A warm evening by the Red Pond

Out of the wind in the clearing by the Red Pond.

In the shelter of the clearing by the Red Pond it was possible to take some photos of some of the flies and bees on the still leaves.

Nomada flava.

Here is a study of what looks to me like a male Nomada flava or Nomada panzeri. It is a male because of the greenish eyes and the 13 segment antennae. However it is a very dark individual on the top of the thorax and the head, particularly where I think I should be seeing two orange spots on the post-scutellum, it does look very dark indeed. I don't think ultimately this finally prevents this bee being either N. flava or N. panzeri, but it is confusing. The other two bees seen today up at Dene Park were definitely redder on their thoracic tops. They were also much paler orange on the antennae than this individual whose antennae are really quite dark brown. I do wonder if there is any variation in age or another factor.

However having looked at Jeremy Early's Flickr pages the darkness of the thorax and the antennae doesn't seem that unusual - in males. Having looked at this page, it is the females that have the reddish striped thoraxes, with the more orange antennae. Now everything makes sense, the two insects seen up at Dene Park are females if I look carefully at their antennae.

So I think the most likely species is N. flava, which parasitises Andrena species such as Andrena carontonica. Here is the male I saw in the shelter by the Red Pond, on leaves at about chest height.

It is unlikely to be N. leucophthalma because that is a rarer heathland species.

It is unlikely to be N. sigmata, because the yellow bars are interrupted centrally to some extent by reddish central markings, and this should not be so in N. sigmata. That species is very rare and also there are no yellow markings on the propodeum in these pictures which N. sigmata should have.

On the picture above and the one below I think you can see the palere undersaide to the scape, an important point in the key separating out N. flava/panzeri from N. ruficornis. This is very useful as I have not been able to check if the jaw was forked as in N. ruficornis.

For further information on Nomada flava here is a link to a BWARS picture of a Nomada flava male. http://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=bee/apidae/nomada-flava

Here is a link to the wildlife of Leicester and Rutland site, with quite a few nice profiles of Nomada species listed. http://www.naturespot.org.uk/taxonomy/term/19397

And here is a link to Nottinghamshire's Eakring site, http://www.eakringbirds.com/eakringbirds2/insectinfocusnomadaflava.htm.

This is Steven Early's Flickr page - its extremely useful for variations as well as confirmation. https://www.flickr.com/photos/63075200@N07/sets/72157633441342695/

This is a useful Danish site, with some staged specimens. http://www.rutkies.de/bienen-8/index.html

A quick stop at Dene Park in mid afternoon.

In this picture you can just see the sharp keel between the antennae bases characteristic of all Nomada species except N. obtusifrons. 

A bit of warmth on the Access Trail

Nomadas zipping around the base of trees on MT 133, various Andrena around to tantalise, Epistrophe eligans resting up on the sunlit leaves of the hedgerow trees, Eristalis pertinax hovering at about head height in sunlit glades, the sound of a cuckoo calling in the middle distance, robins, chiffchaffs, chaffinches, goldfinches and blackcaps singing around me, while the blackthorn is at last in full bloom. Pretty fantastic!

Epistrophe eligans female quietly resting on a sunny hawthorn leaf:

Another one along MT 133:

Bees at Trosley

While out with the British Butterfly Conservation Society Kent group at Trosley Country Park, I saw a lot of mining bees flying fast and low over the sparse grass of several areas of the chalk downland. Most of these were probably Andrena flavipes, the Yellow Legged Mining Bee. 

However this male appears to have a slightly reddish tail, and I think might possible be a male Andrena chrysosceles 

This I am fairly sure must be Nomada fucata, the cuckoo bee of Andrena flavipes.

Dene Park escapes the thunderstorm!

It was very hot today, with gathering thunderstorms which just missed Hadlow and Dene Park. It was lovely in the late afternoon/early evening up in the wood, with excellent birdsong from song thrushes, blackbirds and robins in particular. There were quite a few insects around, including this moth welcoming me to the car park. I am sure this is a very common one:

Also in the car park grassland was the "Black-Hearted Flower Beetle" Cantharis rustica.

It is about time I looked in a bit more detail at birch trees, the genus Betula. They are so reliant on seed distribution that the new seed heads are out, before the old ones are completely finished!

So, next, something entirely new to me, a Birch Leaf Roller. This was very difficult to tie down, as initially it looked as though it ought to be due to a beetle larva, but now I think it must be due to a Lepidopteran larva, by counting the number of legs!

I was now in the first woodland ride and came across another Nomada bee species, dark and orange!

Deeper in the wood, feeding on the nectar from the cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, I found this odd looking fly. There is a tiny, tiny beetle with it! This is the largest of the UK species of Dance Flies, Empis tessellata, as identified by Ophrys on ispot. ID characteristics include the striped hairy thorax, brownish wings and black femora. It is probably quite a common fly, but likely to be significantly under-recorded generally in the UK.

As always there were the difficult hoverflies, usually the small and black ones. This ought to be a female Platycheirus albimanus, quite a moderate size, with grey spots just visible in the second photo, at a wild guess!

This next one is much easier because of the triangular yellow spots on tergite 2, Melangyna cincta.

