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 ......

Network

Sometimes I read through a blog post that I've spent time on, realise that I missed a glaring spelling or grammatical error and then wonder if people noticed or just think I'm naturally illiterate. I quite often end up going back in to change vowels and mis-keyed words; quite clearly I'm not as good at typing as I used to be think I am.

The moth trap was okay, nothing stunning but I've perhaps never been so pleased to see this pair so that I had something to point the camera at .......

Garden Carpet (just about dark enough for f. thules)

Bright-line Brown Eye

I also had time to point the camera at some by-catch ..

Limnephilus affinis

Tipula oleracea (13 antennal segments, RoySoc key)

Other moths came during the day, with Esperia sulphurella, Incurvaria masculella and Caloptilia stigmatella all netted in sunshine.

After sorting out the moth trap nice and early, and before I settled into the office to log on for work, I had to make use of our facilities. Whilst sitting there contemplating life and whatnot, I managed to add a bird to the 'lockdown list' that has stalled for days - albeit a heard only that was clearly flying over but no idea which way. Anyway, it was the unmistakeably melodious yet slightly raspy call of a Grey Heron ..... 'KWAHK'.

I managed to spend time in the garden this afternoon, and I had the luck of a really lucky thing yet again. I decided to spend more time with net in hand, and if I netted something interesting looking I could point the camera at it. Turned out to be a good day for flying beetles. By far the best was yet another full-blown inconspicuous ladybird tick - yeah, I know!

Scymnus frontalis

I obviously wanted to get a better shot, but this was not playing ball. It either sat stock-still but with legs and head tucked in, or shot off scutting about and trying to fly off with incredible speed. I tried again later, though not much better.

As if that wasn't good enough, I netted another one of these ....

Nephus quadrimaculatus

Whilst these were superb, perhaps the last beetle-type I expected to be netting in flight was a carabid. It was at least easier to see that a beetle was heading my way!

Leistus spinibarbis

I faffed about with this one for a bit mulling over the ID, because in some shots the rim of the pronotum looked red and I got side-tracked.

I scored another new for garden beetle too, and it's a weevil to boot - back of the net!

Ceutorhynchus pallidactylus

I've also got a netted-in-flight Staph to have a go at and also a handful of bits sieved out of a make-shift 'compost + dead shrew' pot that I've been culturing. Not convinced I'll get anywere with these though, and the Staphs are tiny.

Maybe something around the Cholevidae .....

Aside from beetles, a large variety of unidentifiable tiny flies and the like were inadvertently netted, Seth would have been loving it. I've now got a few bits in pots to work through when the predicted lull in the weather comes next week. In the meantime I'm trying to squeeze new inverts out of what is actually a pretty small and unexceptional garden. Not sure the inverts appreciate that.

I've never seen the film Network. Maybe I should look it up!