Trapped

This morning was a bit overcast and dull. Apparently. I missed most of it whilst catching some Zs after a dose of pain-induced insomnia the previous night. I've got miracle-meds now, Naproxen sorts anything out fast, even your stomach lining .....

From late morning until about an hour ago I've been busy doing nothing more than loitering in the garden. Again. Immediately when I stepped out the back door and before I was ready, a Red Kite came so low over the garden I could almost see its eye colour. Maybe I should bung some chicken and offal on the shed roof. Although the sun came out and it's been warm this afternoon, it's not been quite a busy as yesterday. Yet somehow I've accrued enough for more than one post, maybe three - should help if/when there is a lull in the conditions.

I've had a pathetically small and ineffective pit-fall trap situated in a shady border for a couple of weeks. So far it had caught an ant, a slug and a woodlouse - none of which got looked at with any scrutiny. However at last it caught a beetle, and apparently it's new for the garden (except I know it isn't, I've just not put any previous records on MapMate so it got missed).

Nebria brevicollis

I've also had another ineffective trap deployed occasionally, a bright yellow tray with a shallow level of water in as a basic pan trap.

I've not put any washing-up liquid in it as I'm monitoring it regularly and clearing anything out. Well most things, the odd aphid and tiny diptera aren't always so lucky. But generally as long as stuff is fished out reasonably quickly they just sit on the edge to dry a bit and then bugger off. Beetle-wise (the intended target) it has not done much other than attract lots of 'pollen beetles'. Today it pulled in Tachyporus hypnorum and another one of these ...

Ceutorhynchus pallidactylus

A quick look at the various cuckooflower spikes in the garden and really pleased to find this ...

Given that I've seen a few female Orange-tips on and around the plants I'm sure that's what this is. Other garden breeding noted today was this pair ...

Making Green Shieldbugs

A few other bits that I spotted or that landed in front of me whilst I had camera in hand were ..

A quite funky form of 10-Spot Ladybird

 

Pretty sure this is a Garden Bumblebee

Also a few Common Wasps today, which mainly kept heading into a bush I can't remember the name of. A quick look suggested they were actively looking for this ...

Common Froghopper 'cuckoospit'

Spending so much time in the garden, especially whilst it is so barren of flowering plants after the pre-winter cull I mentioned a while ago, had been a bit enlightening. Any garden really could rack up a massive species list if you had the time to collect specimens and the skills/equipment to identify everything. For every species I've posted here over the last three or four weeks there are planty of others that just get ignored. I wonder if in my lifetime we'll have some sort of desktop gadget that you just bung your specimen into and you get an ID report and soup out the other end before it goes into a clean-cycle ready for the next unfortunate specimen. The garden list could be massive.

Chironomus sp. Probably. One for the gadget some time in the future ......