Brief Silence ....

I'll be away from blogging for a while, at least in the sense of creating and posting anything, entirely as a result of having nothing to blog about whilst I am incapacitated and recovering from major surgery next week. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was having to make a decision that I didn't want to be making, and this was it: life-changing surgery to give the best chance of longevity. It's clear from the most recent scans/checks I've had that the chemradiotherapy and subsequent contact radiotherapy last year was not successful and my cancer is coming back. It is what it is, I've got over the disappointment and I'm resigned to what is coming.

I will be hospitalised for a couple of weeks from Thursday. Whilst away I will be avidly checking out other's blogs, keeping myself entertained with varied music, watching some long-forgotten films on my iPad and following the LCFC European Tour.

2020 has been a bastard of a year for many, but overall I've had one of the most interesting years for a while in terms of new species, photographic opportunities and varied blogging. The early part of lockdown and working from home presented stuff from the garden and locally that would normally have been missed, and I've had some good times out and about looking for and at things that I'd usually overlook.

My surgery will be life-changing, but after recovery it will not be life-limiting. I am very much looking forward to being back to some sort of normality in time for the early spring ento-action well before the clocks spring forward. I will be back to blogging as soon as I am able and have anything to share.

In the meantime peace, good health and positivity to all*

* Except those that believe victimising the most vulnerable and desperate in our society is justifiable; that whittling away our protections and standards behind the scenes is progress; feel that money bunged to private companies to profit from Covid whilst dismantling the NHS is acceptable; that 'them bastards in the EU' are the problem; that destroying ancient woodland and irreplaceable habitat to trim minutes from journeys out of London to anywhere north of the M25 is necessary; think that any kind of 'levelling up' is really going to happen, or thinks that everything this despicable Government is doing is fair. If that fits you, we really have nothing in common.

Eggshell

In our garden (currently at least) was have a small English Oak sapling. We grew it from acorns collected when the boys were little, so c14 years ago now. It is in a large plant pot, and I regularly prune off some of the growth to keep it small. For some reason I never fathomed, questioned or was consulted about, Nichola decided a few years ago to sink the plant pot containing the said sapling into the garden border. I fully expect that the roots have long since broken out, and therefore when we finally get the garden ripped apart in about a month it is likely that the oak will be no more.

The only reason I was keen to try and nurture and maintain a small oak in the garden was to provide some handy foodplant for rearing the occasional larvae that would not take lilac or cherry leaves from the garden (my general go to leaves of choice for any polyphagous spp.), and to perhaps create a chance for some natural diversity. It has certainly been useful over the years, but I have to say that the number of larvae I've actually found on it naturally is very few and far between (unlike on the aforementioned lilac and cherry!).

Late on Saturday evening whilst sorting out the moth trap, I happened to notice a couple of batches of eggs clustered on a leaf of the oak. They almost shone out as they were quite white in the late evening gloom. I wasn't sure if they were lepidopteran or something else, but I did think it was a bad decision by whatever laid them to have them all clustered together on the upperside of a leaf on the outer side of the oak. Clear to see, easy to parasitize. I then promptly forgot about them until yesterday evening, when it was not quite so gloomy but even so the egg batches were nowhere near as bright ....

I grabbed a quick phone snap, and as I stood back and looked at the tree more closely I noticed quite a few leaves that had clearly been devoured by something ....

So something had laid a batch of eggs, and something has been gobbling up the leaves undetected - despite me looking over the tree for galls and such like recently. I then noticed a couple of hairy-edged part-eaten leaves ....

I didn't need to turn the leaf to know what they were, but I did need to look to see how many there were ....

How the chuff does a brood of at least 30 Buff-tip larvae manage to hide on an oak sapling that is barely 8ft tall. It's not the first time I've had Buff-tip breeding on one of the garden trees though. I decided that the sapling was not really suitable for sustaining all of these larvae where they will be very obvious, so I immediately transferred c20 of them onto the cherry tree on the front (where they bred before) to give them all a better chance.

