Carry On Intruders

Today has been damned miserable from a weather perspective; damp with either light drizzle or snow through most of the day and a bit nippy - certainly not the sort of weather that makes you want to jump out of bed and get out and about. Which was probably just as well, as I wanted to catch up with a few work bits anyway. I'm finding that working from home again, general Covid restrictions and the Premier League and cup fixture lists being strung throughout from Monday to Sunday with everything televised seems to mean that the lines between week and weekend are blurred to the point of being irrelevant. I can take time out in the week when I want, and work at the weekend if I need to - it really doesn't matter!

I have unexpectedly added a species to the 1km list though, thanks to a very quick squint outside last night with a torch. On the same uPVC window ledge where I found the small spider Nigma walckenaeri on Thursday, I saw a tiny blob trundling around water drops which looked decidedly Collembola-like to the naked eye. I grabbed the camera and tried for a few shots, of which a couple came out well enough to name it ....

You can just about make out the change in antennal colouration and the multi-barred pattern on the rear of the abdomen to confirm Dicyrtomina saundersi. I might expect to find globular springtails if sieving leaf-litter in the garden I suppose, but living on a white plastic window-ledge is taking Collembola synanthropy to a new (off the ground) level.

I also pointed the camera at the Early Moth from Thursday night, though I'm not sure why I bothered as it's not the smartest individual. I seem to feel a sort of obligation to photograph just about every moth species that turns up in the garden through the year, a feeling which always fizzles out by April when the numbers increase and I then pick and choose what looks nice / is scarce etc. I'm always amazed to find that there are numerous common species that fly later in the year that I've hardly ever photographed, and then promptly forget the next year.

My copy of the latest useful bit of coleopteran literature landed on my doormat today.

A high number of the species in these families can be found in carrion; the uninvited undertakers of the natural world intruding on the corpses. Some also come to light, and a number of the Silphidae are regular moth trap intruders. A quick flick through shows some brilliant features such as surveying tips and I like the habitat tables. The species accounts are very detailed, and the illustrated keys look excellent. All I need now is some dead animals in the square, and I can also think about how best to deploy anything our blasted git of a cat brings home.

Meanwhile, how great is this new track from Gary ....