Grey Lane / Bright Beetles

This morning was mild, calm and dry (well, not raining but still damp underfoot). It was also very grey. Still, despite this I had an urge to take a stroll down the lane towards the PYO and around the Countesthorpe Meadow with my bins at hand. It was too grey to bother trying to photograph anything, other than the lanes I walked, and it seems appropriate to accentuate the greyness ...

Very pleasant and relaxing it was too. In particular I was pleased to be able to point my glass at Yellowhammers, Jays, Skylarks, Stock Doves, a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers and plenty of Redwings and Fieldfares.

Nothing too exciting, and only 26 species in total but this is pretty sterile arable farmland around here with flailed hedgerows and no stubble.

The building works around the back of my housing estate seem to have finished, for now at least, and the service road that was built parallel with the main lane I walk is gone. You'd never know it had been there.

As an anthithesis to the greyness, here's a few more beetles that I've not posted previously from the PSL meet in June 2015.

Stenurella melanura, Beaulieu Heath, New Forest 14/06/2015

Cassida vittata - Ferrybridge, Portland 12/06/2015

Omophlus pubescens - Ferrybridge, Portland 13/06/2015

This one is a real rarity, and was a key target for the trip. We found several all on the same morning around a relatively small area of Thrift clumps ... appeared to be a brief and co-ordinated emergence.

Elaphrus cupreus - Beaulieu Heath, New Forest 14/06/2015

Dicheirotrichus gustavii - Ferrybridge, Portland 13/06/2015

Mononychus punctumalbum - Portland Bill Obs 11/06/2015