This evening when I got home from work, the few larvae left on the oak were still clustered together in the same place. However the bigger batch I moved to the cherry, that were still evident this morning, have moved and I can't locate them. I'm sure their presence will become clear before long though. So whilst browsing the oak, I thought I'd look at how the egg-batch that started all of this was doing. Now, where was it ....

I spent a good few minutes looking and scratching my head. It's not a big tree, how on earth can it be possible that I can't see them. I resorted to checking the photo on my phone and tracking down the leaf. Yep - where I thought, where there is absolutely zero evidence of any eggs ....

There's not even the husks! I reasoned that whatever was in them has hatched this morning, gobbled up the shells and then moved off - but I'm buggered if I can find anything. Here's the two photos side-by-side so you can see for yourself that this is the same leaf (or assure me I've gone mad) ....

I hope all will be revealed in due course!

Rough Hill

Late this afternoon, when it was way too hot and late to be doing it, I headed over to a great site in Charnwood that I've only visited once - in June 2018. I've looked back and predictably my last visit was at a time when blogging enthusiasm had waned. Anyway, last time I went was to specifically look for certain dayflying moths - Foresters. I found a few, and loads of Grass Rivulets amongst other dayflying species. So today I want back ostensibly to look out for Foresters but I also took a net, you know, just in case. It was a good plan. I ended filling more pots than I expected (in fact I ran out of larger tubes) and have a selection of sawflies, robber flies, other diptera and hoverflies (and one bug) that I've been working though with some great rewards. But I didn't see Forester, though I wasn't paying enough attention.

The site is very close to Bradgate Park, which in Leics. is like a mecca for everyone wanting to get out for some fresh air. I like Bradgate Park, but right now is not the time. I could see that the car parks were chocca, there were huge unsocially distanced queues for ice cream vans and it was clearly very busy. The roadway where there is some pull-in parking for Rough Hill was also packed. But as soon as I was inside the gate away from the road I saw exactly zero people in what is a fantastic open site. Probably not enough flat areas for footballs, cricket and picnics I guess.

So whilst I carry on with pinning some specimens tonight, I'll just post some photos of the site: large flower-rich meadows, wooded areas with nice rides and a big pond that I didn't see last time.

And here's a Forester from last time ...

Here's a suitably ambient soundscape to look at these pictures to.

Waterworks

Today I've been to work, which didn't matter much as this morning was dull and drizzly anyway so I wasn't planning on going anywhere. By the time I'd left it was drier, albeit with a strong biting wind making it feel bloody cold despite the sun poking through.

I mentioned a few days ago that Jubilee Park and the floodplain area over the road was almost constantly flooded, and that there was some work being done. During that time the area did drain enough to see that they had made some progress with a wide channel .. but this morning it was all under water again. So on the way home, I pulled over to grab a couple of shots on my phone although by then the sun was completely in the wrong place but you get the gist.

Somewhere to the right of the temporary fenceline that you can see is the River Soar, and on the left of that fence is a deep wide channel which is (so far) completely ineffective!

The machinery is sitting in water in a makeshift compound, though they have moved out the portacabin that has flooded several times whilst in situ.

I still have several gigabytes of photos to sort and archive, a job that I started last year and have made good progress, but it will take a fair while. And I'm still finding a few bits to put up here from periods when I wasn't making time to post anything.

Such as these, yet more retro beetles, these all from the last PSL meet-up I went to over at Holkham in June 2016.

Broscus cephalotes

Phylan gibbus

Tasgius ater

Agrypnus murinus

Calathus mollis

This week, I have mostly been listening to ..

Orbital & The Future Sound of London

Both awesome artists. Crank it up and enjoy.









Didn't like it? You have no soul!

This week, I have mostly been listening to ..

.. the various works of The Future Sound of London. Don't ask me to describe this music, other than it is electronic based and (save for sampled phrases) instrumental. And quite simply it's brilliant, especially the Lifeforms work.