Thunder and lightning at Dene Park

The insect of the day for me was my first Cheilosia illustrata, spotted on the flowers of the hogweed (the larval foodplant) along the track on the way in to Dene Park.


This is a furry bumble bee mimic with a wing cloud on the outer part of the wing. There is a whitish band on the front half of abdomen, followed by a black band and then a reddish tail. The inner cross vein R-M meets the discal cell before its middle. There was no loop in the R4/5 wing vein. In side view there was a clear knob on the light dusted face (you can believe the face is black beneath).

There were a lot of Eristalis around, mainly Eristalis tenax I think. It was interesting to see the golden hairs around the abdomen

You can also see this golden fuzz from the front and there are also the long golden bristles around the rear of the scutellum, and the apparent reddish-gold on the legs visible from some angles in close-up, as opposed to the overall completely blackish colour normally seen by the naked eye.

In the excellent piece of grassland by the car park, there was a nice female Meliscaeva cinctella (I think) on the hawkbit, and I've now seen a couple of these in the past few days. Note the lack of a black stripe down to the antennae on the frons, and its small size.

Evening on the Access Trail

I was late out out, today, after five, but pleasantly surprised to still find some bees and flies on the brambles and hogweed along the trail, despite the dull evening conditions.

There were hive bees, common carder bees, white/buff tailed bumblebees, greenbottles, Episyrphus balteatus, Sphaerophoria scripta, Melanostoma scalare, and some Syrphus hoverflies.

The Syrphus all looked initially to be Syrphus vitripennis, with the hind femora at least two thirds dark, as opposed to ribesii, in which they are more yellow Syrphus ribesii as the hind femora in this first one I looked at are yellow for at least the apical third or 33% (the yellow length measured in this picture as 44% on the ruler) To be Syrphus vitripennis the yellow should be less than 25%. However it does seem as though Syrphus are definitely not separatable into species and it is better just to leave this as Syrphus spp. They do all seem to be males however!

This Syrphus on the white flower looks more like Syrphus vitripennis however, with 33% or less visible as yellow, although I couldn't see the whole of the femur to be sure.

The last Syrphus, by the sloe clump near the end of MT 133, was again more like Syrphus ribesii with the yellow looking like 41% of the femur.

I saw a couple of male Sphaerophoria scripta, recognized by the wings being shorter than the abdomen, but only pictured one.

There was also this apparently silver-spotted version of Meliscaeva auricollis, only starting to colour up on the fifth tergite.

This is Melanostoma scalare, with its unique abdominal pattern quite nicely visible through the wings, easier I think when taken towards the light, or in poor light, rather than struggling with reflection off the wings.

I nearly mistook this for an Episyrphus from a distance, but it is in fact Meliscaeva cinctella,again quite a common hoverfly.

There were quite a few Common Carder bees, Bombus pascuorum around, and I did get a few pictures.

There was also an Oedemera beetle, possibly a female Oedemera nobilis without the swollen thighs of the male. The elytra in this genus are rarely if ever properly "closed":

To Meadows Pond on the Tower Walk

This is a short walk crossing to the South side of the village, around the Castle Gardens and along the shady path by the side of the Ha-Ha, and out by the pond created a few years ago in Meadows field just to the East of the River Bourne.

The brambles and roses along the path by the back of Castle Gardens yielded honeybees and Episyrphus balteatus - apparently ubiquitous in my limited experience. Along the shady walk sheltered by the leylandii cypresses along the side of Castle Gardens there were high flying small hoverflies that looked in silhouette like more Episyrphus. Here there are elder, brambles, ivy and nettles, with some wall lettuce and black horehound to be found. It's when this path opens out, unsheltered by the leylandii, and it runs between the maize field and the brambles rambling over the wall of the Ha-Ha, with brambles, roses, and hawkweeds, sow-thistles, hogweed, mallows, ragwort and cut-leaved geranium along a wide grassy path, that a greater diversity of insects can usually be found.

I did manage to spot a Syrphus on what I thought was a hawkbit. The difficulty of telling the Syrphus species apart with only photographs is very clear. It is very difficult to get a clear shot of the rear femora, and without specimens you can't get the confirmatory microscopic details. However this does look like either ribesii or vitripennis, according to the key and the other information in Stubbs and Falk. This was the only Syrphus I saw today, but I think there are probably quite a few individuals around, possibly of several different species.

I found an interesting Eristalis on the ragwort by the end of the maize nearest the Ha-Ha of the Castle Gardens, and in the end keyed it out as Eristalis arbustorum. It was quite small, the face was dusted white overall, there were white hairs on the side of the thorax below the wings, the tibiae were about half dark, half pale, the rear metatarsus was swollen - at least from some angles, the stigma was extended past the tip of the Sc vein, without any obvious wing shading as seen from directly above, even though I think this could be seen from the angle. I couldn't see any hairs, long or short, on the aristae of the antennae. This was a particularly dark individual, with no obvious orange patches on the tergites, but there are internet pictures of similarly coloured individuals, and it was agreed by Ian Andrews on ispot.

