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.

Nashenden cycle path

Finally sunny, but now it's windy!

Along the plum hedge there were small patches of a leaf gall. This might have been Eriophyes similis according to a previous ispot posting, so its up for checking.

The picture below shows a close-up of the the pouch galls on the underside of the leaf, not confined to the margins:

By the poplar windbreak the second(?) one along from the kissing gate had a superb fresh Dryad's Saddle, Polyporus squamosus, growing out of the pollard trunk as well as a decayed growth from last year - and the regrowth of the pollard was very weak, unsurprisingly perhaps considering the extent and duration of the fungal attack. Here are two photos of this year's Dryads's Saddle outgrowth, at different magnifications:

It seems to me that pollarding these poplars has not been an unmitigated success - it seems likely to allow disease in, and create weak points at the pollard regrowth.

On the left of the tarmac path going back towards Victoria Road there were new mushrooms, looking a bit like field mushrooms, but perhaps not quite.

Things have certainly moved on, the elder is coming into flower!

On one of the oak trees, a snail had climbed to a height of about 2.5 metres,

I have been checking the stitchwort (Stellaria media) flowers for pollinators, but found absolutely no takers as yet, At last, today, a visitor, a tiny black bee!

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.

Leaf miner on birch

While exploring the area for suitable nightingale habitat for the BTO survey I was over at Hadlow Place in rather cool, breezy and occasionally drizzly conditions. In the avenue of birches between the caravans I came across several leaf miners, all within arms breadth, on the birch leaves. This is a picture of the top surface of one of the leaves showing the mined patch, more or less limited by the midrib and laterally to the main side veins.

One of the mined patches had what looked like a pupal case suspended below the damaged area. When I looked, all the other patches had what looked like a small circular "attachment scar", and I was pretty sure that I was looking at pupal cases, most of which had either dropped off or been removed.

However on looking on the British Leaf Miners website, the best fit was probably Coleophora serratella, which is actually a "cased larva". This became rather clearer when on looking out the specimen from the bottom of the camera case a few days later, the larva took off moving quite quickly, using its head (and front legs?) to move across paper and plastic very effectively, holding the case at about 45 degrees from the horizontal.  This is a picture of the cased larva in situ, again with the case at more or less the same angle. This is the second stage of the larval case. When this larva pupates, it does so in the larval case, but on the upper surface of the leaf, and in May.

In this cropped picture the darker area is the body of the larva, I think. The yellowish brown colour of the case fits with the published description, on the UK moths website. I think it isn't not dark enough to be C. milvipennis, one of the other species found on birch.

Aspen flea beetles

I managed to get a few blurry photos of the tiny metallic beetles on the aspen stand by the Victoria Road entrance to the access trail this evening. I tentatively identified them as Phratora, a genus of leaf beetles, but Christian correctly identified them as Crepidodora species, a genus of flea beetles.

I wonder if the photograph above may be showing a male?

Crepidodera does seem to fit well the longitudinal striae of punctures on the elytra, the orange legs and antennae and the swollen hind femurs adapted for jumping. The host plant and the overall appearance would tend to point me towards Crepidodera aurea perhaps, but I would really need a specimen to get a reasonable ID. 

Work in the Czech Republic indicates that aspen is the preferred host, and that sweeping does catch most beetles in the evening as opposed to at midday - they may be nocturnal. The adults are thought to hibernate in the soil or leaf litter, and emerge in April/May. They then feed and reproduce, and new adults emerge from the soil again in mid summer, causing more damage towards the end of the growing season, or hibernate through until the following year. Males predominated first, then females, then males again. 

The oak trunk turns up trumps

It was just a little bit warmer this afternoon, and there were a few more insects out. There were quite a few things basking and exploring on the trunk of the aspen tree just by the access path, including this noon fly, Mesembrina meridiana. Note the shiny thorax and yellow feet as well as the orange wing patches.

A bit further along there were insects on the hedge parsley as well, starting with this male Epistrophe eligans. I have now seen several of this species around the access trail, as well as my first one at RSPB Tudeley car park at the start of April.

and this is probably Eupeodes luniger, the commonest of a number of very similar species.

Next I found an oak apple type gall, that had developed on the tip of a twig:

and there were a lot of insects on the oak tree trunk - this has finally come up trumps! Most obvious were several common wasps, Vespula vulgaris, wandering over the rough surface.

and here he or she is, highly magnified, disappearing underneath a ledge of bark!

And then his or her head appeared from under the other side of the bark scale:

This photo was taken a little later, and might, or might not, be the same insect.

There were also some small Andrena bees. There were several insects, perhaps not of all the same species. This is a better than usual sideways view of one of the individual bees, a male I assume (all the insects I saw were I think males).  White moustache, whitish hairs under reddish hairs on the thorax, slightly shiny back to the front sections of the abdomen. Silvery orange hairs on the legs, a bit variable. The other pictures show more or less the same features, from different angles.

And here was this rather smart fly, a bit like a blowfly.

and this other familiar fly with an orange abdomen. According to Ophrys this could be Phaonia subventa a common fly, as suggested by its wing venation and colour pattern. How lucky I am to be able to use ispot!

and finally my second sighting of an Eristalis intricarius. Would it be fanciful to think it might be the same individual of a few weeks ago, perhaps having changed colour over the intervening period?

Just shows what a little sunshine can do!