Odd Bits

I haven't updated on the garden mothing lately - mainly cause there's not been too much of interest and even less worth photographing. The most notable thing though was a full tick for me back on the 22nd that I forgot to mention, a Bedelia somnulentella. It was a spanking individual when I potted and scrutinised it, but less than pristine by the time I'd fannied about with it for half an hour trying to get a shot. I ended up with something just about identifiable but not worthy of posting here. To make amends I finally got around to looking for its mines on bindweed today whilst out and about on the ATB. Found a few vacated mines on Hedge Bindweed pretty easily - windows in the leaf with frass (and other detritus) stuck in silk on the underside.

Otherwise not much to get excited about, but there were a couple of Old Ladies in the traps last night - one was already a bit knackered, so I shot the other one.

This evening I nipped over to Jubilee Park again - only avian interest was c15 Swifts feeding low over the pool with a handful of Swallows also knocking about. All the Canada Geese vacated en masse and no sign of anything tagging along with them. The only things wading along the edge of the pool were a Pied Wag and big brown cow.

Only other thing of interest was a hoverfly I found roosting, which happily was identifiable on the basis of the yellow sides to the thorax and the wing versus abdomen length:

Male Sphaerophoria scripta

Many birders and naturalists of a certain age remember fondly the innumerable times in your youth when out in the local parks or countryside that you'd happen upon some illustrated reading material deposited by the Porn Fairy. Nowadays such finds are a thing of the past, and even worse if you do find some abandoned literature it's a fecking Argos catalogue.

Not left by the Porn Fairy, but actually left by some moronic twat who doesn't know what a bin is