On the single hogweed plant out in flower, there were quite a few insects including 2-3 male and female Syritta pipiens. Although rather blurry photographs, enough could be seen of the overall shape, swollen rear thighs, leg colour patterns, tergite spotting and dusty thoracic sides to give me confidence in my identifications. On the hogweed there were also a lot of small dark beetles and black ants.

Quickly around Coed Fron Wyllt in the evening

I popped out at about 6 pm to do a second walk today, and it was lovely in the cooler air of the wood. Monty had been fairly exhausted immediately after his mid-day jaunt in the quarry, but was not showing any ill-effects by the time we left for the evening. Because it was late in the day we concentrated mainly on the plants.

The collage of wild flowers has changed again since the other week, and (starting with the pinks) the Ragged Robin, Lychnis flos-cuculi is now out in quite reasonable numbers in some patches along the tracks to the Southeast of the river.

and this is it's close relative the commoner Red Campion, Silene dioica.

The foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea, were looking fantastic, with various bumblebees seen from a distance but not identified.

I only found one Common Spotted Orchid, Dactylorrhiza fuchsii, but I believe there are more, all along the valley down through Lady Bagot's Drive.

The thistles, which with their crowded heads should be Marsh Thistles, Cirsium palustre, were not attracting any insects yet as far as I could see:

This lovely bank of flowers includes Herb Robert, Geranium robertianum, and Hedge Bedstraw, Galium mollugo, backed by Creeping Buttercup and Bramble foliage.

And the honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, is now out:

Now moving on to the yellows, I think this is the Common Birds-Foot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus, although it's a bit tall.

Below are the flowers of nipplewort, Lapsana communis, occasional plants of which were found in the wood.

and this is a Common Rockrose, Helianthemum nummularium, on the cut in the rock face, which may be relevant to the soil pH.

The St John's Wort plants are now starting to come out

Although its spring yellow flowers are long gone, it is still very easy to recognise the leaves of coltsfoot, Tussilago farfara, with its covering of down almost completely lost now.

And remembering the older plants, here is one of the larger mosses, Polytricum commune, with its straw coloured calyptrae.

There were very few insects about but I did find this rather poorly coloured longhorn beetle, Rutpela maculata, still on the hogweed flowers:

There was also the common alder leaf gall, caused by the gall mite Eriophyes laevis. They are scattered over the upper surface of the leaf; on the underside, there are only small inconspicuous openings. Leaves can be much more densely galled than this, sometimes to the extent that the leaves became quite distorted.

and this snail, which I cannot identify for sure, but it could perhaps be the brown lipped snail Cepaea nemoralis:

The woods themselves are absolutely delightful. According to the North Wales Trust, this wood has one of the highest known densities of dormice discovered so far. They are trying out high level nesting pipes here, based on the Corris model developed by Jack Grasse, located up to 10 m high in the trees.

Coed Fron Wyllt between the rain showers.

There were quite amazing collections of wild flowers in patches along the path, hedge woundwort, buttercup, herb robert, yellow pimpernel, red campion, St Johns wort, foxglove and speedwell all combine to create a fantastic collage of colour.

The occasional hoverfly can be found, and here is one of my absolute favourites, Helophilus pendulus! I do wonder why it was named pendulus. It is the only species of the genus that I have seen so far, is said to be the commonest, and I have usually found it fairly near water, as discussed in Stubbs and Falk. Sites include Broadview Gardens by the Elgar pond, Haysden Country Park by the River Medway, Dene Park with its occasional shady ponds, and now here in these woods just by the stream. S & F do say it wanders away from water a bit. Its larvae are usually found in the mud of ponds, farm drains, or soaking wet manure or sawdust. Within sight of this adult was a farm barn with cattle in it, so absolutely everything fits in this case!

The insect above is a male. In Helophilus both sexes have a gap between the eyes, while in the female the eyes diverge evenly, and in the male the rear half of the eyes are more or less parallel, and there is a clear division between the front and rear halves of the frons. I think I can see both these features and that should mean that this is a male!

The basal yellow section of the right rear tibia that is visible looks as though it extends roughly a little bit more than half way along the limb, and that should mean that it is H. pendulus as opposed to H. hybridus in which the yellow should extend less than one third of the way along. However there are some insects which are intermediate! Reassuringly the abdominal pattern also has a complete black band the full width of the rear of tergite two, splitting tergite two from three, fitting pendulus, while hybridus has the yellow side patches connecting across and linking tergites two and three.

Features which get the choice as far as the pendulus/hybridus pair include the black face stripe, the narrow yellow back edges to tergite two and particularly tergite three, and the male facial characteristics quoted above.

The right hand wing appears to have sustained some damage, and to have a kink cutting across the R4+5 loop, particularly visible in the upper of these two photos.