A Little Bit of This and That

Here's a mixed bag to use up a few photos ....

First up, these are a few casual sightings from a nice relaxed walk around Coombe Abbey Park with Nichola last weekend, just over the border in Warks. I had nothing but a camera; it was never going to be a net-swishing walk!

Volucella pellucens - one of many hoverflies on umbelifers

Gastrophysa viridula - gravid female on dock

Morophaga choragella - spotted by chance on a stump

Zacladus geranii - 100s on flowers of Meadow Crane's-bill

On Wednesday evening, I managed a walk out down the lane after eating - though by then it was already a bit late. Swishing the sweep net was productive, lighting for photos was poor! I spent a good couple of hours walking a very short distance, poking about in the grasses looking for new plants as well as filling pots.

Liriomyza strigata - mines on Prickly Lettuce

A big clump of Feverfew has appeared since the last walk

Biting Stonecrop in flower, White Stonecrop just in bud. Big swathes of both have persisted in the same area since I first found them in 2012, despite the strip being encroached on more each year by bramble.

I found a big clump of cultivated Dutch Iris (Iris hollandica 'Alaska') along the lane. I'd noted the iris-like leaves earlier in the year but had no idea what they'd turn out to be. Clearly not planted, but also clearly from a dump of garden waste with bulbs in it.

Sunset

Moonrise

Orchestes alni - targeted on Ulmus, in the same place as the only other time I've seen it (2013)

I ended up adding a good number of plants and Hemiptera from this walk, including Stenotus binotatus which I then realised I'd omitted from my PSL when I had it to the garden trap in 2017. Also a good number of leafhoppers on Ulmus that turned out to be new for me Ribautiana ulmi, and some sawfly mines also in Ulmus of Kaliofenusa altenhoferi.

Another plant found in the square last weekend was Cat's-ear, which somehow I'd not recorded before.

And finally, one from the garden trap on Wednesday night ....

Luquetia lobella - second garden record

Meanwhile I don't know where to start with that oily fucker Matt Hancock. Am I surprised that's he's a hypocritical and self-serving liar - no. Am I surprised that he's not been immediately sacked by his boss (a hypocritical, lying, self-serving philanderer) - no. Am I surprised that at least two women have found him worthy of gum-sucking and more - hell yes.