Pseudopanthera macularia, the Speckled Yellow moth, exactly where it ought to be, on a fairly open woodland ride

A mega visit to Whetsted Gravel Pits

After I had deserted Monty for my walk along the Nashenden cycle trail, I took him for a walk along to the Whetsted Gravel Pits whist it was still reasonably sunny. First thing I found was a Nursery Web Spider, Pisaura mirabilis, ID'd by Chris Brooks on ispot.

Then there was what looked like a small Andrena with a largely reddish abdomen, which was again ID'd on ispot by Chris Brooks and then Stuart Roberts to be a good match to Andrena labiata, the Girdled Mining Bee, a slightly scarce Andrena that shouldn't really be found on the Low Weald at all. If it turns out to be this, then I shall be very pleased, although a little puzzled as to why it strayed into my territory! A very blurry picture I am afraid, I will have to try a lot harder.

Now, is this, or is it not, the same species? There is a clear dark centre along the top of the abdomen in these two pictures, and it seems to me to be unlikely.

My first Nomad Bee of the day was also found in the open on the herbaceous vegetation, and looked a lot like one of the species of the Nomada flava/panzeri species pair, with the likelihood likely to be on flava from its fairly yellow colouration. This was a female from its 12-segmented antennae, so in theory its ID should be distinguishable between flava and panzeri.

By the hedge below the grassy area were a lot of St Mark's Fly, Bibio marci, flying clumsily as usual. They look like something out of Lord of the Rings, rather scary.

There were quite a few Large Red Damselflies, Pyrrhosoma nymphula, on the hedges above the farm ditches, and I was quite pleased with one of the photos, of an immature female, forma typica I think.

Down by the pillbox there were quite a few Nomad bees, although I only got a rather poor photo of one of them. I think the first photo was perhaps a male Nomada flava, although I couldn't actually see any red stripes on the back of the thorax. This one here is also quite dark on the thorax, and the second insect is if anything even darker. I am therefore pretty sure that the second one at least is not flava. The back of the thorax is very dark (without any orange-red stripes), the tegulae are mid-brown rather than orangey-brown, there are definitely no orange spots on the back of the thorax, and there is little red on the dark abdominal bands.

Naturally wherever there are Nomad bees, there will be their hosts, mining bees such as Andrena species.

There were several around the pillbox, such as this one,

There was also a Dock Bug, the first of two seen today. Several have also been put up on ispot, indicating their abundance at this time of year.

A nice spot was the red and black hopper, Cercopis vulnerata, which is almost instantly recognizable, as well as being very obvious.

Walking across the meadow I was interested to see the number of what I think was Mouse-ear Chickweed, Cerastium vulgatum, plants in flower amongst the grass.

Before I reached the gravel pits, as I entered the last field there was an interesting looking umbellifer that was neither Cow Parsley, nor Common Hogweed. It was only half a metre high and flowering well, strongly bracted with thick umbel or even simple pedicel stalks. I was pretty stumped as I looked through the flower books, not even Francis Rose could rescue me! Anyway, here it is:

I also caught a solitary been on it quite well, From the reddish tail hairs coupled with very little foxy colour to the thorax, and quite obvious abdominal hair stripes, I rather think it might be Andrena chrysosceles, as opposed to Andrena haemorrhoa, the other "red-tailed" Andrena. I put it up on ispot, with my guess, but got no answers, so retired, slightly disappointed I must say!

At the gravel pits themselves there was quite a lot of leaf damage on the sallows, with a tiny beetle running quite quickly over the leaves. Quite elongate, with a reddish-bronze thorax and contrasting green grooved elytra, about 2 mm long, it would most likely have been

There was also a male scorpion fly, belonging to the family Mecoptera, perhaps Panorpa communis. The inflated genitalia, looking a bit like a scorpion's sting, indicates it is a male. They tend to eat dead insects, perhaps taken from spiders webs. Nuptial gifts are common.

One of the nicer plants to see in flower today was my first Bugle, Ajuga reptans, in 2012. On Sunday Mat had emphasised the importance of this plant as a nectar source for woodland butterflies.

This large midge-like insect was found on a fence-post by the edge of the shallow gravel pit:

And this is an alder-fly, Sialis, also on a fence-post.

Nomads on the access trail

There was a little bit of sunshine at the end of the afternoon, and the bees and flies made the most of it!

However to start off with there was a nice 7-spot ladybird.

However the first real excitement were a number of nomad flies, the first of which I found in the darkness of the shaw between the pond and the junction on an elm leaf. The bumps on the elm leaf are almost certainly the elm leaf gall Aceria ulmicola (=ulmi).

In addition there was the start of some elm leaf galling, rather like the leaves I saw the other day beyond Hadlow Place Farmhouse.

Then there were several Nomada flying around in the sun by the oak tree at the start of Great Court. I think these two pictures are of the same insect, which is perhaps most likely to be Nomada flava, although it is impossible to be sure:

Of course where there are kleptoparasitic nomad bees, there need to be hosts, and sure enough I found several Andrena solitary mining bees here and further along the plum hedge. the first two pictures are Andrena carantonica (scotica), as ID'd by Eucera:

There were also a few smaller hoverflies. This one is probably a Platycheirus, and it could perhaps be the commonest species, Platycheirus albimanus. 

I think this is a different hoverfly species, although it is difficult to see the pattern on the top of the abdomen. I was pleased with these photos.