posted this on ispot although I was reasonably sure of the ID. Its the first posting of this species on ispot, perhaps because although it is nationally scarce with a very Southern distribution, everyone else is more confident in their identification skills than I am!
I was really very pleased to find this hoverfly, which is confined to heavily wooded areas in the SouthEast. The larvae have been found in sap runs, which the adults seems to like as well. There is said to be a strong association between this species and over-mature trees and/or ancient woodland. This larval habitat is most unlike all the other members of the genus, which demonstrate a complex relationship between their larvae and the nests of social insects.
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