Trosley again

Looking for the Ectemnius I still failed to get very good pictures, but they were improved on yesterday by getting closer! A quick sequence in which the wasp came close enough to be photographable, but I was a bit rushed and didn't do a very good job.

However one of the insects I saw today definitely had a golden-haired clypeus, as seen below. It was also possible to see the long hairs on the mesonotum, so it could have been Ectemnius cavifrons.

From Ardea:

The easiest to use is Yeo and Corbet Solitary Wasps, Naturalist Handbook 3, it's also fairly cheap - try Amazon or other. For female ID you need to get a clear view of the shape of the clypeus (basically upper lip) which you can only see well from the underside of the head, against the light. The clypeal hairs obscure the shape from the front. WIth your photos, long Mesonotal hairs, golden clypeal hairs = either lapidaries, ruficornis (scarce), cavifrons and sexcinctus.

The large black beetle laying eggs in the dead horsechestnut trunk might have been the Large Black Longhorn, Stictoleptura scutellata, I wait to have it confirmed or denied on iSpot.

Trosley Country Park

Trosley is a superb example of complex woodland structure, with trees of a multitude of species, ages and form. There are upright monoliths, fallen monsters (some with daughter trees springing up along their fallen lengths), tall lanky uprights, coppiced stools, seedlings, etc.

Below the Visitor Centre there are two Horse-chestnut monoliths, literally on their last legs. There are excellent fungal brackets, apparently of at least two different species, and also great opportunities for wood-attacking wasps such as Ectemnius.

The female above (sting fairly clearly seen at the rear in some of the other photos, and no knobbly antennae as in most males) might be Ectemnius cavifrons, one of the commoner and larger species. There appeared to be no yellow on the abdominal stergae, a supporting feature separating this species from E. sexcinctus in Yeo and Corbet. 

To the West of Hartlake Bridge

Quite a few White butterflies around today, and if the picture below has been correctly identified, they were all Small Whites, Pieris rapae.

There were also several Comma butterflies (Polygonia c-album) along the path - I was particularly glad to see these as it seemed to me that the numbers of Commas are a bit down, in contrast to the recovery of the Small Tortoiseshells. I really cannot tell if these are the "lighter underneath and brighter on top" Hutchinsonii form that should produce a second 2014 generation in early autumn this year, as the sunlight and shade so affect our perceptions.

A little further on I found a tiny insect on a Mayweed flower that I thought might be a solitary bee. On looking at the photos on the computer screen it turned out to be Microdynerus exilis a solitary "potter" wasp that uses old beetle holes in decaying wood and whose larvae are fed on weevil larvae. It is nationally scarce, Southern in distribution, and only added to the British list in 1937.

Here is a link to a Flickr page showing the sort of hole this potter wasp might possibly be using.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pennymetal/14499206175/in/pool-wild_bees

On the Bramble flowers there was a well posed Episyrphus balteatus, a very common hoverfly indeed this year.

As usual there were a lot of Banded Demoiselles, Calopteryx splendens, around the river area.

and this is a close-up of the female on a Bristly Oxtongue, Helminthotheca echioides, inflorescence: